Service Activity Day

This week for activity day (church group of girls ages 8-11) we focused on service.  First, I had the girls help me make no bake peanut butter bars.  While they were cooling in the refrigerator we discussed the blessings and happiness that come when we do service for others.  I focused on this talk by President Monson and Matthew 25.

We played the game Guesstures (charades).  We discussed how actions speak louder than words.  Many people say that they love God, their family, or their neighbor- but do they show them?

Then I used this fabulous idea that I found via pinterest and gave each girl their own top secret folder so that they could go home with a reminder to perform secret acts of loving service.

Oh, and we sent home the peanut butter bars with the girls (they were delish)!

Activity Day: Ceramic Tiles

This week for activity day (church group of girls ages 8-11) we discussed President Monson's talk from the April 2012 Young Women's conference about how living the gospel and obeying God's commandments makes our lives easier.  I highlighted this quote:

Obey your parents. Obey the laws of God. They are given to us by a loving Heavenly Father. When they are obeyed, our lives will be more fulfilling, less complicated. Our challenges and problems will be easier to bear. We will receive the Lord’s promised blessings...  You have but one life to live. Keep it as free from trouble as you can.

Next, we discussed some specifics. For instance, how would making the correct choice not to steal make their life easier?  They could see how stealing could lead to loss of trust, loss of friends, and even legal consequences, etc.  We also discussed choosing not to use drugs- how would that choice bless them? Etc.

Then we painted ceramic tiles as a reminder to always choose the right.  We used small ceramic tiles from Habitat for Humanity Restore and Folk Art Enamel Paints.  Ahead of time I cleaned the tiles with rubbing alcohol and then traced CTR (choose the right) onto the center of each tile.  The girls wrote their names on the back of each tile in pencil- important since the tiles won't be ready to take home immediately.  Then the girls painted the "CTR" letters and embellished the remaining area.  I baked the tiles to set the paint and then later delivered the finished tile with a little easel to each girl.  I found the easels in a bag of twelve in the fine art section at Michaels... on clearance :o)

Activity Day: Making a Terrarium

I feel Spring in the air.  It feels like it's time to start gardening.  It's still  too early to plant most vegetables outside because of the danger of a late freeze where I live.  However, I thought it would be fun to show the activity day girls (church group of girls ages 8-11) some basic gardening tips like how to transplant a potted plant.  I thought they could practice some of what we talked about by making a terrarium.

I followed the tutorials found here and here.  These can be made in any jar where the jar opening is smaller than the circumference of the jar at its widest point.  The most difficult par of this project is trying to find tiny plants.  The plants I selected seemed small enough- but by the time you covered the root ball with potting soil and added the height of the plant- they were bursting out the top... oops... and the girls were very generous with the potting soil :o)

What type of jar is best?  I'm not sure.... I've seen people use wide mouth canning jars- the jar opening needs to be large enough for a child to put their hands down inside.... or you'll be spending lots of time trying to get things in place using chopsticks!   You can find activated charcoal in the aquarium section of your pet store- this keeps your terrarium smelling fresh.  You can find living moss (don't use the dried dead stuff) in the ground covering section of your local nursery.

We used polka dot plants from Home Depot, they were with the houseplants.  Oh, and don't place your finished terrarium in direct sunlight or your plants will bake and die.

I made the little mushrooms ahead of time using polymer clay.  I painted on the little spots and covered the mushroom tops with triple glaze.  I think they look pretty sweet in their new terrarium homes.

Activity Day: Tissue Paper Flowers & Eggs

I had to do a bit of last minute shuffling this week for activity day (church group for girls ages 8-11).  I wasn't able to find all of the "ingredients" for what I had planned.... so, instead we made tissue paper flowers and covered paper-mache eggs with torn pieces of tissue paper and mod podge.

A friend had given our family a large basket full of Easter candy.  Rather than keeping it around for temptation I let the girls raid the basket and add some sweets to their little buckets (Dollar Tree currently has adorable tin buckets and nice paper filler).

If I had planned a bit more I would have discussed the true meaning of Easter and shared this video.

Activity Day: Service at the Park

Our church has adopted a local park to keep clean.  Does your community do that?  An organization "adopts" a park, or a strip of highway, etc. The city puts up a little sign saying who is keeping that piece of real estate looking nice.

Well, anyhow, for activity day (church group for girls ages 8-11) we decided to take advantage of the beautiful Spring weather and head to our park.  For a service project we picked up litter.

