Blueberry Picking and Muffins

With this summer activity, you have to plan ahead and have a little flexibility-- because it's hard to know EXACTLY when fruit will be available to pick. Also, we usually have to do this activity during the day, as local U-Pick places close around 5-6 p.m.

As with any offsite activity, you will need:

1. Bishopric permission for the activity
2. Parent permission for you to transport their child (signed slips)

Other things you will need for this activity:

1. Buckets: I scored at the dollar store and got small pails, TWO for a dollar and got one for everyone.
2. Bug spray
3. Cash or check to pay for the blueberries. This sounds obvious, but I get so used to paying for things with a swipe of a card that I no longer carry cash or a checkbook routinely. And when you're in the middle of a field, credit card transactions are NOT available.

The great thing about individual buckets is everyone gets to keep what THEY picked. Those who work harder get more. Those who are just being silly and chasing up and down the rows get less.

The girls LOVED picking. I'm glad I got little buckets because I didn't want to pay $50 for blueberries. We had 10 girls and 4 leaders and we picked $20 worth of blueberries in less than 30 minutes. The little buckets limit your expenditure, and that is wise!

When we were finished picking everyone took their bucket and hopped into the cars and we drove back to my house to make muffins. I purchased additional blueberries to make the muffins (1 pint was all we needed). This way no one had to give up their blueberries for muffins all were going to eat.

With 10 girls we divided into two groups of 5, and each group made a batch of muffins. This way everyone got to help measure, stir, mix and scoop batter. I thought about letting the girls take home a pouch of the dry ingredients along with their blueberries, but ended up not doing that. Instead everyone got two muffins to take home and a recipe card.

This recipe stood up to LOTS of stirring, there was plenty of measuring to go around, and the muffins were tasty.

Blueberry Muffins

1 and 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl till well combined. Then in a measuring cup, mix the following:

3/4 c milk (2% works best)
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 egg

When the wet ingredients are well mixed together, pour them into the dry ingredients and stir well. If your batter is thick or hard to stir, add up to 1/4 cup more milk (add just a little at a time).

Mix together 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1 tsp fresh lemon zest. Toss 1 cup blueberries in with the sugar/zest. Once the blueberries are coated, fold them gently into the muffin batter.

Grease 12 muffin cups with crisco. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. When all the cups are filled, gently (or not so gently) tap the muffin pan on the counter. (I use a towel under the pan so it doesn't sound like a jack hammer.) This gets the air bubbles out of the batter and helps the muffins rise evenly. Bake in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. Muffins should be lightly golden brown.

Swimming... Inside!

Swimming is a perfect "sports" activity. Almost all the girls love it, and it is easy to plan! Our local high school offers swimming for 50 cents/person whenever school is in session. So we can swim indoors (no rain dates) and fairly cheaply. Both times we have done this activity our school has generously waived our fee since we are a church youth group, so luckily it was even free!

Here is what I need to do in advance for swimming:
1. Get bishopric permission, since we are traveling away from the building

2. Get parent permission as we will be transporting their kids. I print a permission slip that says the parent gives permission for me to supervise their child swimming and for their child to ride in a leader's car. The parents must sign the slip before the activity starts and I keep them till it is done.

3. Make sure other leaders are committed to come. This is a two deep (or more, depending on how many vehicle seats are needed) activity.

4. Plan a snack: I usually do Capri Sun juice pouches (cheap, easy to transport), Goldfish crackers, and either a string cheese stick or a fruit snack for everyone. Swimming makes you hungry, so we always provide snacks for this activity.

5. I remind the girls to bring towels! (You would think this would be obvious but... I have had girls forget them.) Also goggles, shampoo (if they want to wash their hair afterwards), floats, if they need them, etc.

The hardest part of this activity is getting everyone back to the building on time (because we all wish we could swim longer and no one wants to get out of the pool).

We usually meet at the pool so we can get swimming right away, and give ourselves 15 minutes to get out/get rinsed/dried/ have snack, and 15 minutes to get in cars and back to the church building.

• Because many parents have kids in other activities at the church building and/or are leaders at other activities at the church building, meeting off site is a logistics issue. Our regular meeting time is 7:00-8:30 p.m., just like YW, YM and Cubs. So on swim nights we meet at 6:30 so parents can drop off their girls and still get to the church in plenty of time. And we drive back with the goal to be back at 8:30 so everyone can leave at the normal time. Our pool location is a solid 15 minutes from the church, so we have to plan accordingly. The parents really appreciate the planning that goes into making sure everyone can get where they need to be on time.

And that's all there is to a pool party in the winter... or summer... or fall! It is one of the easiest, and most fun ways to do a Wednesday. Fitness/active activities are a fun change of pace from lessons, crafts, and service so we try to do them a least quarterly.

One final note: I am a plus sized person, and I have a pretty good idea how much NOT like a model I look in a swim suit. My natural inclination is to sit on the sidelines (fully clothed) while the girls swim. HOWEVER... the girls LOVE IT when the leaders swim and interact with them in the pool (tag, races, Marco Polo, etc.). So I shelve my body image issues and have fun in the pool with them, and it makes this activity great! If you have a swimming activity, swim with your girls! It is so much fun!

Birthday Bash part 2... Party Time!

Our birthday party was just that... a party! Everyone had a present to give to a friend (from the previous activity, left in our closet at church, so no one forgot it at home!) and we also had cake, ice cream and balloons!

