Halloween Ideas

I love ORIENTAL TRADING.com they have the cutest and funnest ideas for parties and holiday kits! Great for any holiday, and some of them are really inexpensive if you plan ahead. The girls had a ball making these little ghosts.

Here is the old popcorn hand that most everyone knows how to make but if you add red food coloring to the mix or make carmel popcorn and add red food coloring you have red popcorn- Then you can attach a note that says
"YOU'VE BEEN CAUGHT RED HANDED SERVING OTHERS" . (or being good, or going the extra mile, etc. etc) and give to any bishopric, primary presidency, or anyone you want to spotlight.

"GREAT IDEA FOR FAMILY HOME EVENING"

You have been BOO"D is a popular thing to do in most neighborhoods during the Halloween holiday. The one that I had the girls do is located at :

http://strongarmor.blogspot.com/search/label/Halloween

You can download and copy and print at this blog site. Great ideas! Love it!

We did the "Halloween Phantom" it was so much fun! The girls made goodie bags
and we copies off two ghosts and two papers to go with it- and the girls picked 2 families that they wanted to Boo- They knocked and ran and left their goodies by the door from the Halloween phantom! Great thing they could do for FHE!

Daddy/Daughter Howling good time!

Hi, Im very excited to take over this wonderful blog. It will be a honor to share my own ideas as well as yours to help others with being a great ACTIVITY DAY LEADER. I have been in many callings in the church and I love Activity Days, I think it is such a wonderful calling. It is so fun to share in the Lords work and to work with such wonderful girls and help them to discover their true potential as Daughters of God. Yes it can be interesting at times but it is such a great experience. I am a mother of five daughters. They all have "A" names. Four of them have been in or are in Activity days. So we have had plenty of experience with this wonderful program. So in every ward I have been in (which has been many- moved 14 times in 15 years) we have always had a Daddy-Daughter date, and a Mother -Daughter date once a year in Activity Days. Usually we do the Daddy Daughter date in the fall and the Mother-Daughter date in the spring. Our ward combines all the Activity Day girls ages 8-11 to join in on the fun.
Some wards only have 1 or 2 leaders for all girls but our ward has 8 leaders, 2 for every age group- 8 year olds, 9 year olds, 10 year olds, and 11 year olds. Which is a lot of fun!
So last year our theme was a Daddy-Daughter Date Halloween Party! It was so much fun and we had a great turn out! We have around 23 girls in the ward and only 1 girl could not make it!
We sent out Halloween Invitations- (Make sure you are sensitive to girls who do not have a father figure in the home , we always make sure it says to bring a date whether it is a father, grandfather, brother, or friend. ) We decorated the room. We had the girls make table decorations a head of time! Each made their own placemats with their names on them. We served dinner, carved pumkins, and took pictures! It was a great turnout, and the girls really enjoyed it! We had all the fathers dress up and we made sure all the leaders were also dressed up! We also had cute Halloween music playing (Monster Mash, ETC) - IT was a HOWLING good time!

Here is some of the food we served- Eerie Eyeballs- AKA - DEVILed Eggs

Boney Fingers- AKA- Chocolate covered Pretzels

GOBLIN GUTS- AKA Baked Beans

SPIDER LEGS-AKA . CHEETOS & MONSTER MASH AKA. SlOPPY JOES.

DEATH BY CUPCAKES- AKA Chocolate cupcakes & Witch's Brew AKA- RED Punch with floating hands

We had a picture corner where the girls got a picture with their fathers

The Activity was carving pumpkins with their fathers-

Here is a girl with her finished PUMPKIN!

Next please!

Being an Activity Day leader has been my favorite calling of all time.  I have loved getting to know the girls, seeing them grow, planning activities and everything else that has come with this.  But, the time has come and today I received a new calling.   When the Bishopric asked me how long I have served in AD I replied about two and half years.  They said "oh, then you are probably ready for a change."  Not at all!  I told them how much I have loved it and wish I could continue doing it, but someone else needs the chance to serve the sweet girls of my ward.