We decided to add another little service project to our day by making peanut butter and bird seed feeders (picture from  craft jr. blog- see above link- I forgot to bring my camera).  We gathered at a picnic table and did our little "craft".  After covering the pine cones with peanut butter we rolled them in bird seed that we had spread onto a cookie sheet. The girls took home their birdie goodies to hang up in a tree at home.  That way they can see the birds nibbling on their treat.  Here is a link to another bird treat recipe.

Of course, we couldn't be outside in the sunshine without blowing some bubbles and playing on the swings and slides.  This was a very easy activity with very little prep time and an entertaining way for the girls to give service to the community.

For this activity you'll need:

garbage bags
plastic gloves
hand sanitizer

peanut butter
bird seed
butter knives
pinecones
string
paper towels to clean up sticky peanut butter

bubbles

Activity Day: Value of Education

For our activity day this week (girl's group ages 8-11) we talked about the value of education.  We used a quote from Pres. Hinckley that was shared in the 2007 General Young Women's Meeting:

Resolve now, while you are young, that you will get all of the education you can. We live in a highly competitive age, and it will only grow worse. Education is the key that will unlock the door of opportunity.

Don’t just drift along, letting the days come and go without improvement in your lives. The Lord will bless you as you make the effort. Your lives will be enriched and your outlook broadened as your minds are opened to new vistas and knowledge.

Once we talked about the value of education then we had some science fun!  We  mixed menthos with diet coke for a huge, gigantic, messy old faithful type eruption.  We made GAK and glow in the dark drinks and we blew up a balloon using a mixture of "chemicals".  We watched raisins dance and we saw how colors break apart using a coffee filter and crayola markers.

The girls giggled with delighted surprise when I got a face full of erupting coke.  They squealed at the icky texture of the GAK and they went back to look at themselves with the black light (used with the glow in the dark drink).  Hopefully, the girls went home with the idea that learning can be fun and with a reminder that education is a privilege and a wonderful opportunity.

Safety Tips:

The menthos & diet coke experiment makes a huge instantaneous explosion- do this project outside on the lawn and make sure that everyone stands back about fifteen feet.

Hint about GAK:  The recipe I used calls for Borax- which is toxic.  Don't eat it.  Don't let your girl's eat it.  Don't let their siblings eat it.  DON'T dispose of it down the sink either- they say this stuff will clog your plumbing.  After playing with the goo throw it away in the trash can!  Now go have some fun!

Activity Day: Homemade Chocolates

With Valentine's Day coming up I thought it would be fun to teach the activity day girls (church group of girls ages 8-11) how to make homemade chocolates.  We used the delicious billionaire chocolate recipe and this chocolate peanut butter candy recipe.  I've made the billionaire chocolates before and they were a huge hit.  Make the filling balls small (nickel size or smaller) so that after dipping in chocolate they are the perfect size- if they get too big they are a little hard to chew.

I made the billionaire filling ahead of time and rolled them up all ready to dip into chocolate.  If you run out of time doing this activity you can send these home to eat without dipping them in chocolate- they are delicious as is!

While the girls were here we made the peanut butter filling and rolled both kinds of candy in chocolate. We got chocolate EVERYWHERE.... this may go down in history as the most messy activity day EVER!

We put some of the candies into little candy cups and the girls boxed up a few of their chocolates with a ribbon to give as a gift.  The other candies were placed onto a pink paper plate.

We ran out of time. Next time I'll make both types of candy fillings ahead of time.  This will allow them to firm up in the refrigerator before dipping in the chocolate.  This advanced prep might also allow us some time to put the finished chocolates in the refrigerator for a few minutes so that the chocolate is set before the candy needs to be transported home-we ended up sending home some very unique and interesting looking mounds of chocolate- but the girls were thrilled with their results.

For our spiritual message we talked about how important it is to follow directions when making a recipe.  We talked about how important it is to follow directions in life.  We discussed how we can find the directions we need in the scriptures, from our leaders, and from our parents.  We talked about My Gospel Standards and how they are a great "recipe" for life.  It was a yummy fun day although it destroyed my healthy eating plan for the day!

Activity Day Invitations

The activity day (church girls group ages 8-11) leader before me started passing out a cute little invitation to each girl on the Sunday before activity day.  The girls really looked forward to it, were excited to attend, and seemed to remember better.  So, I've continued her tradition.  Sometimes it is a very simple printed note, other times I play with my scrapbooking supplies and make it fancy.

