August 11th, 2011 - First Aid and CPR Training
Mark off in Faith in God: Developing Talents
Next Activity: October 18th - Plan for Fall Festival
Bring your ideas for decorating a room at Fall Festival
Since we recently had a lesson about babysitting, I thought it would be a great idea for the girls to learn about basic first aid and CPR. We are fortunate to have a former nurse in our ward, who was more than willing to come and teach the girls. The girls just love having guests come and teach the class.
Sister M. brought a CPR training doll with her that the girls were absolutely fascinated with. Her name is Annie. They each got a chance to perform chest compressions on CPR Annie. We also asked them to bring a baby doll to practice infant CPR.
August 9th, 2011 Activity
Mark off in Faith in God: Developing Talents
Next Activity: August 23rd - Sewing our Scripture Tote Bags
Bring Scissors and any other sewing notions you can use.
It's been a crazy couple of weeks when it comes to Activity Girls. We've had to cancel, re-schedule and come up with a new plan. Different things came into play: girls out of town, conflicts with other organizations, and an almost identical event as we had planned held by the Relief Society. Sigh!
Monday rolled around and I was still trying to figure out what we were going to do. Something my daughter said to me inspired me.
So on Tuesday night, when the girls showed up at the Stake Center, I told them we were going on a field trip. Of course they all wanted to know where we were going but I wouldn't tell them.
I'm such a meanie!So as we were driving along, the girls started speculating. When we were on the freeway, they thought we were going back to my house. Then they thought maybe we were going out for a food treat. Then when we were driving through a residential neighborhood, they thought maybe we were going to one of the absent girls house. Or maybe to a member's house. So I said "Yep, you guessed it. We are going to a member's house and we are going carolling. Have you ever heard of Christmas in August?" "Nooooo" they all reply.
Finally I pulled into a parking lot. The fabric store was right there but they still didn't get it. So, with a completely straight face, I told them I brought them out here cause I was going to teach them how to drive. They actually looked at me for a few seconds with that confused look on their face. You know the one where they are actually trying to figure out if you are serious or not. "Um......Really sister Jordan?"
"Oh yeah! And if you are really good, next week I'll teach you how to hotwire cars!" "Awesome!!!" yelled Miss M! The other girls are now understandably skeptical.
So I finally point out the fabric store and tell them we are going shopping for fabric to sew our own Scripture Tote Bags.
I gave them the following instructions:
(To be on their best behavior, and remember who we were representing)
To pick out two complementary/contrasting fabrics of their choice.
Both fabrics had to be on sale and I limited them to one section of the store.
I was really proud of the girls. They helped each other choose and were on their best behavior. When we went to the cutting table, we asked for half a yard of each fabric. The girls were very polite and thanked the associate that helped us. The cashier was nice enough to bag their fabric choices individually so each girls could hang on to their own.
See Toyota dealer guy.....this is why I need an eight seater van!
I had such a blast shopping with these girls. Their enthusiasm is so contagious.
It was also fun to see the different fabrics that each girl picked out. I felt like I could match the fabric to the girls based on their personalities.Can't wait for us to sew up some cute tote bags.
Hopefully this will encourage the girls to bring their scriptures every Sunday!
July 5th, 2011 Activity
Writing to our PenPals &
Practicing to sing in Sacrament Meeting
Mark off in Faith in God: Developing Talents
Next Activity: July 19th - Cancelled :(
See you August 2nd for the Mommy and Me Tea!
The current author of this blog that I like to visit to get ideas for our Activity Girls broached the idea of matching girls up from different wards to be Pen Pals. It immediately reminded me of my childhood. Remember back in the day when all correspondence was via snail mail? I lived in England at the time and had a Pen Pal in France. I loved sending and receiving letters and learning something about this girl in a different part of the world then me.
I love this idea for many reasons.
- I think it will be so much fun for the girls to get to know other girls their age in a different ward.
- Writing an old fashioned letter is a great skill for them to learn. I encouraged them to use proper punctuation and spelling. (No LOL, BFF etc)
- It passes off a requirement for Faith in God - Developing Talents
Our girls were matched up with some girls from a ward in Cedar Hills Utah.
Each girls wrote a letter on some pretty stationary. We decorated the envelopes. Before we sealed the envelopes, I (or a parent) checked each letter to make sure it didn't include too much personal info. (no last names, phone numbers, email addresses etc) Once we add in some little gifts and photos, it will be sent of to the girls leader in Utah.
June 30th, 2011 Activity
Pool Party
Mark off in Faith in God: Just For Fun!
Next Activity: July 5th - Practice to sing in Sacrament Meeting
& Writing Letters to our Pen Pals.
Meet at 7 p.m. at the Stake Center.
This week we had to move the date of our regularly scheduled Tuesday night meeting because the Youth were attending the Temple on the same night. For the sake of parents sanity, and also because of the terrible gas prices, we try to avoid having parents running kids to all kinds of different locations.
Also, I was on vacation visiting my sister and my Co-Leader wanted to wait to have this party till I was back and boy was I glad she did!!!
This activity didn't really satisfy a requirement in the Faith in God program - It was just for fun! My Co-Leader hosted a swim party for the girls and their families at her home. We had such a blast swimming followed by a yummy dinner of BBQ'ed hamburgers and hotdogs, fresh fruit, chips and dip and the most delicious homemade macaroni and cheese. And did I mention the brownies? Chocolate doesn't really agree with me but they looked soo good, I just couldn't resist trying one! Sister Canaday was most definitely the Hostess with the Mostess!!! Thank you for opening your home to us - everyone had a great time!