I thought about going all out to decorate... but what goes up for decorations must come down, and I was ready for a very simple evening. I blew up (with the help of a balloon pump) about 50 balloons of all colors and just put them all on the floor, free floating. I set up our chairs in a circle, pushed all the balloons into the circle, and put a gift on each chair. We set out the cake so it was visible. Add in our party music, and the fact that I had a party blower for each girl, and it was plenty festive! :D

We had a short spiritual lesson to start. I used the Primary song "I Will Follow God's Plan" to talk about how each of our lives is a gift from our Heavenly Father... and each birthday, and really, each DAY, is an opportunity to use our time on Earth wisely. We talked about ways we could use our life wisely, including getting an education, learning to work, cook, play music, etc.; serving others, building a testimony and so on. We talked about what God's plan was for all His children, and how we could choose to fulfill that plan. The end of the message was to remind each girl that they are a special daughter of God with a unique purpose, and to wish them a happy and successful birthday.

As the girls were gathering we passed out balloon shaped cut outs and pens and asked them to write three facts about themselves on the balloon. We put up a list of "fact prompts" that included:

• how many pets do you have, and what are they?
• how many siblings do you have?
• what is your favorite TV show?
• What is one interesting place you have visited?
• what is your favorite food?
• favorite color?
• what is your favorite animal?
• what city were you born in?
• what musical instrument/s do you play?
• what is your greatest talent?
• Is your room messy or clean right now?
• how many stuffed animals do you have?
• what is your favorite video game or app?
• how many times were you dunked on your baptism day?
• where do your grandparents live?
• what is your middle name?
• do you know how to swim? tap dance? do taekwando? play piano?

We taped the balloons up around the room. After our spiritual lesson, our first game was "Guess the Girl" using the balloons that were now up all around the room. One by one each girl got to pick a balloon, read the facts on it out loud, and guess who she thought it belonged to. If she got it right, we all blew our party blowers and wished the balloon girl happy birthday. If she got it wrong, the balloon went back on the wall and the next girl chose a balloon. We just did this till everyone was correctly identified and wished a happy birthday. When we got down to the last three we had the remaining girls stand in the middle and we all guessed who went with what. It was pretty fun! Even with 15 giddy girls this only took about 15 minutes.

Next we did our gift exchange. Again, the idea was to get the girls to know a little more about each other, so we did a three round gift exchange. I wrote passing prompts on popsicle sticks. (With 15 girls, some identical prompts were written on more than one stick to get up to the 15 stick total.) There were enough sticks for each girl to have one for each round. Each round had a different theme to get the girls interacting. The idea was whoever was following their prompt could trade with you, so you would at least trade ONE time (to exchange your gift according to your prompt) but might trade SEVERAL times per round, depending on how others fulfilled THEIR prompts. 

Round one's them was "look around." The prompts included:

• trade gifts with a person who has the same color eyes as you
• trade gifts with someone wearing the same color as you
• trade gifts with the girl who has the shortest hair
• trade gifts with the girl who has the longest hair
• trade gifts with someone who is wearing tennis shoes
• trade gifts with someone who is wearing glasses
• trade gifts with someone wearing blue or pink
• trade gifts with someone wearing green or red

The second round was "meet someone new"-- with the prompts designed to give each girl a chance to interact with someone that maybe she usually didn't.

• trade gifts with someone older than you (if there is no one older than you, trade this stick!)
• trade gifts with someone younger than you (if there is no one younger than you, trade this stick!)
• trade gifts with someone whose house you haven’t been to
• trade gifts with someone who does not go to your school
• trade gifts with someone whose name you don’t know (find out their name!)

The third round was "ask a question"-- with the prompts designed to make each girl interact with (hopefully!) a variety of girls before she could make her trade.

• trade gifts with someone who has the same pet you do
• trade gifts with someone who likes the movie Frozen
• trade gifts with someone who does not live in Warsaw
• trade gifts with someone who can do a somersault
• trade gifts with someone who can make scrambled eggs
• trade gifts with someone who can find the area of a triangle (is good at math!)
• trade gifts with someone who knows how to braid hair
• trade gifts with someone who likes to draw
• trade gifts with someone who likes to read
• trade gifts with someone who has a brother
• trade gifts with someone who has a sister

I figured that each round would take about 5 minutes (making this a 15 minute activity) but it went MUCH faster. We were done with all three rounds in less than 10 minutes, because the girls were very excited to get to open a gift.

After they opened their gifts, some of them wanted to trade items, which took another short amount of time. Then we all sang "Happy Birthday" to each other, and had cake and ice cream. 

That cake and ice cream also disappeared very quickly! Because so many of our activities went faster than planned, we had a lot of time left. Luckily it was nice day, so after everyone finished their cake and ice cream we took our music, went outside, and played missionary tag for about 20 minutes.

When we left I told the girls to each take a couple of balloons with them (which they wanted to do anyway) and so clean up was very quick and simple, and everyone had a great time!

Birthday Bash part 1... gift wrapping

We have 15 girls and that = 15 birthdays. Too many to bring cake to the activities where birthdays are nearby, or we would have cake at more than half our activities! But still... at this age, birthdays are a special thing, and not to be ignored.

Excuse the short digression here, but: when I was a kid I learned to tie my shoes. When I was a teen, velcro shoe closures came into being, if not exactly into style. A LOT of kids stopped learning to tie shoes when this happened. In much the same way, I was very well acquainted with paper, tape, glue and ribbon as a child. Kids these days live in an increasingly digital world and are not so very acquainted as I was. And as far as gift wrapping goes... I think the gift bag is the velcro shoe closure of presents. It takes zero brain power to stuff something in a gift bag, and no fine motor skills. So I thought it would be fun to take it a little old school and work with the girls on how to actually cut, wrap, tape and adorn a gift in a box. BECAUSE WHAT IS A BIRTHDAY WITHOUT PRESENTS?

So for our activity we had a lesson on gifts and on wrapping. Then these presents were put in our Activity Day closet and will feature in our next activity, Birthday Bash part 2, as the gifts that will be used in our gift exchange.

The spiritual message (took about 10 minutes):

Display two gifts, one in cute wrapping, one in not so nice wrapping (each package will contain the same item-- something nice, I used a large pink glass paperweight) Tell the girls we have two gifts and each has a lesson inside.

