Activity Days: Healthy Lifestyle

We started this activity off with Stake Leaders coming to observe us. I think it was a little overwhelming just preparing for that! It ended up being only one leader and she works at the kids elementary school as the librarian so nothing to worry about in the end.

Physical Bodies
We talked about the Plan of Salvation including the connection of our physical and spiritual bodies. We used a glove to explain this. Next we placed categories were placed on the wall and there was a basket full of items to be categorized.

• Exercise: running shoes, jump rope, ball
  
• Healthy Foods: apple, nuts, water bottle
• Good Hygiene: Soap, toothpaste, toothbrush
  
• Protecting our bodies: sunglasses, sunscreen, lotion
• Rest: pillow, blanket
• Things to avoid: cigarettes (picture), beer (picture)

We discussed the need for living a healthy lifestyle and allowed the girls to give their ideas but also made sure they knew additional benefits too.

Spiritual Bodies
We used an object lesson to help them better understand what a healthy spirit entails verses an unhealthy spirit. First we placed ice cream which represented our clean spirit and then added toppings:

• Kindness = chocolate syrup
• Scripture reading = bananas
• Obedience = caramel sauce
• Prayer = chocolate sprinkles
• Family Home Evening = strawberry sauce

This entails a healthy spirit and then if we add other items:

• Cruelty = mustard
• Lying = dog food
• Bad words = dirt

The spirit is quickly contaminated and without the atonement of the Savior we cannot remove these from our spirits. With repentance we can be made clean again and enjoy our healthy spirit. We let the girls prepare their own "healthy spirit"!

Activity Days: Modesty

We had quite the crew today with 10 Activity Day girls! I started out reading from the Strength of Youth pamphlet regarding dress and appearance:

Servants of God have always counseled his children to dress modestly to show respect for him and for themselves. Because the way you dress sends messages about yourself to others and often influences the way you and others act, you should dress in such a way as to bring out the best in yourself and those around you. However, if you wear an immodest bathing suit because it's "the style," it sends a message that you are using your body to get attention and approval, and that modesty is not important.

Immodest clothing includes short shorts, tight pants, and other revealing attire. Young women should refrain from wearing off-the-shoulder, low-cut, or revealing clothes. Young men should similarly maintain modesty in their dress. All should avoid tight fitting or revealing clothes and extremes in clothing and appearance.

As Latter-day Saint youth, you can also show respect for the Lord and yourselves by dressing appropriately for Church meetings and activities, whether on Sunday or during the week. If you are not sure what's appropriate, ask for guidelines from your parents, advisers, and bishop.

I then showed the girls pictures of women wearing immodest clothing and asked them what was wrong with what these women wore. They quickly caught on with things like: her shoulders are naked or her skirt is too short. I think it helped to see the models instead of just talking about the clothing.

Next we had the girls pair up, this was done with assistance as two girls both wanted to be partners with the same girl. They traced out one of them on newsprint and were told to create a modest outfit using scrapbook paper, crayons, glue, glitter, yarn, pipe cleaners, etc. They worked together in these little teams which was great. Everyone seemed to get their creative juices flowing. It was a good activity which kept them happy while learning at the same time.

This idea came from http://ldsactivitydayideas.blogspot.com/2009/09/modesty.html

Activity Days: Articles of Faith

Our new years resolution for Activity Days is to focus more on the Articles of Faith. I've found this past year that we have fulfilled many of the areas for the Faith in God award but have somewhat neglected our focus on the Articles of Faith. We have added two girls to our group making our current roll call up to 10 girls ages between 8 and 9 years old and what a crew!!! Today I focused our attention on the Articles of Faith by first giving the girls the challenge to memorize all the Articles of Faith by the end of the year. I offered them a small treat at the beginning of each of our activities if they can recite one article of faith perfectly to me. I am hoping that after a few people start passing them off the others will feel the motivation if needed. We then played an Article of Faith matching game. I found this activity in the October 1996 Friend magazine which I printed off and glued to card stock, it was a bit small so I would enlarge it if you plan on using it. After our experience with the girls not really quite knowing the Articles of Faith yet, the idea at sugardoodle.net of using just the Article of Faith number and a keyword would have worked out better, especially with the review at the beginning. I also made flash cards of the Articles of Faith for the girls to use at home. This seemed to take up most all of our time and we weren't able to get to any other activities but there are plenty more games/activities using Articles of Faith that you can find.

