Seeds of Faith

This is far from an original idea, but that is because it is a WONDERFUL idea for Activity Days!

Christ often taught with parables, and often used the idea of seeds in those parables. Alma spent a long, long chapter on how faith is like a seed. All the things he taught, about how faith and testimony must be nurtured and cared for (like a seed!) are still true.

The growth of testimony requires scripture reading, prayer, church attendance, a personal commitment to choose the right, and a desire to follow the Lord. A once strong testimony may wither and fade if it is not cared for and strengthened by daily care.

This is definitely like a seed! A seed is easy to plant and quick to sprout. But it takes careful care to get from sprout to full fledged flower (or carrot, or mustard tree!).

The goal of our activity was to help the girls identify the testimony they already had, help them understand how their testimony could grow, and encourage them to do those things that would encourage growth daily.

Of course, the activity also had to be fun! :)

During a Primary Sharing time we had all the kids trace their hands on card stock, and then color them. I took them home and cut them out to make the flower petals for the bulletin board. We had the kids trace two hands, and I think one hand would have been plenty, just FYI!

During our activity we did the following:
Let the girls color a label for their seed container
Plant a seed from a choice of flower seeds
Read scriptures on faith and testimony
Wrote testimonies on paper flowers, then colored the flowers

The flowers of testimony were added to our bulletin board, and it looks great! The girls love seeing their testimonies shared. We put names on the back of the flowers only, and will give them back to the girls when we take the bulletin board down.

The details:

We had about 12 girls attend this activity. We used 2 liter bottles (clear soda bottles) cut so they were about 6-8 inches tall to hold the dirt/seeds.

We had one large bag of potting soil and one bag of pea gravel and we had left over amounts in each bag, so unless you have a TON of girls, one bag is plenty. The pea gravel goes first, then is covered with dirt to help drainage.

We used strips of poster board (because paper/card stock was not long enough to wrap around the bottles in a single strip) to create a wrap around label that the girls could color to decorate their planter.

     You may think, as a few of the girls did... why use poster board? Why not just use the markers to color directly on the plastic? Answer: because this looks great when your container is empty, but once you fill it up with dark soil... you can't really see your design any more if you color directly on the bottle.

Supplies:
Pre-printed paper flowers, on white card stock (the flowers were about 8x8 inches in total)
posterboard strips, about 6 inches high
markers, LOTS of markers
Tape (to tape the strips together and to tape the strips to the bottles)
Flower seeds
Potting soil
Pea gravel
scissors (for cutting out the flower)
Pens (For writing testimonies)
Scriptures (John 20:24-29; Hebrews 11:1)
2 liter bottle, cut basically in half, one for each girl

In terms of timing: our activities have gone from 90 minutes to 60 minutes.
We let the girls look up their scriptures and discuss them in small groups, with a leader in each group, then share what our scripture was and what we learned. That was about 15 minutes.

Then we discussed the care of seeds, and drew parallels to the care of faith and testimony.

Then we colored our seed container poster board strips. Once the strips were done the girls got pea gravel, dirt and a seed. That part (the seed/dirt part) took a VERY short time. The coloring part took a lot longer.

Then we talked about the seeds of faith we were starting with and what our testimonies were. We asked the girls: what do you believe about the gospel? Maybe it is very simple. Maybe you believe God exists. Maybe you believe God loves you. Perhaps you believe you will be with your family again after you die, or that Joseph Smith is a prophet. Maybe you believe the Word of Wisdom will keep your body healthy and your spirit strong. Maybe you believe Thomas S. Monson is a prophet.

Think about it: what do you believe, right now? That is your testimony. It can grow as you read the scriptures and come to church. Then they wrote their testimony on the flowers. We asked them to write FIRST, color second so that 1) any coloring would not cover up the words and 2) coloring can take a looooooonnnnggggg time, we wanted to make sure the testimonies got written!

Then they cut out their flowers. We were doing this for the bulletin board. If you are just sending the flowers home with the girls they would not necessarily need to be cut out. Or they could be cut out and placed on the poster strip of the plant container if the girls were keeping them!