Have the girls guess what might be inside each. Which one would they choose to receive? Why?

Opening the ugly gift: The first lesson is: don’t judge a gift by the wrapping. A great treasure can come in an ugly package. We don’t always know, by looking at the outside, that something wonderful is on the inside. This is very true with people: Every person you meet is a child of God, and has great worth, no matter what you see on the outside.

Opening the pretty gift: Lesson #2: Were you more excited to see what might be in this package? Did you suspect it might be something wonderful? That’s because this gift is presented it in a nice way. Presentation means “the manner or style in which something is displayed.” We all have choices about how we present ourselves, and presenting ourselves nicely usually means that people will be much more interested and excited to see what is inside our “package.”

So while we should NOT judge others on their “wrapping”,  and would hope that others would do the same for us, it is STILL wise of us to realize that we can and should present ourselves well. People who are clean and modestly dressed, with a smile on their face are generally going to be more pleasantly treated than someone stinky, dirty, in old ragged clothes, or even who just has a mean, grouchy look on their face.

Here are some things that we can choose, that can make a big difference in how people see us (and not all of it has to do with how we look!). For example:

smiley face or grouchy face

clean or dirty

modest or immodest

plays fair or cheats

works hard or is lazy

kind or unkind

So as we learn about nice wrapping tonight, remember, you are a gift. No matter your wrapping, you have value and worth. You may wisely choose to let the good that is inside you show on the outside too: Not with expensive clothes or fancy hair bows, but having a smile on your face, a clean body, and displaying good qualities towards others make us all lovely.

The practical lessons: the wrapping needed lots of hands on help from leaders

I looked for/purchased/created several inexpensive gift items. For example, mini notebooks, 3 for $1.29 at Walmart, but I used scrapbooking paper and supplies to dress them up. I got wedding bubble favors for cheap, and added washi tape to make them look extra cute, made some paperclip bookmarks, made some fortune tellers, got some candy, bought chapstick (and again, dressed it up with scrapbooking supplies and washi tape), got stickers, etc. 

I won't deceive you: for 15 girls, even inexpensive gifts ($3 per girl) would be $45 so this was far from cheap, and that does not include supplies I already had on hand like the scrapbooking paper. You could set your limit to $1 per girl and do things like bubbles, stickers, and candy. My idea was to have a variety of things so that the girls could really "shop" but they could have the same experience for less money. 

I put a price on everything and gave the girls a $5 limit on their shopping. I made sure to have enough in the store that items would be left over. There were NOT 15 of everything which meant the gift combinations would be different and unique.

I also spent money on boxes ($1 for 3 boxes at the dollar store) so the girls would all have a box to shop into/wrap. We also lined the boxes with the left over tissue paper from our Mother's Day craft.

The shopping took about 15 minutes. Then the wrapping began!

I showed the girls how to wrap the paper around the box to measure the right amount to cut, how to cut neatly and leave the leftover paper for another use, how to fold corners neatly, and how to tape nicely. Everything seems to take longer with many hands. If I can wrap a gift in 5 minutes, helping 15 girls to do the same thing will take about 30 minutes!

We all also made tags (from: our name to: a friend) and learned how to curl ribbon and wrap it on a package. 

Between these three things: lesson, shopping, gift wrapping session... we used up all 90 minutes! Had we had time left over I was prepared to give the girls a short spiel on writing thank you notes when receiving a gift, and to possibly even write a thank you note to a parent or teacher. 

I also had brought brown paper grocery bags and was going to show how to cut the bag apart and use it as simple, inexpensive wrapping paper: we also did not have time for that. But it would have been fun!

Setting up my "store" took FOREVER, although it doesn't look that hard. It wasn't hard, it just took awhile to write out the price tags, get things out of the bags/boxes I brought them in, and get them arranged. About 30 minutes worth of work, plus setting up the gift wrapping supplies and etc. Let's just say I was really glad I was able to get there 45 minutes early that night!

This was a simple activity in CONCEPT... but it did take a lot of time to put together. If you are working with a team of leaders and can split the set up and the preparation on the gifts, it would be pretty do able.

This activity needed: 

LOTS of scissors (at least one pair for every two girls)

LOTS of tape (at least one roll for every three girls)

wrapping paper

ribbon

the store items

boxes for the gifts

tissue paper (optional)

pens for writing names on tags

lots of helping hands! :)

Mother's Day

This was a crazy activity for me!

I know you all know about Pinterest. The thing with Pinterest is sometimes a craft looks easy... but it's not. Long story short, I had a craft all picked out for Mother's Day, and this craft (Tootsie Pop flowers in a clay pot) just was determined not to happen. NOTHING went right. I couldn't find basic items, like the flower pieces to slide on the sucker sticks. I found I couldn't afford to get 4-5 Tootsie pops per girl for 15 girls, OR clay pots. Dum Dums and styrofoam cups just weren't cutting it... so I basically started over and had to find a new gift idea.

Which, I hate to do. I like to have a well laid out, months in advance plan. Sigh.

My Mother's Day craft had to adhere to my own, personal "gift craft" rules:

1. Inexpensive
2. Edible component, because I like crafts that have a reason for disappearing.
3. Simple enough for the girls to really do on their own.

After several different tries on Pinterest what I ended up with was more "gift" than craft. It was basically just a cutely wrapped container stuffed with candy. I made a fun little tag, and called it good.

Except (did I mention this activity made me crazy?) that because it was so truly simple it was only going to take about 10 minutes to do. Maybe 20 minutes if the girls were really slow, or maybe even 30 minutes if I made them make it from absolute scratch. But even then.. not a complete activity, even WITH lesson.

A friend suggested adding cinnamon rolls. For some reason this sounded like an amazing idea. Then reality banged on my forehead: it is super hard to make bread in 90 minutes. It is just not going to happen with 15 little helpers and a double or triple batch of dough needed so that everyone can take some home. PLUS the schedule was weird and we are three weeks out from Mother's Day with no activity closer that is available, therefore I can't send it home easily and I can't pass it out easily in a few weeks either. And I don't live in Utah, so I'm not hand delivering them down my block.

