Family Proclamation Blocks

I have seen quite a few of these online but I wanted ours to be a little more classy yet easy enough for young girls to do. The writing can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6-SGz_Y1u-jYlpVdElkSGJNcDg/view?usp=sharing Instructions: 1) The blocks are on 2x8 wood (length depends on how many you are needing to make) cut into 10" chunks. Home Depot will cut them into chunks for...

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Bring an Ancestor to Activity Days

I forewarned the girls about this one. Each girl was to tell about an ancestor of theirs. They could dress up, bring an artifact, show pictures, tell a story, whatever they wanted. Each girl took a few minutes to show us what they brought and tell us about their ancestor. We learned lots of fascinating things about each girl's family and had a fun time in the process. I brought family trees for the girls to fill in if we had time but the stories ended up taking our entire ho...

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Zoo Trip

We like to have one all day field trip every year. This year we decided to go to the San Francisco Zoo. Even though Sacramento is closer to us, it is not as nice and we thought it would be worth the little extra time in the car. If you are going on field trip, be sure to get permission from your bishop and have permission slips for each girl attending. It is also a really good idea to make some...

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Father / Daughter Water Games

BBQ + water + dads + girls = too much fun to handle!!! We started off the evening with hamburgers and goofing off (I had one dad in a tree...sent photographic evidence to his wife). Then the real fun began. We had three events: First: Super Soaker Fill Up Each father/daughter team is given a large water gun and a cup. They each stand about 8 feet apart and they have 30 seconds to shoot as much...

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Flower Headbands

I had several design options for the girls but all gravitated toward this one... https://www.pinterest.com/pin/284078688965234307/ We kept it simple, just a few different colors and patterns of ribbon and a few different colored headbands. Simple...easy...do...

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Mother / Daughter Pajama Party

PAJAMA PARTY!!! You know any time you get a bunch of girls together in their pajamas, there is fun times to be had. We began with pizza and pajama ballets. I handed out ballets to each person and had votes for both moms and girls. There were categories like "best animal print" "most fuzzy" "best themed" etc. Once pizza and ballets were finished we had three games. First: Tin Foil Dresses Each...

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Mother's Day Gifts

I have some really creative girls. Giving them free reign over their project can be both scary and exciting at the same time. We decided to make necklaces for their moms to give them at our Mother/Daughter activity. I had a variety of beads and a few examples of what they could do and asked them to keep in mind that these were for their mom and not themselves but basically make what you want. We had...

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Easter Scrap Wreaths

Decorating for any holiday can be fun. Personal touches are even better. Since it was coming up on Easter, I wanted to do something both easy and pretty. Easter scrap wreaths seemed the perfect idea. The instructions can be found on pinterest here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/518758450802893792/ I cut all the fabric ahead of time so all that had to be done was tie the fabric strips to the wreath...

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Gardening (again)

There were a few activities that I did with the older girls when were split into two groups. We have since recombined into one group and the older girls have either graduated into Young Women's or have moved away. This gives me an opportunity to revisit some activities and do a bit better the second time around. In my home, early spring means preparing the garden. We weed and lay down compost and once it gets warm enough, we start planting. Learning how to garden is a very important part of both...

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Star Gazing

Constellations have always fascinated me. I love to look up at the stars and see all the shapes and admire the beauty Heavenly Father created in the sky. I have a pretty good telescope that I really hoped to use with the girls but light contamination pretty much ruined that for us, so we did what we could with what we were given. I found several kid friendly websites that showed pictures of some...

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Valentines for the Single Senior Sisters

Like our mini pumpkin activity back in October, we wanted to something else special for the senior widows. Since any time I bring out colorful paper, scissors, markers, stickers, glue sticks, and glitter paint, the girls go crazy, I thought I would put that crazy to good use. I pretty much laid all the stuff out on a table and let them go to town. By the end of the night we had about twenty valentines...

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Reach for the Stars Awards Night

I think Awards Night is my most favorite activity of the year. It is also my least favorite activity of the year. I love it because it is great to see all the girls have accomplished and reward them for it. I love it because we get to involve the parents and show them some of the amazing things their girls have done. I love it because it is always beautiful, spiritual, delicious, fun, and amazing....

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Health & Hygiene

As these girls get older, it is important for them to understand how to take care of their bodies both inside and out. Nutrition is often discussed but hygiene not as much beyond take a shower and brush your teeth. That's all a kid needs right? Probably not. We started off by playing a little memory game. We had a bunch of hygiene products on a table and the girls had one minute to look at them all and try to remember as many as possible before the table was covered up. Most of them got about half...

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Girl's Binders

With the start of the new year, I had several goals in mind that I wanted to encourage with the girls. I felt strongly that one of the ways I could make Activity Days a better learning experience was with making binders for each of the girls that would encourage memorizing the Articles of Faith, daily scripture study, and keeping personal journals. I found some mini binders on amazon.com that have...

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