June 7th, 2011 Activity
Mark off in Faith in God: Serving Others
and Developing Talents
and Developing Talents
Next Activity: June 30th - Pool Party!
(Hosted by Sister Canaday)
Dads: Don't read until after Father's Day!!
This past week, we helped the girls make candles and cards for gifts for their dad's. We started by making these cute little cards. Each girl picked their own pattern of paper and then I showed them step by step how to fold it. Each one of them added their own unique touch: a bow tie, buttons, a tie or a nametag. Look at the green shirt below - the girlie who made it added a piece of real tissue in the pocket! I love how creative these girls are!
Since we have a few days to spare till Father's Day, we also decorated bags for them to keep their gift in.
We made our own candles from scratch. Not only did we make a handmade gift for the dads but we got to learn a new craft too. Each girls picked out what color candle she wanted as well as the scent. I found a scent which was a knockoff of the cologne "Cool Water." Very manly smelling. Some girls opted to go with more girlie scents like cinnamon bun or caramel apple.
We attached a cute label that said "A Scentimental gift, for a very special Dad"
Happy Father's Day to all the Special Dad's out there.
May 17th, 2011 ActivityMark off in Faith in God: Serving Others
and Living and Learning the Gospel
Next Activity: June 7th - Father's Day Gifts.
(Meet at Sister Jordan's House)
One of the goals of the Activity Girls Program is to help the girls complete Faith In God. The Faith in God program encourages the girls to journal so this week I thought it would be fun for them to decorate their own journals.
We started out with plain wirebound notebooks. Just the simple one subject ones that kids take to school. I printed out their names in different colors and fonts and I supplied scrapbook paper,stickers, ,embellishements, decorative scissors and lots of glue. (I think I need to invest in a few more glue guns!)
I was really impressed with the girls creativity! They had a lot of fun decorating the journals to suit their own personal style.
You know the activity is a success when our time is up for the night and the girls ask if we can stay "Just five more minutes?"
May 3rd, 2011 Activity
Mark off in Faith in God: Service to Others
Tonight was Activity Girls and it was actually my Co-Leaders turn to plan the activity but she called me this morning and said she had Pneumonia. To top it off, my day was already busy baking treats for some of my kids teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. Eek!
Thankfully I had seen this cute idea for a Mother's Day gift a couple of weeks ago.
I found the bath salts and the scrubby sponges at the dollar store. The bath salts were a dollar a jar, and each jar made two sundaes. The scrubby's were two for a dollar and came in white and purple. While at the dollar store I also found some razor's that had cute twirly round handles that kind of looked like straws or maybe the handle of a spoon, and they were five for a dollar.
Next door to the dollar store is a Baskin Robbins and little Ella insisted we stop in for some Cotton Candy ice cream. While we were in there, I asked if I could buy some of their sundae cups. They were only 25 cents apiece and saved me having to hunt for them elsewhere. (I might have indulged in a scoop of ice cream while I was there. It might have come in a waffle cone.)
The only thing I still needed was something for the "cherry on top." I thought about using tiny little red tea light candles but they were kind of expensive. I looked for some red candy but couldn't find anything appealing. While standing in line at the checkout stand at my grocery store, I saw some Ferrero Roche Chocolates and thought that would make a cute topper.
The rest of the stuff, paper to make the little sundae cards, glue sticks, etc I already had in my scrapbooking stash.
The girls and I had a great time making these cute little gifts. Because it's Teacher Appreciation Week some of the girls opted to make them for their teachers instead which I thought was a great idea. We put them in brown paper lunch sacks and tied on the handmade sundae card with some colorful ribbon. They almost looked good enough to eat!
April 19th, 2011
Mark off in Faith in God: Articles of Faith
The weather was not very cooperative tonight. I was sure activities would be cancelled for the night, but they were not. We had really severe weather warnings and I tried to call the girls and cancel last minute, but could not get ahold of everyone, so we set off for the church. It hailed almost all the way there.
I was quite surprised how many girls eventually showed up to the church, so even though we started a little late, we went ahead with a lesson.
To start off, we prepared these baskets:
For our next part of the activity, I had two sets of 26 plastic eggs. I cut up the 13 articles of faith and stuffed them into the eggs along with a piece of candy. My original plan was to have an Egg Hunt, but the tornado sirens kept going off. We ended up just dividing into two teams in the hallway. Each team took a set of eggs, they split the candy between their team and then had to put the Articles of Faith back together.
When we had about 10 mins left, I gave them a printed list of the Articles of Faith to help them along a little. Once we had them all put together, each team took turns reciting them in order.
April 5th, 2011
Back in October, I was released from my big calling as Primary President. Primary is the Children's Organization in our church for children ages 18 mos to 11 years old. Since then my hubby and I had quietly been serving as Ward Missionaries. (Assisting the missionaries serving full time missions) Then Chris, got a new calling as President of the Young Men's Organization which meant I couldn't really serve as a ward missionary anymore. We don't have any full time female missionaries serving in our ward, and the women aren't allowed to go out with the full time male missionaries unless accompanied by another male. I don't know if any of that made any sense, but basically it's a lot easier for a female serving as a ward missionary to do so with her husband as her companion.
So anyway. I was released from my calling as ward missionary. And extended a new calling. As Co Activity Days Leader. Activity Days is a program for the 8-11 year old girls in our church. I was pretty excited because my daughter is currently participating in the program.
My first week with the girls, my co leader prepared the lesson. Since it was close to Easter she brought some cute Easter crafts for them to make. Cute door hangers and picture frames.
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I look forward to working with these sweet girls, they are so much fun!