Sensory Safari

In Primary this year we have learned a lot about our body being a temple. Our body is an amazing creation-- it can do so many wonderful things! 

The idea for the Sensory Safari came from this article in the Friend:
https://www.lds.org/friend/2016/07/happy-sabbath?lang=eng

We had a lesson, then one activity for each of our five senses. Because our activity time has been reduced to just 60 minutes (down from 90 minutes), and because we had 11 girls in attendance, we needed all our time-- and even a few minutes extra!

Lesson: Our spirits wanted a body, because bodies are AWESOME!

There are many things that a person with a body can do that a spirit cannot: we can eat, sleep, touch, smell, and so much more! Our spirits were VERY excited to be able to do these things. Our spirits knew a body would be a special gift; now that we are here on earth we need to appreciate and take good care of our body.

This is what the scriptures teach us about our body:

1 Corinthians 3:16 

What do we learn from this verse? (Our body is a place for our spirit to live. Our body is a temple.) 

Heavenly Father knew getting a body would be special to us. He created this world with many wonderful things that our bodies could experience. He gave us things to touch, taste, hear, see and smell that are beautiful!

There is a song that we sing about our beautiful world on page 228 (have 2 or 3 songbooks for the girls to share) in the Children’s Songbook. 

What is the name of this song? (My Heavenly Father Loves Me) 

Why do you think they chose this for the name?  

Let’s read the words, and listen for the different kinds of things that Heavenly Father created to make the world beautiful to us. (Let the girls read the words aloud)

We know Heavenly Father created  our bodies, and He wants us to both enjoy them and care for them. The prophet and other church leaders teach us to keep our bodies clean and pure. Look at the back of your FIG book, at the “My Gospel Standards”: 

“I will keep my mind and body sacred and pure, and I will not partake of things that are harmful to me.” 

What kinds of things might be harmful to our body? (Drugs, alcohol, tobacco)

It is also good to keep our bodies clean (physically, like with soap and water), to eat healthy foods, to exercise and get the sleep we need.

Tonight we want to focus on some of the amazing things our body can do! So we are going to take a sensory safari and explore all five sense: sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste. As we do, let’s return grace and thanks to God as we experience all he has blessed us with!

-----------------------

Sight: Close your eyes for a minute. Imagine experiencing your whole world without the gift of sight. 

Without our eyes it would be very hard to read, to walk around without running into things, and even do simple things like pick the right cereal box! 

Our eyes can see things far and near. They can pick out patterns and colors. They can even help us find things that are hidden. If you’ve ever seen an airplane far up in the sky, or looked closely at the beauty of a butterfly, or seen how interesting the texture of a piece of bread or block of marble is, you know your eyes are pretty amazing. 

Your eyes convey a great deal of information to the brain, and even things that WANT to stay hidden can be detected by a careful observer if we look closely enough. Let’s test our eyes with this hidden picture!

Do a hidden picture page from the Friend. Have one copy, and one highlighter per girl http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/friend-september-2010/2010-09-18-we-love-family-home-evening-eng.pdf

Smell: Our sense of smell is so important! Not only is it great to smell nice things like flowers and cookies and fresh baked bread, our nose can warn us of danger! Like if we smell smoke, or a chemical smell. Maybe you have even smelled something stinky and thus have avoided stepping in dog poo!

See if you can identify these different smells. 

Set up: Place the liquids as far apart as possible on the table (so the smells don’t collide); let the girls smell each container and try to identify the liquid inside by its scent.

I used clean baby food jars, and different clear liquids with distinct scents

I numbered each container, and had a numbered brown paper bag behind each bottle that contained the item: water bottle, vinegar bottle (water down the vinegar a bit!), mint bottle, soda bottles... it is a fun reveal at the end as you show what is inside the bag!

Give each girl a paper with the possible scents written down, and a pencil

Girls write the NUMBER by the word which identifies it (berry soda, 3; vinegar, 1, etc.)

