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!

Word of Wisdom-Learning and Living the Gospel #7

I forgot to take pics during the meeting but I snapped this after some of the girls had already left!

Learning and Living the Gospel #7-  Read D&C 89.  Discuss how Heavenly Father blesses us when we faithfully live the Word of Wisdom.  Help plan and conduct an activity to teach the Word of Wisdom to others.

This lesson covers the first part of the activity.
As the girls were arriving, I was playing some fun music and we had a little dance party.  We danced until everyone arrived.  I had one of the girls lead the dancing and it was pretty fun!  Lots and lots of giggles.  At first some were too timid to dance but by the end everyone was dancing!

We then gathered and read D&C 89:1-9.   While the girls took turns reading, they were supposed to draw pictures of what they were hearing.  We talked about the verses, I gave definitions and we discussed how the world glamorizes drinking and smoking and how we should avoid it.   We talked about how and why these things are harmful to our bodies.   They were very interested in hearing about how the body gets addicted to drugs and how difficult it is to overcome addiction.  I emphasized  the importance of never starting because it is so hard to stop.  Make sure that you are sensitive to any in the group who may have parents or other loved ones who may smoke or drink alcohol.

I had them turn their paper over and answer the following questions:
What have you had to eat in the last 24 hours?
How much sleep did you get last night?
How much TV did you watch yesterday?
Did you exercise?
They had fun answering and sharing their answers.

Next we read D&C 89:10-17.  We talked about healthy eating and the importance of putting good food into our bodies.

I asked them why we were dancing at the beginning of class.  Then we talked about how exercise can be really fun...like dancing.

We read the promise in verses 18-21.  Don't leave this out!  It's so important that they know of these great promises that come when we are good to our bodies.

We made smoothies!!   They LOVED this!

**While they were drinking their smoothies we planned a nutritious meal in anticipation of completing Serving others #4 that we will complete next week.

They really wanted to dance some more so after we closed, I put on another song and let them do one more dance.  They had so much fun and so did I!

Here is the smoothie recipe that I used.  I think I tripled it:

1 cup frozen strawberries
1 banana
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup orange juice

Blend and serve.

Father's Day fun and games!- Service #2

This lesson could be used to fulfill Service #2 which says:  Write a letter to a teacher, your parents, or your grandparents telling them what you appreciate and respect about them.  This is from the Faith in God book that can be found here.

Tonight was all about fathers!  

To begin I had them each write something about themselves on a piece of printer paper.  Then I had them crumple the paper up into a ball.  I gathered them and told them we would use them later.

Next I asked if they knew any songs about fathers.  We sang a couple from the Children's Songbook.  Daddy's Homecoming and A Happy Family.

As we sang each song we talked about the words and what we learn about fathers from the lyrics.

We made a list on the board of the qualities that Dads have.  I emphasize their roles as providers and protectors.

Next they filled out a worksheet:

"In our family dad is the best at sports"

"My favorite memory with my Dad is when we went to the Grand Canyon"

"My favorite memory with my Dad is when he coached me in soccer!"

"In our family, my dad is the best at eating chocolate."

It is so fun to read their thoughts about their dads.

 

I find the night works best when they get to MOVE.  This was a balloon race.  A team of two races to the wall and back with a balloon between their shoulders.  A "middle man" is allowed to go with them and replace the balloon if it falls out.  

This is where we used the crumpled papers that we made at the beginning of the meeting.  We had a snowball fight with them.  At my go, they raced to throw the "snowballs" at each other.  When I called "stop" they had to grab the nearest snowball and hold it.  If I called on them, they had to open their paper wad, read what it said, and then try to guess who wrote it.  Me and the other leader wrote about ourselves on a piece of paper as well.  They had a hard time guessing ours even after they had gone through every other person in the room.  It was kind of funny.

Their instruction was to go give the Dad Worksheet to their father on Father's Day!  It was a fun night.

Service #3- Qualities I Admire in a Person and Showing Respect and Kindness

We started our activity with a Seek and find all about qualities that we admire in others.  They love seek and finds!  It keeps them busy while everyone arrives.  Here are the traits I included in my puzzle:  friendly, good personality, sense of humor, frugal, caring, no gossip, talented, kind, spiritual, hard worker, good listener, honest, smart, fun, creative, athletic, reaches goals, clean, modest.

Service #3 is as follows:  "Make a list of the qualities you like in a person.  Choose one quality to develop in yourself.  Discuss how showing respect and kindness strengthens you, your family, and others."

After the seek and find puzzle we listed the qualities that we admire in others.  They had some good ideas!