When I first started this blog, it was out of desperation.  I spent countless hours searching the Internet for ideas but decided that if I wanted to find that site, I was going to have to create it myself.  I have loved sharing ideas with my readers and enjoy all of the emails I receive.  I'm not the master of AD but I was able to create a system that worked for me, so I felt I needed to share it.  I hope some of you were able to find activities that were useful and that I was able to answer your questions as you asked them.

And so, since it is time to move on I am offering this blog to one of my readers.  There is one stipulation, you must be committed!  Committed to sharing your activities as often as possible and taking the time to respond to any questions you may be asked.  Other than that, the blog and email address will be yours!  You will be free to change it any way you wish.  If you are interested in taking over please email me.  Let me know why you are interested and if you are committed to sharing your ideas.

You Are Special

This blog has been neglected!  Holy cow!  I took a break from doing activities to take care of my now 6 week old baby but now summer is winding down, I'm feeling great and we are back at it!  We started off the new school year with a spiritual activity, ending with a lot of laughter.  I guess you could say I'm a little rusty as far as activities go, so the first portion of this activity is an idea I got from my sister.

First of all, you will need the book You Are Special by Max Lucado.  Are you familiar with it?  I picked mine up on half.com for 99 cents but I believe you can also find it at Wal Mart.

If you aren't familiar with the book, listen to it here.

We prepared for the activity by purchasing gold star stickers at the dollar store and my partner cut out black dots about the size of a quarter (any size would do).  You don't even have to do that, regular stickers would do just fine. 

We sat the girls in a circle and I began reading the book.  Many of them were familiar with it but paid attention just fine.  While I was reading my partner went around the circle sticking the stickers and dots (with tape) on the girls.  The more stickers the better!  Once we got to the part of the book about Lucia, she started removing the dots.

After we finished the book we talked about what different people and events in the book represent.  We then began talking about how we are each different and our unique qualities are what make us each special.  At this point we passed around a mirror and had each of the girls look at themselves and name one thing that they really like about themselves.  Even though the girls are young, it was still challenging for them!  The other leader and I reinforced each good thing they said and even gave each girl a compliment.

We also discussed that sometimes we are told something so much, good or bad, that we begin to believe it.  To close this part of the activity we talked about people at school that may need a friend because they might be feeling like a Wemmick with a lot of gray dots.  I asked the girls is they could think of someone who may feel this way and they all said yes.  We then challenged them to reach out to them and lift them up. 

This part of the activity only took about 20 minutes so we filled the rest of the time with a little improv.  I filled two bags with a few random items like plastic fruit, potato masher, fairy wand, sunglasses, toy cash register, etc.  The girls were split into two teams and given a bag.  They were given 2 minutes to come up with a skit using every item in the bag.  I could not believe their creativity!  They about had us rolling on the floor laughing.  It was so fun we did about 4 rounds of it and they all asked if we could do it next time.  You have got to try it!

Firework Pens

What a fun way to celebrate the Fourth of July.  How about a lesson on freedom and then making these super easy and cheap pens.

I know I have seen the garland at the Dollar Store.  Pick up a pack of pens and a few strands of garland and for a few bucks you have a fun activity!

Giving Back

My sister recently did an activity that is worth sharing.  She called up her town Parks and Rec department and asked if that would give her girls a tour of the Town Hall.  They were happy to oblige and after the tour was over the girls were able to plant flowers (provided by the town) around the Hall.  They had a great time.

Even a tour of the City Hall or a local government building would be great!

Activity Repeat

This is the first time I have ever repeated an activity but I felt it was well worth it.  One of the first activities I did was clean the nursery toys with the girls.  Since most of them have moved on (and after spending some time in nursery the other day and seeing the toys get put in lots of mouths) I felt like it was okay to do this one again.  We went to town cleaning the toys with Clorox wipes and had a great time laughing and chatting about everyone's plans for summer.

