Activity Days: Hands

Our Activity Days night was really enjoyable. The girls seemed to get very excited about the topic of sign language. I had twelve young girls, between the ages of 8 to 11, over at my house last night. They have been a rather large handful lately and always seem to have a hard time settling down! I have researched many websites and found some great ideas to keep their minds occupied. The girls were all smooshed into my front room. Each girl introduced themself as there has been many new faces join us lately. We went over the alphabet in sign language twice and then I had each girl fingerspell her own name while the others girls practiced doing it with them. It got us to practice many letters in the alphabet.

After they thoroughly learned each others names, we watched a video that teaches lots of different signs that you may use everday! It is called "I Want to Learn Sign Language," I checked it out from the library. It was rather cheesy but was wonderful at teaching us signs! They all seemed to enjoy themselves immensely.

As they practiced the many signs while watching this video, I gave them the Jam Filled Butter Cookies. The recipe comes from allrecipes.com one of my personal favorite websites! The cookies were great and they all wanted more! I've included a copy of the recipe if anyone wants to try it.

Jam Filled Butter Cookies
(allrecipes.com)

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
2 egg yolks
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fruit preserves, any flavor

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, white sugar and egg yolks. Mix in flour a little bit at a time until a soft dough forms. Roll dough into 1 inch balls. If dough is too soft, refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes. Place balls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Use your finger or an instrument of similar size to make a well in the center of each cookie. Fill the hole with 1/2 teaspoon of preserves. (put preserves in a ziploc bag and cut a bottom corner to make it easier to fill cookies)
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.