I had the girls identify vinegar; water; berry flavored clear soda; pineapple coconut flavored clear soda; orange flavored clear soda; water w/ mint extract in it

Hearing: We can identify many different varieties of sound, soft sound, loud sounds, the beauty that is music. You can recognize a person by their voice, and everyone has a different voice! How amazing is that? If you spend a minute to listen, even in a quiet room, you can often hear small noises: a fly buzzing, or a fan running, or even the sound of your own breathing. Take a minute to just quietly listen for sounds in this room… 

Our ears can tell us a lot if we use them, so let’s put them to the test and see if you can match up these different sounds!

Set up: Use a lidded, opaque container (such as old film canisters, m&m Minis tubes) and make pairs of tubes with matching interior objects such as: a teaspoon of rice (in 2 separate tubes), a teaspoon of salt, a few coins, a pencil eraser, etc. 

Give one tube to each girl (making sure that each tube has a partner passed out— a leader may need to participate if you have an odd number of girls), and have them shake the tube. By listening to the different sounds, the girls should be able to find the matching tube (that contains the same interior object)

When the girls discover the matching tube have them sit down next to their partner. When everyone is seated, let each pair shake their tubes to show the matching sounds.

Touch: Our sense of touch can tell us about danger, like if something is hot or sharp. It can be pleasurable, such as when we receive a hug, or feel something soft and fuzzy. We can learn a lot about an object by touching it. 

What can we tell about objects with our sense of touch? Let’s explore.

Set up: Have the girls sit in a circle with their eyes closed; pass around different objects;

without opening eyes, talk about what we can tell about each object…

Remind the girls to keep their eyes closed until they've had their turn. To facilitate passing, say “pass” after each girl has had a few seconds to explore the object. 

Discuss: Even if we cannot see something, if we can touch it we know if it is:

Rough/smooth

light/heavy

wet/dry

hot/cold

We might also be able to tell the shape/size

What are some things you like to feel? Silk? a fluffy kitten? small pebbles? grass?

Pass around: a sticky toy, a large rock, playdough, a cotton ball, an ice cube 

Taste: Our mouth and tongue do some wonderful things. We can appreciate all kinds of flavors and textures. Sweet, creamy ice cream or yogurt. Crunchy salty potato chips, or almonds, or cinnamon toast. Juicy fried chicken or a grilled hamburger. Cool, crisp watermelon or apples or pears. Ooey gooey chocolate chip cookies. Even sour lemons, and broccoli! Does anyone else want a picnic now??? :) If we had a picnic, what would you bring?

If there is time, let the girls share a favorite food.

Our eyes and our nose often help our sense of taste along. But even without our eyes, and without a strong smell, our sense of taste can give us a lot of information. Let’s see how smart YOUR sense of taste is!***

Set up: Give each girl a piece of paper with the different types of Cheerios listed on it. I had  Fruity Cheerios, plain, Honey Nut, Chocolate, Apple Cinnamon and Pumpkin Spice.

Place a dixie cup in front of each girl. Pour the same type of Cheerios in each cup while the girls have their eyes closed. I gave each girl about a tablespoonful each time so they could get a good mouthful.

The girls pick up their cup, (eyes closed!) and pour all the Cheerios into their mouths. They can they open their eyes, assess the flavor and mark their card. They should place a number one by the flavor they think they tasted first, a two by the flavor they think they tasted second, and so on.

It's best for the girls to make a choice about the flavor before they go on to the next round of Cheerios. They can go back and adjust later if they want to.

*** Explain that eyes have to be closed because it is a TASTE test and seeing a dark brown cheerio... well you know that's the chocolate one with zero tasting. Obviously the girls COULD easily peek... but there isn't a prize for winning. This is just to test how good our mouth is at distinguishing flavors. Peeking will just wreck your chance to see that. So don't cheat!

Do all the rounds, and then go back and reveal the answers/have the girls check and see how well they did. 

------------------

And that's all five senses! The girls really enjoyed each game and had a lot of fun at this activity. Be sure to close with your testimony, and bring back the idea that we should thank Heavenly Father for the marvelous gift that is our body! 

We can show our appreciation through prayers of thanks, but also through taking good care of our body, and treating it respectfully as the temple that it is.