I  must clarify that we have a very small primary (children's group like Sunday School) in our ward (congregation).  We will get our sixth activity day girl next month.  So, it doesn't take very much time to make invitations and those kinds of things.  I have a craft room literally overflowing with supplies for a huge variety of projects so I am able to "shop" there for what we need to do most projects.  Not to mention that grabbing six frames at dollar tree is not going to break the bank.  So, budgeting for activities is not too much of an issue.  I realize that some of you activity day leaders have a huge challenge in this area.  My sister's ward has 40 activity day girls-that has got to be some kind of record!  I just don't want people to see what works for my tiny group and think that they should be doing the same for their large bunch- not so!

I've found some fun ideas and inspiration online and hope to be able to share some of what works for me- but for pete's sake- go easy on yourself.  We just do the best we can with the situation we've got :o)

In January of each year I make a schedule of the activity days for the year.  I glue a magnet on the back and send it home with the parents of the girls to put on the refrigerator.  All activity days are held at my house which is a million times easier then hauling all of the needed supplies to the church (I tried it- so much nicer to do at home).  We have our activity days on Tuesdays from 5-6 p.m.

For the less active girls I use the mail.  I send her the yearly calendar and invite her to attend.  Mid year I sometimes send a little care package to these same girls.  I include a "miss you note" signed by all the girls, a calendar of the upcoming activity days for the next few months, and one of the projects that we have completed (hair clips or something little) to get the girl excited about how much fun activity days can be.

These are just a few simple tips that have worked for me- hope they work for you!

Activity Day Temple Picture frame

My husband made me a picture frame- I love that he is willing and able to do projects like this!!!

 I decided to make a few fabric flowers in grey and cream.  Then I added an antiqued temple picture.  Here is how it turned out.  

I decided to do something similar for activity day (church girls group ages 8-11).  I'll say up front this was not a very inexpensive project.  I saw one version where the girls mod podge the temple pictures onto boards cut to size.  You could do that here and then glue the flowers in the lower corner of the picture- that would save some money.  Having fabric scraps and buttons on hand to use also helps.

To prepare I cut out circles from a cereal box (to glue the fabric to)  and cut strips of fabric to make the flowers.  I also painted the picture frames.  The girls just had to make the flowers and glue them onto the frames.  I also had several needles threaded and ready to use to gather the fabric for the large flowers.  Even with all the prep work this class went about an hour and ten minutes.  It would have gone faster if I would have had one glue gun per girl.  I had six girls and three glue guns.

My daughter said that young people would prefer pictures that were not antiqued and distressed- so, we went with a standard 5x7 print of the temple.  We also used this quote and talked about the importance of the temple.  Whew, I'm ready for a nap!

Activity Day: Bath Salts and Lip Balm

For activity day (church girl's group ages 8-11) this week we spoke a bit about how repentance cleanses the soul.  I used a few quotes from this talk by Pres. Spencer W. Kimball.  Then I made the comparison that we need to cleanse our souls just like we clean our bodies- like when we bathe.... kind of a stretch.... but it led into our activity where we made bath salts and lip balm (the lip balm had nothing to do with the theme- but I needed another project to fill up the time).  Here are the VERY simplified recipes that we used.

Bath Salts
1/2 c. Epsom salt
1/2 c. sea salt
5 drops essential oil for fragrance
2 drops food coloring (to look pretty)

             Use a Popsicle stick to stir well, pour into jars or Ziploc bags.

Lip Balm
3 T. Vaseline
1/2 t. agave nectar
1 vitamin E capsule, poke them and then squeeze out the liquid into your mixture

            Stir gently. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir again until well mixed.  Microwave more if needed.  When it is well mixed spoon or pour into containers and let sit for 30 min.

I found the little clear jars in the bath section at Dollar Tree.  They came in a bag with three bottles (one pump spray bottle and two with screw on lids) and were called "travel kits" or something like that. Ignore the  misspelled word on the bath salts label- love it when that happens.

I found the cute little tins for the lip balm at a yard sale way back when and they have been kicking around the craft room just waiting for a project like this.  Making the lip balm was quite messy- and clean up took some extra help- thanks honey!