What did stick with me is the idea of breakfast. Breakfast in bed for Mother's Day is a thing, right? And that led to this:

Teaching the girls a simple meal they could do on their own (if needed) on Mother's Day. I do have at least one little girl who lives with just her mom and younger brother, so it was important to me that it really be do-able without a lot of adult help.

The microwave is an awesome tool, and it makes really good scrambled eggs as long as you stir them well, and use the power level settings correctly!

I ended up dividing our activity into three mini activities, with groups rotating to each station:

1. Lesson on Mothers and why they are awesome
2. Make a gift for Mom to take home with you tonight
3. Make breakfast, and in the process, learn how to make it for your mom for Mother's Day!

Of course, the making breakfast part took way, way longer than the other two, but we made it work. And all the girls LOVED it. And they were able to make the eggs, make the toast, talk about cleaning up the kitchen, and discuss what to serve alongside the eggs and toast all in 20 minutes or so.

In the kitchen the girls buttered their individual sized microwavable ceramic bowls, cracked their own egg, added the water, salt and pepper, stirred it, and cooked it. They buttered the toast. They poured their own juice. And then they ate it all up. It was really fun!

It was also very intense, because with fifteen girls, even at just 90 seconds microwave time per girl, it was go, go, go, go... the whole time. I had one of the YW helping me with dishes, and supervision, and cleaning, and it was all we could do to get everyone through making and eating their own practice eggs, toast and juice in 75 minutes. I had planned to demonstrate microwaving pre-cooked bacon and arranging the tray to make it look nice... NO TIME FOR THAT!

And that was in addition to other leaders supervising the craft and teaching the lesson. This is not an activity to try with just one person!

Making the gift

( to stretch this out you COULD have the girls do all of this, but I didn't have them make the tubes):

Posterboard (premium, if you can get it, with some heft to it) 22 inches by 22 by 28 inches

Tissue paper (multicolor pack if the girls like to choose), 20 inches by 26 inches

Packing tape

scissors

ruler

Candy or other treats (I set the bags candy out with little sticky notes telling the girls how many pieces of each they could take)

1. Mark your poster board and cut it into strips measuring 5 inches high by 22 inches wide. Save the 3 inch high strip for later.
2. Cut each strip in half to make two 5x11 inch strips
3. Using a tube ( I used a Voss water bottle) roll the poster board into a tube and tape with packing tape.
4. Place each tube on the three inch strip and trace (they will likely all vary slightly) and cut out a circle of poster board which will be the bottom of your tube. Tape it in place with packing tape. PLEASE NOTE: you can skip all these steps if you have "tubes" already, such as empty, clean cans, or orange juice cans, or whatever, but I didn't, and these made a nice size container.
5. Cut your tissue paper in half to make 10 inch by 26 inch long pieces. (shown)
6. Fold your tissue paper strip in half, then in half again, then again (shown)
7. Making sure to cut the sides, cut the tissue paper as shown.
8. Place the tube on the tissue paper, with the base on the uncut side of the tissue. Tape in place.
9. Roll, and tape or use adhesive to close the roll.
10. Fill tube with candy or treats.
11. Use a length of ribbon and tie the tissue paper closed. And that's it! One cutely wrapped sweet treat!

I also made these little tags and punched them with a 2 inch circle punch and added them to the ribbon.

A PDF of a sheet full of them is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7eEFpdUIyazgxN3c/view?usp=sharing

Babysitting Clinic

This was an activity the girls requested. I'm pretty sure that, like making bread for sacrament, if you're going to be in Activity Days, you HAVE to do this activity. ;)

Here are some tips, some hand outs, and some reflections from our babysitting night.

1. There is so, so much to babysitting. You cannot possibly do this topic justice in 90 minutes. The girls are excited, but please let them know, they are not experts after tonight. They are beginners with some good ideas!
2. Not every girl wants to babysit, and the younger girls are too young to do it anyway. BUT... most are not too young to be left home alone for 30 minutes or so, or left with older siblings and no "official" babysitter. Many of the things a good babysitter needs to know are ALSO good for the girls to know if they are home alone. Emphasize this.
3. While some girls just LOVE babies, most girls want to babysit for the money! A discussion of what are fair babysitting rates is a good idea. I've heard some ridiculous amounts--$15/hour... wow, really? That's crazy! I think $5/hour is fair for 2-3 kids. We also discussed how more kids to watch should = more pay; how to split the profits with a friend if you bring help along, how to tell your rates before you agree to a job, paying tithing on what you earn, and also offering FREE sitting sometimes as a service.

Because there is so much to cover, I had to decide what basics we were going to hit. Hands on teaches the most, so we divided our group of 15 girls into three groups of 5 and had these three stations:

1. Basic first aid (super basic): cleaning and bandaging a small cut, cool water on burns, ice packs for bumped heads, and so forth. The girls also made a small first aid kit that went in a sandwich sized ziploc bag, and included bandaids, alcohol wipes, sterile gauze pads, and disposable gloves.

2. Fun snacks: we made Teddy Bear Toast, with toast, peanut butter, sliced bananas and chocolate chips. (The "recipe" for Teddy Bear Toast, along with a 2 other fun snacks, is in the booklet.)

3. Babysitting scenarios: we gave the girls a babysitting tips booklet (link to download below) and then talked about "what if" situations as we went over the booklet. This section included the "what do you charge?" discussion. Some scenarios we discussed were:
What if someone calls or comes to the door?
What if you have a fire?
What if someone tries to break in?
What if the kids are fighting?
What if the kids will not listen to what you say?
What if someone gets hurt?

Everything from the minor, to the major, we talked through, and let the girls comment and ask questions.

