Making Paper Journals

I found a tutorial on A Beautiful Mess, for making paper journals that is fast and incredibly easy to make. You can make them to any size and with any amount of paper inside that you want/need. There are a lot of uses for making these paper journals, they can be made well within the hour time constraint of a Young Women, Activity Day, Cub Scout or Relief Society meeting. What is so great about these is all of the putting together is done first with decorating after, meaning people do not go home with a halfway completed project.

Currently I am working with the Bear Den in our local Cub Scout pack, and for one of their requirements they need to keep a daily record of their activities for two weeks. (Bear Book Pg. 142, requirement 18c.) We put in 7 half sheets of paper to make for 13 spreads. This way the boys had a spread for each day they needed to write down their daily activities, except the 14th day, and they had one sheet on the back of the 13th day to journal. Making journals was really fun for the boys and they really got into decorating them with stickers and colored pencils and picking out paper, though they did need help punching through 8 pieces of paper, but all in all, we as leaders could sit back and let them be creative. There was a lot of talking and laughing from the boys, which they enjoyed as did we.

As the boys worked on these journals the leaders and parents had a meeting about planning scouts for the summer, this was a great activity for the boys to do while leaders and parents had a discussion. If we were to do this again, I think I would have had an older sibling of one of the boys be there to answer questions and help boys punch holes in paper while parents and leaders had a meeting. All in all it was a very successful activity and I think the boys are excited to write in their journals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother’s Day Dinner

For Mother’s Day we decided to have a mother’s dinner. We spent one activity night planning the menu and entertainment. We also had them write a letter to their mom’s to give to them at the dinner. Our girls decided to make potato soup, salad, rolls and apple pie. The Sunday before the dinner I passed out the official invites to the party though I had already talked to almost every mom about it casually before that.

I had the mother’s drop girls off at 5pm with the mom’s arriving for dinner at 6:30pm. The girls peeled and cut potatoes and apples, washed and cut salad, made homemade croutons, diced peppers, stirred soup, and warmed up rolls. It was pretty crazy, but all the girls were willing to help even though most of them had never used a knife before, but don’t worry we made it out just fine with no cuts or accidents! We also had food ready to go about 20 minutes before the appointed time and the girl’s took that time to practice songs they would sing and put together a quick skit.

We moved my kitchen table out on the patio since the weather was pretty nice. The girls served their mom’s each course and sang a song while putting food and plates and bowls on the table. The moms really enjoyed not having to get out of their seats for anything and just getting to chat. With each course that was served I let the mom’s know which girls had worked on it, the girls loved working in the kitchen and making new things. Most of the girls were timid about preparing food at first but quickly dropped their reservations and got right in there to help.

After dessert plates were cleared the girls gave their mom’s the letter they had written previously and a Toblerone mini’s chocolate. Following that the girl’s finally were calm enough to eat salad, rolls and potato soup and pie in the backyard while mom’s relaxed and talked some more. It was a very fun, successful activity, I had several of the mom’s say that they really enjoyed it and had a wonderful time talking with the other ladies.

You could use this activity to pass off a requirement in the girl’s Faith in God booklets, “preparing and serving a nutritious meal.” I figured that our meal wasn’t that nutritious so we didn’t pass it off but it gave the girls tons of confidence in the kitchen to hopefully now do it at home.

FIG Family Home Evening Kits: The First Vision

Recently we put together family home evening kits on the First Vision, helping to pass off teaching a family home evening on the first vision in the Gospel Living Section of their Faith in God booklets. It took a lot of looking and doing, but I found some blogs and lds.org pictures to use for these kits.

Each girl received a gallon sized bag with the FHE outline, a printed and laminated sacred grove and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and Joseph talking to a preacher. Also in the gallon bag were pictures of Joseph Smith, a girl praying, and The Book of Mormon that needed cut out and colored. Also in the bag, a colored marker they were to use on the back of their images, each girl had a different color, that way we could keep each girl’s pictures straight while cutting, laminating and putting them in the kits.

The pdf includes directions and black and white illustrations for the girls to color. I did a mix of illustrated and coloring images because of 2 reasons: 1- time, and 2- reverencing heavenly figures. We a have a couple girls who just throw color on images and I wanted Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ to remain heavenly.