(Horrible picture, I know, but I wanted to crop out the girls' whose faces were showing.)

If your ward has big plastic toys (like a kitchen) you could have the girls use shaving cream (outside of the building of course) to clean them.  It would be messy but lots of fun!

After we finished the toys we cleaned the tables, door knobs and cabinets.

When we were all finished we played the Skittles Game that I found on LDS Splash.  The girls had a ball and we laughed and laughed about how silly everyone looked with their mouths full of Skittles.

Getting To Know the Missionaries

We recently invited the missionaries to an activity.  They talked with the girls about what a typical day is like for them and then the girls got to ask questions.  There were all kinds of questions from what the worst thing they have had to eat was to what life was like before their mission.  We learned that one of the missionaries had really long hair and was in a band!  The missionaries were great sports and kept things really interesting.

Here's a few more ideas you could incorporate.

Interchangable Flip Flops

I love this site!  And with summer right around the corner I think your girls would love to do this craft.

 (Photo used with permission.)

Portable Flower Pots

In a few weeks we plan on doing an activity about self-reliance and gardening.  We've instructed the girls to come up with a 2 liter pop bottle and bring it to the activity so we can do something similar to this.  (More to come about this after this activity is complete!)
 
And this morning when I saw Pioneer Woman's Blast from the Past post, I thought this would make a treat to serve at the end!

 (Photo from Pioneer Woman)

You could also do dirt and worms if you don't want to get too fancy.

(Photo from Kraft Foods)

Manners and Internet Safety

Today we taught the girls about manners (home, table, public and phone) as well as Internet safety.

Since there was so much to talk about I made an outline for me and the other leader to follow.  Here's the rundown:

We set the table with plates, cups, napkins and forks (you could do spoons and knives too, but it wasn't necessary for us) and had each girl sit down.  We then served them each a piece of cake.  We asked them what they should do with their napkins and then taught them how to properly use it.  While they were eating cake we played a little game.  In a bowl we had questions and scenarios.  The girls each chose one slip of paper out of the bowl and then had to either answer the true or false question or act out the scenario using good manners.  We also discussed the section about using good manners at home, other than table manners.

After the cake we went back into the living room and followed the rest of the outline.

For the introduction game we paired the girls up and told each of them to play a certain part.  One girl was supposed to represent the Bishop, another a new girl at Church and so on.  They showed up how they would introduce themselves and I have to say it was surprising how weak the introductions were!  We talked to them about shaking hands, smiling and making eye contact.  We then reversed the roles and re-did the introductions.  Things were much better the second time around!

As for manners at other people's homes, this is where the activity originated from.  Most of the activities are held at my house, and although I don't mind one bit, I do mind when the girls go in my bedroom (can you believe that!?) and into my kids room.  I decided that we had to tackle this, so hence the whole activity.

For phone manners the other leader and I had a pretend phone conversation.  She was the caller and when I "answered" the phone I was totally rude.  I pretended to keep the phone to my ear while yelling at other people, hanging up rudely without saying good-bye and totally interrupting everything that she was saying.  It was pretty comical, but it got our point across.  After talking about the three parts of a phone call (1. When to speak,
2. When to listen, 3. How to respond) we then held a "real" conversation using the three points.  (This site was extremely helpful with this part of the activity.)

For Internet safety I have to say that I didn't even think about this until I read this idea on a Yahoo group (thank you to whoever you are for this idea!).  I wanted to include it because I know that most of my girls use Facebook daily. Since they are so young and it's not our place to overrule the family computer rules, we simply talked about the Crash and Tell method for a short minute but mostly focused on not giving out personal information.

With the remainder of the time we answered the rest of the true and false questions from earlier.

Throughout the whole hour, it was interesting to hear the girls share personal experiences with manners and Internet safety.  I am so glad we had this activity!

I know this is sort of confusing to read, but if you review the outline and still have questions just email me!