TIP: Of these three stations, basic first aid was the shortest, and that group was kind of waiting while the other two groups finished their 20-25 minute sessions. We included an emergency numbers sheet with the Babysitting Scenarios group, but I would probably move that handout and its accompanying discussion to the First Aid group next time to even out the time better.

Supplies needed will include: first aid items and baggies; teddy bear toast ingredients, and handouts for each girl. Extra snacks/treats are not needed, as the girls made, then ate, the teddy bear toast!

The Spiritual Side:

Faith in God application: Serving Others, #5

“Entertain young children with songs or games you have learned or made yourself. Show that you know how to care for and protect a young child.”

Scripture verse: Mosiah 4:14-15

  14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the devil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

  15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.

The pamphlet was a take home for the girls and covered a lot. We used it as the basis for most of our discussion.  

Download it from here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7MjZwY1NqVmM5THc/view?usp=sharing

It is meant to be printed double sided on a single sheet of paper. Cut the printed sheet in half (so each half sheet is 8.5 inches by 5.5 inches) and then fold the halves. This makes a little booklet which you can staple in the middle.

Download the basic information sheet from this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7ZVZNckZXbjA3aTg/view?usp=sharing

This is a sheet that the girls can take with them when babysitting. They should fill it out with the parents before the parents leave. It is also a good idea to keep one for themselves home on the refrigerator for when they are home alone!

What is in the babysitting pamphlet:

Righteous Chicken

I live in a small ward. I have two callings. In addition to being an Activity Day leader, I teach Primary on Sunday. So even though it's not Activity Day related, I thought I would share this as well. It's a game I made up called "Righteous Chicken."

Righteous Chicken came about because I like to play, "were you paying attention Tic Tac Toe" at the end of class if we have extra time. This is where I divide the kids into teams, and ask each team a question, and if they get it right, they get to put an X or an O on the board.

If you've ever played Tic Tac Toe with anyone older than five, you know most games end in a Cat where neither player wins. I got tired of this. I wanted a game with a winner!

Thus Righteous Chicken was born. Righteous Chicken is short, incorporates both skill and luck, and the kids loved it!

Basically each team has five squares. At the start they pick 2 of the squares. Those are the secret targets.

After both teams have locked in their secret squares, you randomly select one team to go first. It's important that it be random because of the luck element. The first team to answer has an advantage, because if both teams guess equally well, the team that goes first will win every time. So, yeah... random.

Ask the first team a question from the lesson. IF they get it right... they get to pick a number, 1-5 (hoping it is one of the two numbers the other team selected). If they get it wrong... no guess for you! You alternate turns, and the first team to find both the other team's pre-selected squares wins.

The game boards, and complete instructions are included in the downloadable file here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7LWNpYTA2RThZRlE/view?usp=sharing

Crocheting Ear Warmers

When I first came up with this idea I thought it would be a simple, relaxing couple of evenings as the girls sat around calmly crocheting after some basic instruction. The project was all chain stitch or single crochet, which are not difficult to learn.

Unless you're 8 and you've never crocheted before.

Like any new skill crocheting becomes simple with practice. It is NOT simple at first, something I completely failed to account for in my planning.

The task of holding the yarn correctly took quite awhile to master, and even then the girls struggled to both hold the yarn and do the stitches at the same time. Their hands are small. It is do-able, but it takes a lot of concentration.

While the ear warmer pattern was definitely appropriate for beginners, the time frame I established (3 activities, basically 3 hours of work) was not sufficient.

I ended up doing a lot of crocheting for the girls. (Between activities their projects would grow a bit.) So while they did all learn the stitches and contribute to their projects, they did not truly "make" the ear warmers they went home with. They could have... given more time... but we had time sensitive projects (like Mother's Day crafts, etc.) coming up and I decided not to do the extra activities it would have required for them to truly master the skill and make the project completely on their own.

So here's what I learned:

1. The girls liked the activity. They very much enjoyed learning to crochet.

2. I needed more adults. Who knew how to crochet. My co-leaders did not know how to crochet and one of me was not nearly enough. I invited other sisters with crochet skills to come, but there were not enough. Plan for one skilled crocheter for every 2 girls. Maximum.

3. It was expensive. I got the fat yarn, the faster to complete the project with and one skein per girl was just about right. $5 for yarn, plus a crochet hook, so about $7 per girl. Now, this did take three activities where we were using the same materials... but still. 7x12= $84. A good big chunk of cash.


What I would do differently:

I would go with a cheaper yarn. The fat yarn was pretty and did make the project go faster, but was not a necessity.

I would line up more help in advance.

I would ask any parents who were willing to get their daughter's yarn and hook for them, as all the girls wanted to keep their supplies.

What did go well:

I used a ziplock bag for each girl and kept her yarn and hook in the bag between meetings. (Their names were on the bags, made passing things out very easy.)

I made a fun playlist and played music during all three nights. It kept everyone's spirits up.

I let the girls who caught on quickly and enjoyed crocheting take their projects home to finish/work on, and then asked them to help other girls on the activity nights. Fostered unity!

Our spiritual lesson was on the parable of the talents, and how we all have different talents to share. Plus to INCREASE our talents is our responsibility, but that takes WORK. There is also a FIG requirement about making something, that this project, if done by the girls alone, would fulfill.

The project itself was simple (how to make your own ear warmer):

Chain 8 (or depending on yard thickness, however many stitches wide you want your ear warmer to be, plus one more stitch)

At the end of every row you will do one chain stitch (this does not lengthen your row; it keeps the height of the stitches even on both sides of the row). The "width plus one chain stitch extra" is to account for the 'end of row' chain.

So as you turn back to start your row of single stitches, skip that first chain stitch and then begin your single crochet. If you wanted your band 7 stitches wide, you would chain 8.  You would skip the 8th stitch and put your first crochet stitch in chain 7 and work your way back to your first stitch. At the end of your row, chain one, turn, and single crochet back across the row.

