Friday, September 7, 2018

PRIMARY ACTIVITY INVITATIONS that YOU Edit!

You may think I was shouting with my ALL CAPS headline... and I was! I've been working on these for a while now, and I've been super excited to share!

Anyone ever use Red Stamp before it shut down <insert cry-face emoji here>? I loved it! I used it all the time... for invitations, thank-you cards, thinking of you cards.... anything I could think of, and really having an app that made making those things easy (and adorable) made me a nicer person. Ain't nobody got time to print+pay for invitations!

Since I loved Red Stamp so much, I wanted to do something similar for Activity Days (the best way I know how). These are all FREE and on-your-own time editable invitations. I'm going to call these Invitations + Text: Invatexts! Hopefully this makes sending out invitations and reminders for Activity Days easier and can help with getting more youth to come out!

 To use: Go to this blog from your phone, select which invitation you want and save it as a picture on your phone. Then open it in any photo editing app (my favorite is sketchbook... it's free and really great) and add text with your information on it. Save the new invitation with your information, and send your Invatext to anyone VIA text (or e-mail)!!

  I tried thinking of Activity Days that are pretty common. Drop me a comment below if there's an invitation you'd like to see... I'll be updating my "Invatexts" tab and adding more as I make them )



















Thursday, September 6, 2018

Halloween Pizza Party Ingredient Labels + Invitation - Developing Talents

One of my favorite activities for Activity Days is a Pizza Party where we made our own pizzas! All the girls LOVED it and it was fun for them to make their pizza just how they like it. We just used Rhodes Rolls for the dough so really it was super easy!

 I made these labels for a family party forever ago, and thought how awesome it would be to have a Halloween Pizza Party for Activity Days!! Hopefully no one gets too grossed out!








Saturday, September 1, 2018

Awesomest list of ideas for Activity Days!! Activity Day Ideas Galore!

I recently added a new link on my blog to a list I plan on continually adding to (you should see a link above) ! If you are new to the calling, hopefully this can get you off to an awesome start! Please comment below any ideas I can add to this list :)


Also check out my free "Invatexts" HERE :)

Temple Date Night Sign-Up Sheet & Babysitting Coupons - Serving Others


Help the youth serve others with babysitting for the temple! Since Activity Day aged youth are not old enough to do temple work, help them allow others to do temple work.

Here are two ways to do this - with "babysitting coupons" and with a "babysitting sign-up" sheet:

Babysitting Coupons: After visiting the temple grounds and walking around the temple for an Activity Days activity (maybe also have them bring their journals and give them some alone time to write in them, sing songs, and if possible watch a temple movie in the lobby), give each youth the "babysitting coupons" that they can take home with them, fill out and then give to whoever they choose/are comfortable with.  If you have a younger group (8 may be too young to offer babysitting) maybe have them team up and pass out the "babysitting coupons" in couples.



Babysitting Sign Up: Make this the activity for activity days. Maybe plan on using the Nursery Room at the church, or maybe even the gym. Print the sign-up sheet ahead of time and allow it to circulate in Relief Society, Primary and Young Women's so the moms in the ward have a chance to sign-up. This will also give you an idea on whose planning on coming. You'll need to schedule your Activity Days for a little longer on the day you do this. Please note the sign-up sheet says "a leader will also be there", so the leader should plan on attending, but allow the  youth to primarily be responsible.  If doing this for Activity Days, this will allow the younger youth to babysit with a supervisor, a good way to start babysitting. Maybe have each youth come to the activity with a different game or song they will be responsible in leading.

** When filling out the time on the sign-up sheet, I recommend putting a time frame. Ex. 4pm-7pm... so the parents know they should plan on being back around 7pm.

I also made sign-ups for Young Women's and Young Men's. 


You can get my files for this HERE. 

Friday, August 31, 2018

Flower A Porch - Serving Others

There are so many things you can do with these flowers! One idea is to "flower a porch" for new members in the ward/welcome a baby/bishopric/elderly... whoever!  Have the girls make bunch of there flowers and then leave them on the porch. Grab some tissue paper and pipe cleaner at the dollar store, spend the first part of the activity making the flowers, then the second part delivering :)











Saturday, August 25, 2018

Holy Ghost Helps You - Learning and Living the Gospel

In the Faith in God Book under Learning and Living the Gospel, there is the following requirement:

Mark these verses about the Holy Ghost in your scriptures: John 14:16–17, 2 Nephi 32:5, and Moroni 10:5. Discuss ways the Holy Ghost helps you.

Since I’m pretty sure chocolate= happiness and the Holy Ghost is supposed to lead us to happiness, then an activity where the “Holy Ghost” helps us make brownies seems perfect :). Also I haven’t tried a recipe from Our Best Bites that I didn't love, so this should be a real treat!


Start the activity by passing out a recipe card with some blanks in it. The participants will get to fill this out as they try to listen to the “Holy Ghost”. This recipe card represents how we get a lot of direction in our lives through scriptures, church, prayer and so forth. This recipe card is an awesome start to knowing what to do, but we are going to need the help of the Holy Ghost to fill in the blanks. 



Next, you'll want to have the "Holy Ghost Help You Cards" ready. Since there are 9 ingredient to the brownies, there are nine of these cards. This will give 9 participants an opportunity to pretend to a prophet and then pretend to be the Holy Ghost. The cards is a strip of paper folded in 3 so you can't see the ingredient when you pick it up, you just see the front side that looks like this: 



When you flip it over, the participant is to read an exert about the Holy Ghost from LDS.org. They can pretend like they are a prophet and say it loudly for everyone to hear. 



Next, the participant will want to turn their backs to the crowd and WHISPER in a still, small voice their ingredient. This is when everyone will try super hard to listen so they can fill out their ingredient card. Everyone should be quiet and there is no repeating or sharing answers. There will be a time for this at the end. 




Once all 9 cards have been played, everyone should have their recipe cards filled out, but I imagine some ingredients were missed or written down incorrectly. Allow the participants to come together and with the help of the leader make sure their recipe is correct. Once everyone has a correct recipe, allow everyone into the kitchen to make the brownies!
  
If everyone brought their scriptures, while the brownies are baking would be a good time to mark them with the verses and maybe share personal stories of when the Holy Ghost helped them. Also pass out this handout for them to take home and hang up :)



I used this brownie recipe for the activity:
Perfect Chocolate Brownies
Recipe (with minimal adaptations) from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, Baked NYC and Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch Process cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch chunks
optional: 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature*
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Articles of Faith JeoPARTY! Learning and Living the Gospel & My Gospel Standards JeoPARTY





Not Jeopardy, JeoPARTY! See what I did there ;). A couple Sunday's ago I helped out in my husband's primary class and this definitely would have come in handy!! 


I made this to have 6 questions for each category (100-600). The categories are Fill in the Blank, Which Number, Name the Person,  Finish This and What's Missing? Here are some sample questions: 






Just another idea to help learn the Articles of Faith!




And since kids LOVE Jeoparty... I also made a My Gospel Standards Version -