New Spotlight Idea

Since we have spotlighted all of our girls with these questions, we have decided to try a different approach this time.  Before, we would call the mom of the girl that was being spotlighted ahead of time and ask her the questions.  Now, we are going to use this form.  We had the girls fill them out today and although they will know they it's them being spotlighted, it helps to know we are changing things up a little.  They will still receive a special treat on their day, but this time we will choose what it is.  Hope we get it right!

Service and Valentines

Today we had a Valentines party but also talked to the girls about service.  To start off, we talked about how it feels to serve and asked the girls to share some experiences that they had when someone served them.  We discussed how we may not feel like we are doing very much, we don't know how simple acts of service can really change someone's day.  We then gave each girl instructions to go home and do a secret, simple act of service for someone in their family.  They were each given two hearts to leave behind after they accomplished their service.

Next, we exchanged Valentines.  On our invitation we asked each girl to bring a Valentine to share with each of the other girls.  We made sure they knew that that did not mean they had to go buy something.  We told them it shouldn't be anything fancy, just creative.  Not all of the girls were able to bring some, and that was no big deal!  They still received some and were happy.  We only had one girl that brought store bought cards, all of the others made theirs.  It was great to see how different they were.  One girl used her mom's stamps, another used printer paper and highlighters and another used glitter glue to decorate cardstock.  They were all so diverse.

To end, we all gathered in the kitchen and decorated sugar cookies.  The girls had a great time frosting and laughing.  We had a great time and no one left empty handed.

Having a Plan

*Thanks to Patricia for sharing this idea!

For my last activity I had laid out all the ingredients for cookies in my kitchen. I told the girls we were going to make cookies. They were so excited. They said "how much should we put in" and I would just say "What do you think?" So they finally got their cookies mixed (with things like 4 tsp salt, 1/2 C milk, and 3 eggs because there were 3 girls :) ). They decided to bake them on 400 for 20 minutes. As you can imagine they were nasty tasting. 

I then said "Oh, I have a recipe". So we pulled out the recipe and made another batch. While they were cooking we worked on our A of F. When they came out we talked about the difference of having a plan vs. just doing what seems good at the time. We talked about if you want to go to the temple, you can't just decide the day before that you want to go. You have to have a plan and implement it all your life. We talked about the most important plan of all, The Plan of Happiness. I printed off this Plan of Salvation Chart.

And then we talked about planning our days. I printed copies of these calendars.  And we talked about making wise use of our time and planning to get things done.

I then bore my testimony that time is one of Heavenly Father's gifts to us and we should plan to use it wisely.

Patricia also said that she made a cute copy of the right recipe for each of her girls.  Great idea, thanks for sharing!

FHE in a Can....DONE!

Today we did the FHE in a can activity.  It was a huge hit with the girls and a total success.  Here's the run-down:


We purchased enough cans and lids for all of our girls (80 cents per can and 21 cents per lid).
We also rented a canner
Using this great site, I found a lesson that was perfect for my girls, Being an Example.

We gave the FHE lesson to the girls and played a few rounds of Draw or Drama.  After that we helped them assemble the cans.  Here was was included:

FHE Plan
Copy of FHE Game

Copy of FHE Story

Treat Recipe

Cake Mix
M&M's


Each girl folded up their papers and placed them in the can.  For the treat, we chose to do cake cookies.  We included the mix and 1 cup of M&M's.  It's really just what we had on hand, but the possibilities are endless!  You could do plain cake mixes, s'mores, many different varieties of cookies, candy bars, etc.  Depending on the time of year, you can get smoking deals on cake mixes, brownie mixes, s'mores stuff and lots more.  

If you choose to do this FHE lesson, be sure to tell your girls that after they cut the strips up, to use the can to play out of.

 
The girls loved watching their cans being sealed as well.  If you aren't able to get your hands on a canner you could try using paint cans that can be purchased at Home Depot or Lowes or even using the cans and just buying the white plastic lids.