Chain one, turn, single crochet, etc. till your ear warmer wraps around your head and can be joined.

Use a yarn needle and yarn and stitch the ends together to form a loop/band.

Leave all the extra ending pieces of yarn long and weave them in, rather than cutting close to a knot.

You can be done now, or you can make a flower.

The yarn thickness made a HUGE difference in the flower part. As in, the fat yarn makes a much bigger flower.

With regular yarn, the instructions I followed were: chain 53; skip the first chain stitch (as above) and do a single crochet in all other chains. At the end of the row, chain TWO, then do a double crochet in EACH single crochet stitch (104 double crochet.) You could also just do two single crochet stitches in each single crochet if you don't know double crochet.

With the fat yarn the girls only need to chain about 40 and one row of single crochet was PLENTY, no need for the second row.

To make the flower you simply coil it up (like a cinnamon roll) and use yarn and a yarn needle to tack it in place on your head band.

Articles of Faith Quiz Bowl

My very first year in Activity Days I was going crazy looking for ideas. Most of the early things I had planned were big and grand and over the top. And I quickly got to the point where I was out of energy and just needed an easy Wednesday.

My friend Tammy, an Activity Day leader in another ward, pointed me to this post:
http://shannonmakesstuff.blogspot.com/2012/06/faith-in-god-jeopardy-articles-of-faith.html

And holy hallelujah, it was JUST WHAT I NEEDED! A huge thank you to this woman who I don't even know who made my life so much easier by sharing her great activity on the internet.

Unfortunately for me, at the time (don't know if this has changed), the links to the image files she had listed were mostly not working. Stuff moves around on the internet. I get that. But I did still want pictures for the Picture Power category, so I started tweaking. And, because I'm me, (kind of fussy about everything being just so), I put everything in a computer document all neat and tidy when I was done. I have that file linked below.

HOWEVER-- I'm still not sure that it's really any better than her simple hand written construction paper and *done* version.

My tweaking is just that-- minor changes to questions, phrasing and pictures. Therefore the only credit I am claiming to this is the organization and printability of the file, as well as the included original artwork. (Which isn't anything special, but at least you won't have to search around for a few of your pictures!) I have to give total credit to Shannon Makes Stuff for the bulk of this activity idea.

She noted that for her group the activity took 90 minutes. For my group of 8 girls, even with:

A) our usual opening exercises (prayer, work on article of faith, announcements, activity introduction) which takes about 10 minutes... and
B) a little history on the Articles of Faith (also included in the file, and simply excerpted from lds.org Primary Manual 5, lesson 36) so that the girls could answer the "General Questions" category... and
C) a fair amount of time spent trying to get the girls on equal teams, explaining the rules, having to buzz in for some questions multiple times, and etc.

WE WERE STILL FINISHED PLAYING AND HAD 20 MINUTES OF ACTIVITY TIME LEFT TO GO.

We ended up playing Never Have I Ever using the thumbtacks from the bulletin board as 'markers' to fill the extra time. :P It worked out, it was fun! But... obviously this takes different amounts of time for different groups. Gentle reader: have an extra activity on standby!

My suggestion (which I would have used if I had thought of it on the fly) is SPARKLE. Everyone lines up or stands in a circle. Usually you are doing this with spelling words or math facts, but for this activity, I would name an Article of Faith, and everyone takes a word. "We" says person 1. "Believe" says person 2. "In" says person 3-- and so on till you get all the way through "the same organization that existed in the Primitive church, etc." When the Article of Faith is finished the next person says SPARKLE and then the person on their right (who hasn't gone yet) is OUT. Play continues with different Articles till only one person is left. Also, if the person says the wrong word, or doesn't know the word, or takes too long... they're out. Sparkle can be brutal. :)

 Also, do your history lesson (included). It was good information. :D

Here is the link to the printable: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7V0xiWHcxQVpxU28/view?usp=sharing

Strawberry Picking and Freezer Jam

I have been in Activity Days for just a little over a year now. Which means I should, theoretically, have 24 ideas to share with you. But as I look back through my files I'm realizing I really don't have that!

I mean, I did do 24 activities... but some of them were in the "did that, won't do it again" category. Activities get put in that category for two basic reasons: they were too much work or they didn't turn out that great in real life. (Mostly the first one. :D)

More and more (I have a part time job, a kid in college, a kid on a mission and two high schoolers still at home, plus an additional calling as a Primary teacher) I am going for SIMPLE in my activities.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but really I am the kind of person who loves nothing more than a complex, color coordinated activity. So, I do have SEVERAL activities that are kind of over the top waiting in the wings. But this activity was fairly simple: strawberry picking, followed by making strawberry freezer jam.

Now I say this was a simple activity, and it was... but it did take some thought.

1. Location: First of all you need a place where they have U Pick strawberries. I live in the Midwest, and there are two U Pick places within about 20 minutes of my house. However, there used to be four... seems like these places are kind of going the way of the drive in movie theater. There may be someone in your ward with a strawberry patch in their garden who would be willing to let you come pick, if commercial picking is not available. As a last resort you can nix the picking part, pick up some fresh berries from a Farmer's Market and just make jam.
2. Transportation: If you have a U Pick place you need a way to get all your girls there, and have an appropriate amount of adult supervision. You will also need parent signed permission slips,  and the approval of your bishopric to travel. If you have a lot of girls (again, my group has between 8-12 regularly attending) you need more than one vehicle, and you probably also need at least 1 leader or parent for every 4-5 girls.
3. Costs: the berries themselves; freezer jam pectin; Ball canning jars, rings and lids. I ended up paying about $15 for the berries; I got a dozen small canning jars with lids and rings for $10 and we made two batches of jam, with the freezer jam pectin mix costing about $3 per batch. This is not a low cost activity, although it could be lower cost if you can take advantage of someone's garden, or if you have the canning jars donated or already available . For us, the picking was not the greatest (it was not a super good year for strawberries) but each girl enjoyed picking and picked about a pint of berries. This was more than we needed for jam, and so I sent home some of the berries with each girl.
4. Non-traditional time requirements: This is a summertime (obviously, strawberries grow in the summer) activity, and we did it mid day and it took more than 90 minutes. We met at my home, drove 20 minutes to the patch, only picked for about 20 minutes (although the girls would have loved to stay longer, I couldn't afford for them to pick all the berries they wanted, and we easily got more than we needed for jam in that time.), and then drove back 20 minutes. That was an hour right there, then we needed to wash, de-stem, and mash the berries, mix in the pectin, and place the jam in jars.