Next I had them think about these qualities and name one that they would like to work on and to develop in themselves.  I had them write in in their books.  We discussed these and talked about why they thought these would be a good traits to have.  Trying new things can help us find our talents!  I asked them what kinds of things they may have been scared of trying at first but later discovered it to be a talent.  Sports, dance, singing, talking to others, etc.

I had them fill out a questionnaire about themselves.  Included in this was a question about talents they'd like to develop.   I told them that they would get this back when they turn 12 and they could look to see how much progress they made over the years.

We talked about what it means to have respect and what it means to be kind.   We talked about ways that having respect and kindness strengthens ourselves, our family, and others.  Then they signed this activity off in their booklets.

Finally, we talked about the Gospel Standard:  "I will seek good friends and treat others kindly."

Today was the last Activity Day for one of our girls who is turning 12!  We passed around a paper with her name at the top and each person listed something they admired about her.  We will really miss her!!

What character trait would you like to develop in yourself?

Dawn

Mother's Day Craft

Our Mother's Day craft was super fun and I think they turned out great!

First Article of Faith

Gathering activity was once again a word search...they love them!  It keeps them occupied while everyone arrives.

This week for an attention-getter I wrote the following letters on the board and asked what comes next...

OTTFFSSENTET

It was really fun to get their answers and their reasoning for their answers!  The correct answer is "T", of course, for Thirteen.  There are Thirteen articles of faith.  

For the 1st Article of Faith we discussed the Godhead.  We talked about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost and the ways that they are alike and the ways that they are different.  It really was a great discussion.  They are so smart and they ask really great questions.

Next we learned the song, "The First Article of Faith" from the Children's Songbook.  Most of them knew it but some did not.  We played a fun game with a small ball.  We stood in a circle.  The child with the ball had to sing a portion of the song and then toss the ball to someone else.  Whoever the ball was tossed to had to sing the next portion of the song and then toss the ball.  It was a lot of fun.  If they dropped the ball they had to start the song over from the beginning.  I let them sing only one or two words if they wanted to because I didn't want anyone to be uncomfortable.  But everyone participated and had fun.  They wanted to keep doing it even when I told them it was time to move on to the next activity.

Next we did a puzzle game.  I had 1st Article of Faith cut into wordstrips.  One copy for each child.  They had to race to put the words in the correct order.  When they thought they had it, they were to raise both arms above their head.  In hindsight, I would have had a bell or something for them to press because I had a hard time telling who was first on a couple of the rounds.  This was fun and they also wanted to keep playing this game!

We had another birthday this week so we played Pin the Nose on the Clown and had cupcakes.

For our next Activity Day we will be making a Mother's Day craft.  I read a list of possibilities and told them to raise their hand if they heard an activity that they wanted to do.  The voting was unanimous.  However, I'm not going to reveal the craft until after Mother's Day!  You're going to love it!

Dawn

Take the Lead! Learning to Lead the Music

Developing Talents #2- Learn to lead a song and discuss how developing talents prepares us to serve Heavenly Father and others.

To begin, I wanted them to get a sense of listening for the beat so we sang several children's songs and clapped, snapped, or marched out the beat.  It was a lot of fun and it released some energy.

Learning to lead the music is a great skill to learn!  It is easy to teach as well.  Instructions are found in the back of the hymnal.  I chose the song "I Am A Child of God" because it is the theme for Primary this year.  It is found in the Children's Songbook #2 and also in they Hymnal #301.

We looked at the hymn and I taught them how to understand how many beats are in a measure...just a simple explanation of measures and beats.  There is an excellent resource here.

We sang and sang and took turns leading each other.  They were awesome!  So smart!

We had a discussion about how this is an important talent to have.  This is a talent that can be used at home as well as at church.  It is a talent that you can use throughout your lifetime and it is a great service.  We talked about Mosiah 2:17- And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

We turned to Hymns #29 and #128.  Both of these reference Mosiah 2:17  at the end of the hymn.  We talked about the meaning of the lyrics in relation to the scripture.  ("Our Primary Colors" and "A Happy Helper" from the Children's Songbook also reference Mosiah 2:17)

When I showed them the scripture references after each hymn, they were very interested.  As we were reading the lyrics, one of the children said, "Hey!  This is a poem!"  We talked about how hymns really are poems and usually rhyme.  If you use the scripture, the words to the song, and maybe a personal story, you have a talk all ready to give.

Today one of the children celebrated a birthday!  We played Pin the Nose on the Clown and ate cupcakes to celebrate!

See you next time!