FHE Outline and coloring pictures: FIG First Vision FHE Packet with coloring pictures and instructions. The instructions I got from this blog post, I did however change them slightly.

Colored pictures from lds.org:

After the girls colored and cut out the pictures I had them number the backs to correspond with the written FHE outline.

We then laminated the pictures and used some velcro dots to stick Heavenly Father and Jesus along with a praying Joseph Smith to the sacred grove.

 

To help complete the FHE we included two bags of popcorn as the FHE treat! The girls had a wonderful time making these bags and learning more about the restoration.

Scripture Reading Chart & Bookmarks

Our bishop has challenged us as a ward to read the entire Book of Mormon from January 1st-May 1st. So I took that challenge to the girls during our first activity of the year. We invited the sister missionaries to come to activity days to issue the girls a challenge to read and also talk about the importance of gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon at their age. I found a scripture reading chart here, (it wasn’t easy to find!) made a copy of it for each girl and challenged them to read the Book of Mormon with the goal of finishing by May 1st, but if they didn’t finish by May to keep going until they had finished it. What I love about this chart is that each leaf represents a chapter in each book and they can color in the leafs and books as they go along. For our activity we made bookmarks for them to use while reading!

Bookmark Supplies:

-Felt

-Ribbon

-Felt Stickers (you can find these in the craft aisle of your local Super Walmart)

-Embroidery Floss

-Needles

-Sewing Scissors

We really let the girls use their imaginations, several of them ended up trying for quantity rather than quality, but we ended up with some awesome creations! The girls really loved this activity and asked that we do it again some time.

Sewing Cards

I found these adorable sewing cards on Homemade Charlotte and since most of our girls have the sewing bug, I thought these would be a great way for them to practice. You simply print out cards on card stock, have each girl poke holes with their needles, then thread needles and let them sew! The girls took all my extras home to do over the long weekend they had coming up. Just a warning that Ida Braids was the most popular card among our girls, you may want to bring a few more of those than the rest!

I talked a member of the primary presidency about displaying the girls’ completed cards on the primary bulletin board. She thought that was a fantastic idea and so I made this display.

This sewing activity falls under the Faith in God, Developing Talents section.

A few samples of the girls’ work.

Activity Day Leader Ideas: Activity Planning Sheet

I created a simple yet helpful Activity Planning Sheet, that has really helped me in my activity planning and brainstorming. I like to cover my bases, so to speak, and this sheet helps me do that from supplies to brainstorming to which Faith in God requirement we can pass off with our activity.

Bead Necklaces

I came across a very cute idea at The Idea Room, bead necklaces! So cute, so fun and with the distinct possibility of mess but with a time and mess-saving tip. The activity day girls were very excited to make these and they turned out awesome! These necklaces fell under the create your own section in Developing Talents.

Since we were dealing with layers of wet paint we broke this activity into two with painting beads taking up one activity day night, and the second we modge podged and strung them. The Idea Room’s step by step instructions are awesome, I did a few things different though since we weren’t completing this project in one sitting.

1. I reminded parents the Sunday before as well as the day of the activity for girls to wear clothes or aprons that they could get paint on. Kate (my assistant leader) and I both brought extra shirts and aprons for anyone who forgot to wear old clothes.

2. The wood beads can be pricey for 10 girls so we did 5 beads per necklace and they turned out great, they didn’t look sparse at all.  We also limited paint to 5 colors and ribbon colors to 3 which ended up perfect for our girls.

3. Acrylic paint STAINS so be sure to cover any tables with paper or plastic table cloths!

4. I definitely suggest bringing skewers for the girls or you will have a ridiculous amount of messy fingers on your hands. Helpful Tip: Use the skewers for any polka dots the girls may want to do. It makes it so much faster and consistent, not to mention much less frustrating for any perfectionists.

5. If I were to do this activity again I probably bring a small fan to dry the beads faster.

6. You will want to have some fray check and sewing scissors for the ribbon when you string them.

The girls had an absolute blast doing this activity. They talked and were so good to compliment each other on their designs. It’s great to see smiling faces!