Once we got the berries picked and got back to my house I split the girls up into different tasks.

• A few girls dumped the berries in a sink filled with cold water and swirled them around, then picked them out, leaving any bugs, dirt, grass or icky berries in the trash can as they went. Despite asking the girls to pick carefully, they were young and inexperienced and we got plenty of pink berries, bug eaten berries, and etc. Plus, it just really was NOT a good year for strawberries. So in addition to "cleaning" the sink girls were in charge of quality control.
• A few girls were in charge of de-steming the berries. The cut off the leaves and stems with stem pincers or butter knives, according to their preference.
• Another few girls were in charge of mashing berries-- by hand, with a potato masher. This was tougher than it sounds, and those girls needed aprons as this job was juicy and messy.
• Finally the last few girls were in charge of taking the mashed berries (they had to wait till everyone else had done their job) and mixing in the freezer jam pectin and ladling the jam into jars.
• Everyone was asked to help clean up. HAVE THE GIRLS HELP CLEAN UP. If they are old enough to make the mess, they are old enough to clean it. The fact that they don't want to, they want to go play (who doesn't, really?) just makes it that much more important to teach this responsibility. 

Each girl wrote their name on the lid of their jar and took the jam home with them. It needs to set in the freezer about 24 hours before it is jam, and when you unfreeze it, you need to eat it within a couple weeks. This was not a problem-- that jam was DELICIOUS and the girls were so proud of it!

As always, we had a few girls gone for extended summer vacations in another state and we kindly made jam for them and presented it to them when they got back. Which was really nice of us! :)

Not every parent can drop their daughter off mid day. I tried to be sensitive to this and offered to pick up girls whose parents could not drop them off. We left around 10 a.m. and were finished around 12:30 with everything, so it did take longer than 90 minutes.

While the patch was open in the evening at our regular activity time, we would have been finished VERY late, and the mosquitos are terrible in the evening, so daytime was our choice.

It would have been difficult to pick the berries one week (which would have been very close to a full activity) and make the jam the next week, simply because strawberries don't store that well. You have to commit to the longer activity to make it really work.

BONUS: I always recommend trying anything you're going to do with the girls on your own first. I picked some berries and made freezer jam the week before-- just to time the process and get a good eyeball on how many berries we needed and how many jars of jam each batch would make. (Each batch using 4 cups fruit made about 4 of the small jars of jam.) SO-- I had jam already made and fresh bread baked and when we were done we had fresh bread and strawberry jam and WOW, was it good! :)

A Perfect Christmas Craft

For 8-11 year old girls, activities need to have an "active" element. Usually (not always) that means some kind of craft or take home that is tied to the main lesson element.

Surprisingly, for someone who does so many of them, I actually consider myself NOT a craft person.

To start with, I'm one of those people that really dislikes clutter. While adorable for the first week or so, crafts (especially MULTIPLE crafts) quickly become overwhelming. I felt guilty for throwing away my child's artistic expressions. Yet I also felt annoyed having my home overtaken by misshapen clay dragons and finger paintings and dream catchers. Sigh.

To sum up, my main reasons for avoiding "over crafting" are:

1. Crafts can get very expensive. Making ONE may cost less than a dollar, but you usually are making 8-12.

2. You don't always get a lot of bang for your buck: that $1-$2 (per girl) craft may have been fun to make, but at some point (sometimes shortly after arriving home that very same night) that green bean can decorated with scrapbooking paper and repurposed as a pencil holder is likely going to be pitched in the trash. Crafts should not be too sizable a chunk of your budget or you are literally throwing your budget money away.

3. Crafts are not usually useful. They are decorative. So those paper plate flowers in a hand painted vase you made for Mother's Day? Kept as a token of love, but not actually GOOD for anything.

4. Crafts are meant to be displayed. The girls are PROUD of the things they make. Yet, like me, not every parent is ready to decorate their home in tissue paper flowers or yarn dream catchers. You put those parents in a tough position if the girls come home with pipe cleaner creations on a monthly basis.

5. Crafts accumulate. Even for the parents that don't mind them, and the girls who love them, they pile up. We make something almost each time we meet. Even without school projects, and Primary lesson handouts, and so forth, that is 24 "little reminders", "tokens", "wall hangings", etc. per YEAR. If the girls kept everything they made (and it just gets worse in YW when they meet every week) they would soon not be able to walk in their rooms, or see an inch of wall space, or have any room on top of their bedside tables or dressers. Craft overload is a real thing!

Therefore, while I love a fun little craft to give the girls that "something extra" to remind them of the lesson at home, I have my own set of craft guidelines:

1. Crafts need to be inexpensive.
2. Projects for others (Mother's Day/Father's Day) are most appreciated if they are MEANT to be disposable (like, say, have an edible element).
3. The crafts the girls make will NOT look like the picture on Pinterest. Have realistic expectations.
4. Most crafts will be thrown away, so the lesson, not the craft, is what needs to be excellent.

With all that in mind I found a craft I loved for Christmas. The felt nativity!

