Candy Advent for the Girls

I am already looking forward to Christmas although it is not yet October!

I like to plan ahead for Christmas, because when Christmastime arrives... you don't have time to plan any more!

With that in mind I have created this Christmas Advent already. There are ten days of scripture meditations to open. (So the girls start opening them on December 15th, after our Wednesday activity on the 14th.)

This is the finished advent. All the envelopes and candy will go inside the bag. I would say more, but if you are interested you can read ALL the details and how tos here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7THo0bW92eEMwTUk/view?usp=sharing

Here is a link to download the label as a .jpeg, in case you want to use a photo printing site (so much cheaper than printing it yourself!) to make the tags:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7cEN0ZG9JX0tDX0k/view?usp=sharing

Feasting: on Pies and on the Scriptures

This was a Thanksgiving themed activity about FEASTING... both on the words of Christ (our spiritual thought) and on helping with our family's feast. We made mini apple pies for this activity!

I really need to be better at taking pictures! Our activities get so busy, and I'm just not a camera person. But these pies turned out great!

Here's how we made it work:

• One leader baked 2 full size apple pies at home, which we ate at the end of the activity
• One leader made enough pie crust at home for a double crust mini pie (4 inch pie pans) for each girl
• We had disposable mini pie pans and aluminum foil to cover the finished pies for each girl
• We brought apples, one of those hand crank apple peelers, all the seasonings and sugar for pie filling
• We brought as many rolling pins as we could and waxed paper for rolling the crust on 
• We had recipe cards for each girl to take home, which included instructions for baking their mini pie at home, as well as for baking a full sized pie

First we had our lesson and spiritual thought on feasting on the words of Christ, and how feasting is something we enjoy and partake of with gladness. We likened this to our upcoming Thanksgiving feast and encouraged the girls to spiritually feast every day!

For apple pie making:
Since we have a large number of girls we divided into two groups: filling and crust. Each group would get to do both activities.

The filling group each got to peel an apple or two, place it in our big bowl, and help add all the sugar, spices and stir well. The first group left their filling in the communal bowl till they made their crust.

The crust group each had a large ball and a small ball of crust dough (bottom and top crusts). They rolled out their bottom crust on waxed paper and placed it in their pie pan. Then they rolled out the top crust and brought it with them to the filling area.

When we switched we made another batch of filling and this got divided into the crusts. Then the top crust was placed, crimped and vented.

It took a little coordinating, a lot of table space, and some patience, but everyone got to really make their very own pie and it was very fun!

We then ate the delicious prepared pies, passed out the baking directions, and sent everyone home eager to bake their pie!

We made sure to tell the girls the pies needed to be refrigerated until baked, and to have an adult help with the baking process at home.

Gratitude Pumpkins

This was a very simple activity based off of this craft: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/11399805279178661/

Now, canning rings for all my girls would have been VERY expensive. Expensive is not really an option with Activity Days, so we substituted paper strips, taped into rings for the canning rings.

I used card stock, in a variety of colors and patterns, and I really, really wish I had taken a picture of this because it turned out really cute, but I didn't.

I loved this because the girls could do just about all of it on their own.

Supplies:

• Prior to the activity I cut cardboard (thin enough to cut pretty easy, but thick enough to trace with easily too) in 3/4 inch wide strips, one for each girl. 
• I brought a pen and scissors for each girl, and several rolls of scotch tape to share. 
• I brought butcher's twine in cute colors, and also some yarn, just for variety
• We used solid brown, double sided card stock for the stem (a 6x4 strip, rolled up)
• We used green card stock and patterned green papers for the leaves
• I also brought some neutral colored card stock cut in 6x6 inch squares to glue the finished pumpkins to. Made it much easier to transport them.

The girls got to pick a card stock color/pattern for their pumpkin (just one sheet of 12x12). They used the cardboard tracer and a pen to evenly divide the paper into 3/4 inch wide strips.

Before they cut the paper they had to write one thing they were grateful for on each strip.
Then they cut the strips apart and taped the ends to make circles.

When all the circles were completed we passed the butcher string or yarn through the center. This part they needed help with. You need to tie the string tightly enough that the rings stand up and form a circle, but loosely enough so the rings can be moved and arranged, and so the paper doesn't tear.

Once the string is tied, and the rings arranged, insert the stem in the middle of the rings. Place a light coating of glue on the 6x6 neutral square, and carefully place the pumpkin on it, rearranging as necessary. Press the bottoms of the rings onto the glue and let it stand to dry. Attach the leaf to the stem and you're done!

Since we had a lesson on gratitude, did all the work on our pumpkin, shared some of the things we were thankful for that each of us had chosen, and had a small snack at the end this filled our 90 minutes almost perfectly!

If we had had time left over we probably would have played a Thanksgiving game, like four corners, with the corners named after turkeys, pumpkins, Pilgrims and Indians.

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! :)