Light Of Christ Candle Holders

This activity will pass off "Developing Talents" under "Make an item from wood, metal, fabric, or other material, or draw, paint, or sculpt a piece of art. Display your work for others to see".

We found a great deal on little terra cotta pots at the dollar store. They were 3 for a dollar. But they're also fairly inexpensive at Michael's. They were the right size to fit a votive candle inside.

Before we decorated the pots, we gave the girls a little lesson on the light of Christ, and what it should mean to them in their daily lives. Then we let them paint the pots, and decorate them with sticky foam flowers and ribbon. It was so much fun to see the individuality in each of the girls' creations. Along with their pots, each girl decorated a card with the following quote to display with their decorated clay pot:

Light of Christ

"The Light of Christ is the divine energy, power, or influence that proceeds from God through Christ and gives life and light to all things. The Light of Christ influences people for good and prepares them to receive the Holy Ghost. One manifestation of the Light of Christ is what we call a conscience".

Be watching for the "Follow The Prophet" verse for February!!!!!

A fun activity to kick off the new year!!!

We are planning an activity for our girls for this week that will help them learn how to focus on achieving goals in their lives. We will be doing 3 things for this activity:

#1. We are first going to read the 12th article of faith all together, and talk about what it means to be a good citizen and how our actions affect others. This comes right out of the Faith in God book, and will pass of a goal for "serving others".

#2. We have made little cards (design taken out of an achievement days idea book) that have a place for the girls to recognize a bad habit they struggle with on one side, and then a solution to how they can fix this bad habit on the opposite side. we are going to give the girls 12 of these. They are fun with little pictures. They are going to color and fill these in, as well as write each month of the year on the cards. Ideally, they will work on fixing one bad habit a month for each month of the upcoming year. I am planning on letting them decorate a little baggie with fun stickers or pictures to take their cards home in so that they have a place to keep them. I am not going to immediately have this pass off any goal. But, if they come to me at the conclusion of a month, and let me know of their experience with fixing one of their bad habits, I am planning on it counting for a pass off in "Developing Talents"

#3. FINALLY, something I am very excited about. Around 6 years ago, me and my then 4 year old daughter came up with the idea together to write new modern day verses to the song "Follow the Prophet". We worked very hard on this, and were originally planning on trying to make it into a children's book UNTIL.....I wrote to the church headquarters for permission only to find out that you cannot add to anything that is already copyrighted by the church for personal gain moneywise (DARN)!!!! In no way did I want to get rich, or for that matter even make money off of it. But I was so excited to share it with children that I was a little disappointed I couldn't proceed with my plans. At this point, we got the verses to the song copyrighted, and sent them to the church to possibly be looked at to being added to the primary songbook when it is redone. We received a letter stating that it was in a file to be considered for addition and publication. That was 4 years ago, and I've never heard anything, but I do not believe the song book has been changed, so maybe someday???? BUT since I am so excited about this little song....I am going to use it to teach the girls an extended year long lesson that will fall under " Learning and living the gospel". We are going to introduce a verse to the girls each month (some months we will introduce 2 verses to get them all in). We will give them a copy of the verse, so that they can work on it, and ponder it through the month. Then, at the end of the year, they will have studied all of the verses. As a Christmas gift, I am going to give them a folder with page protectors complete with each verse along with a picture of each prophet. At this point, I will pass it off as a goal for "learning and living the gospel". I would LOVE for anyone who feels inspired to use my song in their program. Each month I will be posting the verses. So, for this month, here's the verse:


Joseph Smith first prophet in the latter days
Confused about religion, prayed to know the way
Heavenly Father answered, told him to join none
He helped Joseph restore the Gospel of His Son

"You're a Star" Recognition Breakfast

For our girls we recently held an achievement days breakfast themed around "You're a Star"!

Our invitations and the basic idea came from an achievement days idea book. However, I loved the couple of extra touches that we added to our breakfast:

-We had a pancake bar. We had tons of things the girls could top their pancakes with including: syrup (of course), whipping cream, frozen fruit, jam, etc

-There is a great video put out by the church entitled "Sharing Time with President Hinckley". After our girls ate, we showed this presentation. It's only 8 minutes long. The neat part is that it fit right along with our theme. There is a part in the sharing time when President Hinckley talks about being as constant as the North Star in our decisions to live the gospel. It is a great video that I think all of the girls really enjoyed

-Along with the girls' certificates of recognition, we gave them each a star (we found them at all a dollar) on a ribbon to hang in their bedroom. It was cute because on their own, the girls came up with the idea that they all would hang the stars on the North side of their room (to match the theme of the North Star presented by President Hinckley)

-We had one girl graduating from our program that we recognized at our breakfast. As a going away present, we gave her a little stuffed teddy bear with a bookmark attached to the wrist that stated:

Be

Enthusiastic

About

Reading

Scriptures

The bear was only $5, and I've even seen stuffed bears a lot at the dollar store for only a buck. So this was a very affordable parting gift that the girl leaving really enjoyed!!!!