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!