Christmas Caroling!

Tonight we went Christmas caroling with the youth.  It was a lot of fun to see the happiness it brought to the people as we sang to them.  The girls got right in there and sang their little hearts out.  It was a great activity to get into the Christmas spirit.

 Little did I know that this would be my last activity day!  I was told that I would be moving on to be in the Relief Society.  I sure have enjoyed being around these beautiful young people for the last year!  I will miss them terribly!

The true meaning of Christmas

Tonight was a lot of fun!   As they were arriving,  I had them do some activity pages that I got at the dollar store.  (They were actually placemats that had different activities on them).

Next I told the story called "Teach the Children".  I found it here.  I did not tell the story verbatim.  In fact, I'm not sure the story part is even necessary.  But it's fun to have the children come and select an item from a bag and then talk about each item.  Their insights are a lot fun!

Next we talked about the events surrounding the birth of the Savior.  I used pictures from the gospel art kit for this discussion.  They are so smart!  I love asking them what they know about the different events and also about some of the amazing things Christ did while he was on the earth.  They are so insightful and ready to learn and share.

After the discussion, I used a Nativity File Folder game that I had made to reinforce the story.  Here is the link.  (It took me a good while to make.)

I turned the pieces upside-down on the table and attached the file folder to the chalkboard with magnets.  I let the girls come up and select a piece, tell what the piece had to do with the birth, and let them attach it to the proper spot on the file folder.   They love doing interactive things like this!

I wanted to sing a song about the Nativity with them from the children's songbook but time did not permit.

I gave them a holiday treat when it was over.  We had a fun time!

Serving Others #5- file folder games

• Tonight I started by discussing prophets and apostles and temples because that is the theme I chose for our file folders.  We are working to accomplish Serving Others #5.  
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• 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.

This activity will need to be followed up by the parents.

I told them that we would be making file folder games for them to share.  But this activity took a little too much time the way that I did it. Plus, I was all by myself with 9 girls.   It's a great activity  but needed more prep work on my part...or a different way to tackle to activity.

We did file folders with the apostles and the temples found here.  Each girl chose to do either the apostles or the temples file folder.  They received 2 duplicate sheets.

First we cut out the pictures from the first page, placed them on laminating paper, ran them through the thermal laminator and then cut them out of the laminating paper.  When they finish cutting out the laminated pieces, place them in an envelope for safe keeping while going on to the next step.

Next we cut out the pictures from the duplicated page and pasted them into the file folder.  This took a lot of time.  Too much gluing going on.  They really only need a quick dab of glue or swipe of glue stick on the back of the picture because once they get the picture glued where they want it, we used a piece of packing tape to cover the picture.

packing tape to cover pictures

One alternative to the step above would be to simply glue the duplicate into the file folder and skip cutting out and gluing each picture.  This would save time.  But it also eliminates the creative placement that the girls like to have...

After the pictures are glued into the file folder, we used a roll of post-it.  Cut the sticky part of the post-it into small squares.  Put a swipe of glue on the non-sticky side of the post it and glue it by/on  each picture in the file folder.  The laminated pictures can then be placed on the sticky side of the post-it.  Let it dry before trying to attach the laminated pictures or it will pull off.

Glue the envelope to the file folder and label it.

There are so many fun file folder games.  Next time I would choose ones that require less cutting and gluing.  But the girls were very pleased with them and were looking forward to sharing them with younger siblings/friends and even themselves!

Developing Talents- Napkin Rings

Tonight was a fun activity... we made napkin rings for the girls to use for their Thanksgiving dinner! (We voted on whether or not they wanted to use them for the Ward Thanksgiving Dinner and the "no" vote won.)   We got started right away.  They were very creative and had a lot of fun.  I meant to bring a hair dryer to help them dry quicker but I forgot it...so they had to blow on them.  Haha.

Gathered materials

Creative juices flowing...

Great finished product!!  Love the colors

Learning and Living the Gospel #8- Genealogy!

Prior to the meeting, I asked the parents to provide the girls with the names of their grandparents and great grandparents if they could.

