Caroling

We had a few new families move into our ward recently and also our Primary Chorister had a new baby. We decided to deliver Christmas cookies and sing carols to them. All the girls wore santa hats and they picked out some of their favorite carols. Since we were driving to the various residences, we had to get permission slips from all the girls (make sure you get permission from ward leaders before doing an activity where driving is involved). The girls had fun and in the end we ended up going a little over our time because the girls wanted to keep singing for people.

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Christ Centered Christmas

I was giving this calling just before the Christmas activity last year (that I had no part of planning). There was a white elephant gift exchange and lots of candy and in the end there were some super hyped up girls running amuck and a few girls with hurt feelings because their gift got swiped per the rules of the white elephant gift game. In the end I felt like we had almost completely driven the spirit away. I did not want to ever go through that again so for this year we decided to keep it Christ centered, no gifts, no candy, and actually learn something.
First we watched the nativity video the church put out. Next we talked about all the symbolism in Christmas. Finally we made baby Jesus ornaments. The girls still had a lot of fun (a couple said it was their favorite activity of the year) yet we kept the spirit very strongly there. Win!!!
The instructions for the ornament can be found here:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/518758450799096270/

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Cake Decorating

You might be thinking that I have an unfair advantage for this activity since I am a former pro pastry chef. Chances are there is someone in your ward who has taken the Wilton cake decorating classes and can teach your girls some very simple basics. I had several different tips for the pastry bags and several different colors of icing for them to practice with. We learned a couple of simple chains, simple writing, and a simple flower. I baked a little 6" cake for each of the girls and after practicing on wax paper for a while, I let them go to town on their cakes. In the end we had a wide variety of cakes from very simple elegance all the way to more icing than cake. The girls loved getting their tasty creativity on.

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The Big Split

For a while we had such a big group that we had split them up into 2 groups (8&9 year olds and 10&11 year olds). For 2 weeks the older girls worked on sewing some super cute owls (in retrospect we should have sewn parts of them less and used fabric glue to save time). Each girl got to pick out her own colors and pattern ahead of time and I had all the pieces already cut out for them. I also sewed the front and back together on the sewing machine for them. The pattern can be found here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/69453030/hooo-ray-owl-pattern?ref=sr_gallery_9&ga_search_query=felt+owl+pattern&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery

Meanwhile, the younger girls did a book club the first week and made friendship bracelets the next.

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End of Summer Swim Party

They can't all be educational. It's the end of the summer. What more can we say.

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Pioneer Day

I wish I could give you more details on this one but I was out of town and my partners in crime handled this. I know they did some cross stitch and some homemade ice cream in a bag. Sorry, I can't be more help on this one.

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Father Daughter Water Balloon Tournament

16 girls + 16 dads + 500 water balloons = more fun than we can handle!!!
4 events:
1) water balloon bucket fill (throw water balloons against a backdrop to make them explode and collect the water into a bucket below)
2) water balloon toss (toss water balloons between girl and dad getting further and further apart)
3) water cup on head relay (fill cup, race with it on head, fill up bucket, run back and tag your partner and keep going until bucket is filled to the line)
4) soaker ball sling shot (girls shoot soaker balls with sling shot while dad tries to catch them, as many as can in 1 minute)
extra - lots of extra water balloons, a bunch of water guns, buckets with water, bubbles, a lot of really soaked people
BEST. ACTIVITY. EVER!!!

Thank you to my amazing sister who took all these pictures (Alisa Duenas Photography)

http://www.alisaduenas.com

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Mother Daughter Spa Night

Spa night was a blast. We made sugar scrubs and bath salts, talked about natural beauty treatments and enjoyed each other's company. We made a few cleansers and masks to demonstrate and then we drew names to take them home to enjoy. Mother/Daughter time is the best.

Thank you to my amazing sister who took all these pictures (Alisa Duenas Photography)

http://www.alisaduenas.com

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Articles of Faith Jeopardy

Articles of Faith Jeopardy was a lot of work to set up but really fun to play. Idea can be found here:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/518758450798591323/

I am a little OCD when it comes to having things look nice and uniform as well as convenient and easy. I can't remember why, but it seemed like at the time I did this there were a couple problems with the instructions on the link and I ended up reworking part of it. If you have problems with the other instructions, you can always use what I ended up setting up:
answers:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6-SGz_Y1u-jQ1Q3dGxRZzl1QWM/edit?usp=sharing
numbers:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6-SGz_Y1u-jV2EwZVVFQTMzcUU/edit?usp=sharing
part 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6-SGz_Y1u-jTVZBTmhzanBFMkU/edit?usp=sharing
part 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6-SGz_Y1u-jWW8zRTFLeUxUaU0/edit?usp=sharing
part 3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6-SGz_Y1u-jV2xmUmZiS1RIYzA/edit?usp=sharing

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Gardening...

Every girl should know at least a little about growing their own food. I found a great website for kids and gardening and used the info I found to make little books for each of the girls. The talked about what makes good soil, when to plant what, how much to water, how much sunlight, how to know when things are ripe, etc. If we had done this activity in March I probably would have had them plant seeds. It is April, however, so I got some inexpensive starter plants and each girl got to plant it in a pot to take home. Let me tell you, girls love to play in the dirt…and so do certain grown ups.
The link to the website I got my info from is here:

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/basics/index.cfm

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Family Home Evening

For our Family Home Evening activity, we made FHE assignment charts and talked about why we have FHE. We had a simple pattern to follow and with the addition of lots of different paper and color options, the girls made each chart uniquely their own.
The idea can be found here:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/126311964519626606/

Here are some of the fruits of our artistic labors.

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Step 1...

Though I grew up in this ward, it has been 14 years since I lived here. I don't know these girls. I don't really know most of their parents. I am semi out of touch with today's kids. I needed a crash course in who they are as individuals and as a group.

"Family Feud: Get To Know You" was a great way to do this. I made questionnaires for each of the girls to fill out that included both fun and church related subjects (favorite color, favorite movie, favorite family vacation, favorite scripture, favorite Book of Mormon hero, etc.). After that it was your standard Family Feud style game. We divided into teams and they took turns coming up with answers.

Since we also needed a lesson in all of this, we talked about the importance of being yourself and that it is okay to be different from everyone else around you. As the pressure from around us gets stronger and stronger to conform to the worldly views, it is important to know that while standing for truth and righteousness may sometimes be at odds with the world, it will bring us true joy that can only be achieved in righteousness.

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In the beginning...

If you are anything like me, you find it a little difficult to be thrown into a calling you know nothing about and are left to sink or swim. Activity Days was that calling for me. I was not familiar with the program (it didn't exist when I was that age) and there wasn't really anyone to show me the ropes. Google became my best friend in teaching me what to do and now I feel it is time to pay it forward so to speak. Here is my journey in learning what it means to be an Activity Days leader, growing to love a group of spectacular little girls, and strengthening my testimony in magnifying one's calling.

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