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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