Activity Days: Christmas Orange & Symbols of Christmas

The girls started out by watching the DVD of the Christmas Oranges. It was a very sweet story and a great book for children. The girls all talked about how it made them feel inside. Sue had a packet for each girl with symbols for Christmas including a copy of the document from Especially for Mormons describing each symbol and the purpose behind them. The girls colored, cut out their symbols and placed them back in the packets to share with their families for Family Home Evening. We also had sugar cookies to decorate at the end.

Activity Days: Sewing wonderful pigs

For Activity Days this week we read this little book, the Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs about a little girl named Jillian Jiggs and her amazing pigs that she makes from old stockings. We then followed the instructions at the back of the book making the wonderful pigs. There is a lot of learning for the girls to do and I thought it would be a great way for them to learn a little bit about sewing. It ended up taking about 1hour and 45 minutes rather than a regular hour long. The girls still seemed to enjoy themselves. They learned how to sew a button on, a running stitch, they either drew or stitched on a mouth and tied on little feet. A couple of the girls really got into it but some just wanted to have the finished pig handed to them. I think it ended up being a learning experience for all of us.

Activity Days: Temples

We took the girls over to the temple grounds and walked around so they could see the different symbols, talked about getting a temple recommend, worthiness, sealings, eternal families and baptisms for the dead by proxy. There was a couple who came out all decked out in their wedding apparel. This was a great way for the girls to realize that one day they wanted to walk out of the temple doors with their husband too! We then took them a little further away from the temple and took pictures of the girls with the temple in the background. The small visitors center has lots of things to help us learn more about the temple. We watched a video regarding the sanctity of families and the importance of eternal families. The girls loved looking at the Christus and we took a group picture in front after listening to the presentation by the sister missionaries.

Activity Days: Prayer

This idea came from: LDSActivityDayIdeas.blogspot.com

We began by discussing when to pray and remember to really talk with our Heavenly Father instead of just saying the same thing over and over. We gave the girls a paper and pencil. We told them to take a few minutes and write down the things they could pray about. We then had them share their first idea with the group. We then talked about how sometimes we can't hear the Spirit, even though we are doing good things.

We did a coupl object lessons to help them understand these concepts a little better. First: We told them it was Saturday and that we they preparing for Sunday by playing church music - the church music represented the spirit of the Holy Ghost. Using a CD player we played a song quietly for a second. Then we had one of the girls turn a vacuum on. We could no longer hear the music so we turned it up above the noise of the vacuum. While that was going, we had another girl play with the baby. We then had the other girls talk with each other but no one could hear! Although everything that was going on were good things, when we don't take time to listen and pay attention to the spirit, we will let the world distract us from our what our Heavenly Father has to teach us.

Second: We paired the girls off in two with partners that they don't normally hang around with. We gave them about 1 minute to talk to each other, study each others voices and come up with a plan. They were going to have to find each other without saying each others names and without seeing each other. We then had one girl from each partnership go with me and the other with my partner. We had took them in my backyard and blindfolded them. They then were told to find each other. They loved it! We told them this was like trying to listen to the spirit and recognizing it.

Next we had the girls come inside and decorate prayer rocks. That got a little crazy with painting and all but they enjoyed themselves. I hope they remembered a little about what they learned about prayer and now are to say the prayers for FHE to pass off Learning and Living the Gospel #5.

Activity Days: Grooming & Hygiene

This week for Activity Days we talked about personal hygiene & grooming. First of all we had a skit where we had one leader dressed nicely and all clean and the other leader was a wreck, hair and all. I got to be the messy leader. Then the girls picked out items from a basket and we discussed their use and the importance of our appearance. We finished off with manicures and pedicures plus a healthy snack. The girls loved painting each others nails!

Activity Days: Paper Heart Attack

We needed to complete some type of service activity and my original plan was to pick up trash on the streets of the neighborhood or local park and then do ice cream in a bag but it was way too hot! I went with a paper heart attack, this is where you cut out paper hearts and write messages to the person you will be attacking. We chose the primary presidency in which we thanked them for all their hard work. We also made rice crispy treats which we left at their doorsteps and covered their doors with the paper hearts, then we knocked on the door and ran. The girls enjoyed all the work but really struggled leaving the rice crispy treats. We had to send them back after knocking at each house because they kept walking off with the treats instead of leaving them on the porch. It was rather silly of them! They enjoyed a rice crispy treat after.