Activity Day: Sibling Christmas Party

Activity Day is a church activity for girls ages 8-11. We try to teach them a skill, reinforce keeping God's commandments, provide an opportunity to serve and help them to have fun.  This month's big event was a Christmas party.

To give the girls a chance to serve the girls hosted a Christmas party for their siblings.  Admittedly, I should have had them help more with the planning and given out more assignments.  The girls mostly just helped at the party.

So, what is a sibling party?  We only have a few girls in our group and most of them have siblings around the same age.  We invited all of them to the house for a Christmas party.  Making it "easy" we had "fancy" food- hot dogs, fruit salad, chips and cherry juice mixed with sprite. Then we played some games like pin-the-nose on Rudolph's face and Christmas Bingo.

For crafts we made popsicle stick ornaments (see the snowman photo at the top of the post), folded fancy paper airplanes and test flew them (a huge hit) and decorated cupcakes (always a favorite). While the girls helped host the event and run the activities (with my dear hubby) I pulled out family groups and took a few photos to be used in future craft projects.  Crazy fun!

December Activity Day

For Activity Day (girl's church group ages 8-11) we made these cute snowman treats that I learned about on pinterest (picture from pinterest).  The girls struggled  some because a few of the heads fell apart when they tried to push in the nose- but they had a blast and they turned out pretty cute!

We also made these adorable little baby Jesus ornaments.  I couldn't find any small wreaths at our craft store so I substituted little birds nests that I found in the floral section of Hobby Lobby.  The store was also out of wooden stars so I substituted "metal" star buttons.  Sweet!

Activity Day: Family History

For Activity Day this week we visited the small family history center located in our ward building.  The girls learned about family history and tried indexing.  If they remembered to bring a name and some dates of a deceased relative they were able to pull up their own family tree and take a look at it.

I have found that the girls get extra excited if I pass out an invitation the Sunday before our activity.  Here is the invitation we used.

This was a fun activity for me because I was able to share one of my new hobbies with the girls.  Family history is so much fun!  Anyone that enjoys being a detective would enjoy doing some family history and indexing.  To do indexing you sign up at the above link.  Then you look at a photo of an old record.  You type the information found on the record into a form and upload it.  Then someone looking for that person's info is able to pull it up and learn about their family member.

Activity Day: Gratitude

Activity Day this week focused on gratitude.  I saw this super cute idea of turning a picture frame with glass into a dry erase board for the holidays over at brown paper packages.  We adapted it by buying an inexpensive picture frame at Dollar Tree.  The girls painted their frames.

Instead of using vinyl lettering I just printed the words on cardstock and we placed the paper into the frame.  The girls can write what they are thankful for as they go through the month- and they can invite family members to add things as well.  I used a free typewriter font and a free image  (I photo edited mine to make it black and white) off of the web.

I used the clever idea of writing on the glass with an ultra fine sharpie marker- it doesn't smear like dry erase markers but wipes off easily with a damp cloth- another great idea from the brown paper packages blog!

During activity day we also played gratitude charades where the girls acted out what they were thankful for and we all guessed.  The person who guessed correctly had the next turn.

The girls also took home a small "gratitude" journal- a 99 cent notebook from WalMart.

We used this talk for our discussion on being grateful.  Hope that helps.

Adorable Halloween Clip Art

I found the CUTEST Halloween clip art today.  It costs a dollar and you can download several graphics... all of them SUPER adorable.  Check this out.  Look up all the Halloween clip art by Kristi W designs.  Please don't try to swipe the files from my blog- this is too sweet a deal to miss!

I used the graphics I purchased to make Halloween Don't Eat Pete Boards for my activity day girls.  If it wasn't a copyright violation I'd give you the file of the game board I made- because they turned out amazing -if I do say so myself! 

I put the "boards" in a plastic sheet protector to keep them clean and pretty.  I'm going to give these to the girls with a little bag of corn candy so they can play their game at home with their families.

Activity Day: Dream Box

For activity day we had a few projects to finish up.  One thing we did was to decorate notes to send to the girls that haven't been attending primary (children's church group). 

Then we used the remainder of our time to decorate these little white boxes that I got at Michaels on clearance for 29 cents.  The girls raided my sticker stash and used markers to decorate their dream boxes.  I gave each of the girls a picture of the temple to put in their box.  They can put in other treasures and little notes of their goals and dreams.  They seemed to have fun.

Here are a few pictures that I snapped while they were working on their dream boxes...