What I loved about it:

1. Felt is cheap.
2. Hand stitching made the craft take a good amount of time-- and was a good skill for the girls to practice.
3. There are several ways to display this: you can add a cord and use it as a Christmas tree decoration. It can stand on a table. It can be placed inside a picture frame.

We have about 12 girls in our group and it's a very young group. We needed all 3 leaders helping to thread needles, tie knots, and so forth. We played Christmas music while we sewed and chatted and it was a lovely, very relaxed couple of evenings. It took us two 90 minute activities to assemble, stitch and wrap this project, which was a gift from the girls to their parents.

THE LESSON: 
Prior to making this craft, we talked about how the girls enjoy RECEIVING gifts, but that at some point we also need to realize the joy of giving. We talked about some of the things parents do for children on a daily basis, and things that the girls could do to be helpers at home, and make their homes more loving and peaceful. (FIG, Developing Talents, bullet point #7) We also talked about how Christ was the first gift of Christmas, and that the season would not exist without the gift of His love. We then watched a couple different videos from LDS.org and read the Christmas story from Luke to get us in a Christmas-y mood! At the end of the videos and stories we talked about how it is more blessed to give than to receive, and talked about how nice it will be to give a really loving gift to our parents. Then we started this craft. The girls were VERY excited to make something for their parents!

The videos we watched were:
~ What Shall We Give, featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "What Shall We Give to the Babe in the Manger?" (approx. 5 minutes)

~ The Reason Behind Christmas (approx. 4 minutes)

~ He is the Gift (approx. 3 minutes)

Craft notes:

~ I pre-cut all the elements of the craft (printable template is linked here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7T0tXV3hLcmFLS28/view?usp=sharing).
The girls took each pre-cut element and glued/taped it in place, then stitched it down.

~ Little pieces of scotch tape worked great to keep the different things in place while we were sewing. We tried glue, but that was not very successful.

~ The finished size was about 6x8 inches-- A large ornament, but a nice sized wall hanging or shelf display.

~ Make sure to stitch all the way around the star, even though part of it is not on the stable. It looks much nicer that way.

~ Make sure each girl puts her name on the back of the craft as, obviously, they all looked very similar.

You will need:

• dark brown felt (1 piece per girl; outer stable, manger)
• light brown felt (1 piece per girl, inner stable)
• flesh colored felt (3 small circles per girl, 1 piece was enough for our whole group)
• yellow felt (1 star per girl; 1 piece covered everyone)
• red felt (1 heart per girl, 1 piece covered everyone)
• green felt (1 Joseph per girl, 2 pieces covered everyone)
• blue felt (1 Mary per girl, 2 pieces covered everyone)
• orange felt (1 baby Jesus per girl, 1 piece covered everyone)
• MATCHING/COORDINATING THREAD (or embroidery floss) for all colors except flesh and the light brown inner stable; the blue or green thread can be used for the eyes. You don't stitch around the faces, they are too small. The eye stitches hold on the faces.
• wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, and boxes or padded envelopes to wrap the completed project in.
• IF YOU HAVE EXTRA TIME: you can also bring markers and plain paper and have the girls write a note of love and appreciation to their parents to include with the gift. We did have time for this and the girls liked making very decorated, fancy notes. :)

The wrapping paper, ribbon and bows were a perfect and festive finish to our project! The girls were very excited to wrap their gift, so don't skip that part!

Russian Boxes: Getting to Know You/Getting to Know Faith in God

This is our first activity in January. Our group has changed a lot over the last year-- as with any year we've had new girls turn 8 and our oldest girls turn 12. But we've also had lots of girls bring friends to the activities (the same friends, and new random friends too), a few new move ins, and even some new leaders. So while we know each other, we can always get to know each other better.

While I was thinking of some fun "get to know you" games, I thought about how some of our new girls are not that familiar with Faith in God (or may not know what it is at all). So I decided to also include, in game format, some "get to know you" stuff for Faith in God as well.

My goals for this activity are:

1. Get acquainted with the Faith in God book. Some of the girls, depending on their family make up (non-member or less active parents) have not really even opened their books.
2. Get input on some upcoming activity ideas. While I think the girls are a little young to help plan activities, they are NOT too young to express preferences: would you rather make bread, or make ice cream? Would you rather swim in a pool, or in a lake? Would you rather visit a nursing home for service, or clean the ward nursery?
3. Have the girls get to know each other better. I hope they'll end up talking to some of the girls they normally don't talk to. Because we have several different elementary schools that all are part of our ward, some girls go to school together, some don't. Some have known each other since nursery, and some are new move ins.
4. Get everyone involved in the activity! Some of our girls are so shy it seems I never hear a peep out of them, while others are so social it seems I can never get them quiet! Hoping to find a balance where all can participate.

The "Russian Box" format is because I like the idea of having more than one game or get to know you activity. Different things will appeal to different girls. AND I like having a good way to transition between different activities. Drum roll for the Russian stacking boxes! Each box holds a new activity, and when that activity is complete we move on to the next box.

The following is a link to the complete printable for the activity. You will still need to procure your own boxes, candy, and other supplies for the activity. That should not be too difficult. I have even included a supply list in the printable! The only hard one will probably be making the listening objects for the Two Peas game (it will require film canisters or empty m&m tubes or Easter eggs, or some similar enclosed hard container, plus the objects to put inside them). But as close as possibly can be done, this is ALL DONE for you, you just have to read through it, get your supplies, and go!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7WVdwRU1XdDRZRWM/view?usp=sharing

Below are some pictures of what is in each of the boxes, with the inner most box first. The handout explains all the games and contents.

One thing I didn't put in the printable though is what I ended up using for my sound objects for Two Peas in a Pod. I found the mini m&m tubes made great "sound shakers." I filled them with small amounts of the following: salt, popcorn kernels, mini round sprinkles, a roll of smarties (in the wrapper), a marble, 5 pennies, a hard tipped nerf dart, a slim skein of embroidery floss.