Activity Days: Cupcake Decorating

We reviewed the twelfth article of faith:We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

Then learned some techniques to cake decorating. The girls loved using all the different icing tips and goofing around. They were more thrilled to eat their creations than anything else!

Activity Days: CTR Hemp Bracelets

Ideas found at mormonshare.com: A short lesson to teach them to learn to sing the Hymn, Choose the Right, understand the importance of choosing the right, and making a ctr bracelet to constantly remind them to do so. Activity Description:We followed the "Living and Learning the Gospel" suggestion to learn how to sing the hymn "Choose the Right" by playing a game. The game was played similar to musical chairs or hot potato, only the "potato" was a chewy candy wrapped in several layers that had the lines written on them. (Note: Make sure the lines are rather simple using only one line of the song at a time) When the music played, the potato was passed around. When the music stopped, the person left holding it had to recite or sing all parts that had been unwrapped until then. The winner was the person who was able to recite/sing the entire song without help. The chewy candy was to remind them to "Chews the Right."Next we played a "Sink or Swim" lesson found in an LDS Family Home Evening book that consisted of choices or situations they could face and whether they would sink or swim depending on the choice they made. Afterward, we braided hemp bracelets and weaved alphabet beads into them that spelled CTR. The girls had fun learning how to braid hemp bracelets for one, but also, knowing they made their own CTR bracelet and knowing the significance of it was fun for them. We used the Klutz book Hemp Bracelets for guidance, it is a wonderful book with thorough instructions! The girls were excited to know they could do this at home.

Activity Days: Manners

We discussed different situations where we use our manners. Talked about the importance of manners and had a little role playing. We then practiced using good manners while having cupcakes and juice. Who isn't willing to do a little work when there is a treat involved!?!

Activity Days: Recognition Night

We had a wonderful Recognition Night for the girls. It was a Mother/Daughter Luau. It started with everyone watching Johnny Lingo, which is a fun movie about the value of a woman. We were even served popcorn to go with the movie. We then had the Luau with Hawaiian Haystacks for the main course and pineapple upside down cake for dessert. We had a hula hoop contest mother verses daughter. Of course the girls were much better than the moms. It worked out and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves!

Activity Days: Making Posters

We had all the girls bring their scriptures to activity days. We fulfilled Learning & Living the Gospel #3: Mark these verses about the Holy Ghost in your scriptures: John 14:16-17, 2 Nephi 32:5, and Moroni 10:5. We also discussed the different ways the Holy Chost can help our lives. We made posters to represent the different areas of Activity Days:

Learning & Living the Gospel
Serving Others
Developing Talents
Preparing for Young Womens

The girls were excited to decorate the posters to be displayed at Recognition Night. Once were done with Recognition Night we can move on to the next fun things! I also made some fun sugar cookies for the girls to eat when we finished up.

Activity Days: Painting

For Activity Days we had the girls finish up their sculptures and start painting them to display at our Recognition Night. They really loved getting all creative with paint colors and decorating. We've had a couple girls miss the past activities so we'll have to have a makeup day to get these girls all caught up.

Activity Days: Sculpting with clay

We will be having our recognition night for Activity Days in June and I thought it would be a great time to work on some art projects. Developing Talents #4 Make an item from wood, metal, fabric, or other material, or draw, paint, or sculpt a piece of art. Display your finished work for others to see. We will be working on our art pieces for the next couple of Activities so they will be ready to be displayed at our Recognition Night. The girls really struggled at first coming up with their ideas but once they decided what to make they were off! I found this great website: http://fun.familyeducation.com/ which had many different recipes for sculpting clay. I tried the Modeling Clay recipe which turned out great! Next activity we will be painting the sculptures.

While the girls were busy creating I decided to make edible play dough as a treat for them to enjoy. It was very easy and the girls loved it!

Yummy Edible Play Dough

16 oz can of prepared white frosting
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
Food Coloring


Mix first two ingredients until thoroughly combined. Gradually knead in sugar until stiff. Knead in Food Color and then add addition sugar if sticky. Makes 3 cups. This recipe comes from Rondi. Thanks!

Activity Days: Mother's Day Cards

This idea came from myself.