The first thing I did was show them some paper chains and we discussed how they were linked together.  I told them to imagine that the first link was them and the next links were their parents and so forth back through time.  We read Malachi 4:5-6 and discussed what it meant by the "great and dreaadful day of the Lord" and who, on the chain, were the "fathers" and who were the "children".  (This was not immediately clear to them...we had to discuss).  We talked about the hearts of the fathers turning to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.  This lead to talking about the importance of the temple.  The children LOVE to learn!

Next I drew a pedigree chart on the board.  The girls really didn't know what a pedigree chart was so it was fun to share that with them.

Next I had them fill in a simple family group record that I found here.  This is the LDS family search site and it has a lot of great ideas!  I used this chart.  Click on the link to get a better chart but this is basically what it looks like.

My Family Group Record

My Dad:

Born: |Place:

Married: |Place:

His Father:

His Mother:

My Mom:

Born: |Place:

Her Father:

Her Mother:

Children

Name:

Born: |Place:

Name:

Born: |Place:

Name:

Published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 2010 

The internet has lots of pedigree charts.  I found a cute one and let them fill it in as best they could.

On the same family search page, if you go down to the "Fun and Games" section, there is a booklet that has other fun activities.  Here is the link.  I used a couple of these for the girls who finished their charts before the others.

To complete this requirement, the girls needed to share a family story.  We ran out of time but we will do this at that beginning of our next meeting.

I hope that his sparks some interest in family history!

Activity Day Art!

Tonight was a lot of fun!  We talked about different art genres and made some original art!   You cannot spend a lot of time on each activity if you want to get through them all.  I did about 10-15 minutes on each activity.

First was Impressionism. We talked about what it means and I showed different examples of impressionism from the game "Masterpiece".

Art cards from the game "Masterpiece".  This would be a fun game to play if we had more time.  Could play it next time as a follow-up and discuss the different genres as we play.

For the impressionism art activity, I had the girls tape their paper to the underside of the chair and draw a landscape picture using crayons.    This was to imitate how Michaelangelo (not an impressionist but this is a fun way for the girls to draw) painted on ceilings.  (I would NOT recommend, however, showing the pictures of his Sistene Chapel paintings. I mean, perhaps a distant overview but there are a lot of nudes in his creation and judgement depictions.)
The girls had fun with this activity drawing upside down.  This is my favorite genre so I had fun showing different examples and telling about the different impressionist artists.

Next we discussed pointillism...creating art using dots.  For this we used q-tips and watercolor.  I found an example of this technique on-line here.  First they drew a design with pencil then they did the q-tips. They LOVED making these paintings!

Next was abstract art.  Again, I showed some examples of this type of art.  I suggested that they think of an emotion and then try to draw it.  For this activity we used markers.  They got a little crazy with this one.  It was fun.

Finally, we did realism.  I had a basket of fruit and they were to draw it using a pencil.  I tried to teach them a little about shading but this was the most challenging for them.  None of them really liked this one too much.  It was much more challenging.

They were proud of their work!

For a treat I made sugar cookies shaped like rainbows!  The night was a hit!

For a follow up, I will encourage the parents to do Developing Talents #5- Visit an art museum, and the girls can share what they've learned about art with their parents.

Serving Others #4- Plan, Prepare, and Serve a nutritious meal

Service #4- Plan, prepare, and serve a nutritious meal

We did our planning last week.  The girls decided they wanted to do a big, healthy salad!  Yum!  They all wanted to bring and contribute their favorite ingredient.  I brought ingredients as well.

While we waited for everyone to arrive, I did my usual...a word search.  Find the link here.  This one had healthy foods as the topic.

Once everyone arrived we began preparing the salad.  We washed hands and we washed all of the veggies.

I supervised the use of the knives, don't worry!

They all wanted to eat some salad so I let everyone take a bowl and fill it with whatever they wanted for their own salad.  After they had filled their bowls, we combined all of the salad ingredients into a large bowl and headed to the Branch President's office to give him some salad to take home and enjoy with his wife!  The girls also wanted to share with the young women!  So we dished up some bowls for them and took them to the young women's room!  It was a lot of fun!

They were so happy to serve their salads!