In the Faith in God book one suggested activity for Serving Others is to write a letter to a teacher, your parents, or your grandparents telling them what you appreciate and respect about them. I decided to have the girls make Mother's Day cards for their moms including what they respect and appreciate about them. They absolutely love to get all the craft things out and make projects so this was a hit! We used glitter glue sticks, colored paper, jeweled brads, stickers, ribbon and their creativity to come up with some very darling little cards. Once they dried they wrote what they appreciated about their moms and will present them to their moms on Mother's Day or anyday for that matter.

Activity Days: Article of Faith Easter Egg Hunt

This idea came from the Sugar Doodle website and was a major hit with the girls. Katelyn hid the eggs for me and was a little too good at it! I included all three different ways of doing this activity! http://www.sugardoodle.net/Articles%20of%20Faith/AOFEasterEggHunt.shtml

1. Divide everyone into two teams. Place all of the articles of faith on the same color paper. Choose a color for each team. Place the articles in the eggs with the candy. Tell everyone that they may only keep the color of their team. If they find another color have them replace it into the egg and move on. When the team has assembled all 13 pieces of paper have them place the articles in order. So by now you know that you do not place a number on the article. The team has to work together to order the articles. First team to have all the articles in order is the winner. (Kate)

2. What I did was print two copies of the Articles of Faith cards without the numbers and cut them out into individual articles. I had 42 old plastic eggs, which I could divide by "warm colors" and "cool colors" (pink, yellow, orange and green, blue, purple) into 2 teams. I put each Articles of Faith in an egg, along with some candy, for the other eggs, I just put candy (no chocolate, because we live in AZ). Then I hid the eggs in my backyard. Each team had to find only their color eggs, and then, when all were found, dump out each egg into a bowl, get the papers, and number the articles from one to thirteen. Then they split the candy evenly into Ziploc baggies. (Amanda Evans)

3. I did one the other day that turned out pretty well. I divided each Article of Faith up into seven pieces. Then I numbered the eggs. Each girl was assigned specific numbers to look for. For example, one had to look for eggs number 1, 2, and 3. It was a lot of fun because they tried to not let the other girls see where they were looking if the egg wasn't theirs. Anyway, after all the eggs were found then we went in and tried to put them into order. I of course helped, I had a couple of older girls who happened to be there and so they helped the younger ones. After they were done putting them into order we read them out loud to make sure we put them together right. The 13th egg I divided so each girl had to find only 2 pieces of it and then we put it in order together. It was a lot of fun! (Cathy Updike)

I baked sugar cookies for the girls to decorate but they had so much fun finding the eggs and seeing who could solve the scrambled Articles of Faith that we just ate them without decorating and enjoyed the good weather instead! This definitely keeps them occupied and having lots of fun together!

Activity Days: Lip Gloss and Kindness

Summary:
Make home made lip gloss and use the poem to teach a lesson on kindness. Good unity activity.

Activity Description:
M'Shelle D.'s activity days class made home made lip gloss and then had a lesson on kindness, relating to the cute poem:

LIP GLOSS POEM
I have this pot of lip gloss,
I'll put some on each day.
I do it to remind me
To choose the words I say.

I'll try to speak with kindness
to everyone I meet.
I'll try to spread some happiness
to those that I may greet.

This pot of gloss reminds me
of the values I hold dear,
The colors are so cheerful
and the message is so clear.

If I want to live the gospel
I'll choose each word I say
I'll speak in just the kindest words
and I won't forget to pray!


Click on this link for a cute handout of the poem to give the girls: http://www.mormonshare.com/sites/default/files/images/LipGloss.pdf
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I found many recipes for homemade lip-gloss:

Recipe for Homemade Lip Gloss
2 T Petroleum Jelly or Vaseline
1 t Beeswax
10-14 drops flavored extract

In a small pot, melt the petroleum jelly, and then when melted, add beeswax. When melted, remove from heat then add extract. Carefully pour into small containers.
Note: Glitter can also be sprinkled on top!
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Lip Gloss

Materials:
Vegetable shortening,
honey,
unsweetened drink mix (eg. Kool-Aid),
hot water

Instructions:
1. Use a small bowl to mix 1 tbsp of the solid vegetable shortening and 1 tsp of honey. In a separate bowl, mix the drink mix and 1/4 tsp of hot water until it is dissolved. Stir in as much of the drink mix as possible. The actual amount will depend on the temperature of water. The more you can dissolve, the stronger the flavour will be.

2.You can choose the color and flavor of you lip gloss by the type of drink mix you use.

3. Add one drop of the water mixture to the shortening/honey base. Stir well. Repeat until you get the color/flavor combination you want. Pour into a clean container or old lip gloss pot.

4. Store in the refrigerator. Keeps for 3 days, but it tastes so good that you will use it up very fast!

http://www.creativekidsathome.com/activities/activity_40.html
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St. Patrick's Day activity-
Make your own Green Lipstick

Wet & Wild Mega Eyes trio in Amazon Greens
One full tablespoon of Vaseline
A few squirts of pure Vanilla extract
One small pot
One small plastic container with lid
Colored glitter if optional

First step- First place your pot on the stove. Now add a ¼ cup of water to the pot. Bring this almost to a complete boil. Slowly begin to drop your tablespoon of Vaseline into the water. Take a spoon and mix this up for about five minutes until you see the Vaseline completely liquefied.Second step- Remove the mixture off the stove allow it to cool down for 30 seconds. Then place your Green eye shadow and Vanilla into this pot. You should use at least a couple spoonfuls of the eye shadow. I have used the whole rectangle of eye shadow and it made a pretty decent size amount of Green lip gloss for all the little kids in my area last year for St. Patrick's Day.
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Lip-Smacking Good
Make homemade lip-gloss.

You Need:
Vaseline or Crisco: Crisco version goes bad after three days or so
Unsweetened Kool-Aid or any flavored drink mix
Vanilla extract
Cocoa powder
A small mixing bowl
A spoon: For mixing
Measuring spoons
Microwave
Cake decorating glitter: To add a little sparkle.
A container for the lip gloss: Find them at your local craft or beauty supply shop. You may want to pick up a dozen or so.
Stickers: For a label.
Food coloring

How to do it:
1. Have your kid decide what flavor of lip gloss she wants to make before she starts mixing things together.
2. To start, have your kid put some Vaseline (or Crisco) into a (microwaveable) mixing bowl and microwave it for about two minutes—until it's a liquid. Try not to let it boil!
3. If she's making chocolate gloss, have her add cocoa powder to the base and mix and stir it up to get rid of any lumps. She should add as little or as much powder as she wants, keeping in mind the more she adds, the darker the tint will be.
4. Then have her return the mixture to the microwave for another 20 seconds and then stir again.
5. If she wants to make vanilla flavored lip gloss, instead of heating the Vaseline in the mixing bowl, just have her add a tiny amount of vanilla extract to it (like 1/8 teaspoon for every 2 tablespoons of Vaseline).
6. To make red cherry-flavored lip-gloss, warm the Vaseline in the microwave for about 20 seconds, then stir in some cherry Kool-Aid.
7. Your kid can now stir in food coloring to tint her lip-gloss or add cake glitter to make it sparkle. 8. Finally, get her to pour or scrape the mixture into the lip gloss containers and let it cool. (If you've been using the microwave, be careful, it'll be hot!)
9 When she's finished making the lip gloss, have her make some labels for it. She can print or draw a label on paper and stick it on with a glue stick or print or draw one on a sticky blank address label. She can dress her gloss up with stickers, too!
10. That's it! Have her pucker up and slap on some of her homemade lip-gloss. She'll be licking her chops all day long.

Homemade lip-gloss makes a great gift for your kid's girlfriends. Do this DO at your kid's next birthday party. An activity and party favor all in one!
http://www.parentsconnect.com/do/lip-smacking_good.jhtml?cc=10492&psc=10027&mid=null

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Here are a few stories I read to the girls regarding kindness they both have very good morals:
http://www.sugardoodle.net/Anger/Nail%20in%20the%20Fence.shtml
and
http://www.sugardoodle.net/Work,%20Employment/The%20Legend%20of%20the%20King%20and%20the%20Water.shtml

Activity Day Ideas: Family Trees

This idea comes from:
http://jacobus-family.blogspot.com/2008/11/primary-activity-day-family-tree.html


The boys used the family trees they made at Halloween to make these great artful trees to hang on their wall for a Primary Activity Day (that's through the children's program at our church) The leaders did so much precutting work for the kids so they could assemble this nice tree. I can only imagine how many hours they put into this, but see the beautiful results?!