Prayer activity with washer necklaces

• Learning and Living the Gospel #5

• Part 1:Give an opening and a closing prayer in family home evening or at Primary. 
• Part 2:Share your feelings about how prayer protects us and helps us to stay close to Heavenly Father and the Savior.

Gathering Activity:

Long, long ago (In about 610 A.D.) a church teacher (an alpine monk) called a monk in a far away land very creatively decided to use pieces of dough left over from baking bread as rewards for the children he taught when they learned their prayers. The children called these treats Pretiolas which means little reward.  What made them special is that the monk rolled the dough into long thin ropes and shaped them into just the shape of a reverent child folding their arms for prayer…Who can guess what kind of a treat this was?  Yes a pretzel!  Whenever you see a pretzel look for the folded arm shape and remember we can pray to Heavenly Father anytime, anywhere! 

Supplies: Rolos or Treasures cut in half, pretzels.  
I used dollar store pretzels and DeMet's Treasures to make this treat more affordable.  
have girls set out pretzels on a baking sheet, put half a Treasure (carmel facing up) or a whole Rolo on each pretzel.  Melt at 350 for 2 minutes.  Then put a pretzel on top of each chocolate candy and press down slightly to make a chocolate-carmel pretzel sandwich.  Let cool and serve as refreshments at the end of the activity.

My Activity Day girls were delighted with these treats, they raved about how yummy they were.  You can see from the picture that they were imperfectly shaped, but that is because the girls did it themselves and it was yummier that way, of course!

For the lesson we talked about prayer.  I collected lots of stories that I thought would be meaningful to my girls about how prayer protects us, and prayer experiences that help us know Heavenly Father is listening to us and loves us.  I talked about people we could pray for (family, teachers, prophet, president, military, sick, missionaries, and ourselves) and showed them this cool graphic called my 5 finger prayer.  I tried to get the conversation going so that the girls would volunteer their own stories and thoughts (per the requirement above) without being put on the spot.  This was a great discussion.  Then for our actvity we made washer necklaces with text that somehow reminded the girls that: 

You are a child of God. He is your Heavenly Father. He loves you and cares about you. He wants you to have faith in Him and pray to Him often—anytime, anywhere.
~Faith in God Book, Message From the First Presidency, page 1

Washer necklace instructions abound on the internet.  My version cuts cost and still makes a super cute necklace.

supplies: 

3/4 and 1/2 washers. 10 cents and 20 cents each.  I couldn't decide which size so I got some of each and let the girls choose.

scrapbook or colored paper.  trace the washer on the paper then cut on the inside of the lines so that it will fit on the washer perfectly.  Fold paper in half to cut out the center circle.  I would definitley precut these for the girls, some of our girls really struggled to cut them out neatly enough to fit on the washers and you don't want to embarass anyone.  You can also skip paper and use high quality opaque nail polish for the background color.

a bit of elmers glue watered down.  50/50 ratio glue to water to make modge podge

inspirational text printed in 8pt font (can go on front or back of washer for a secret or public reminder)

(I am a child of God, Heavenly Father Loves Me!, Did you think to pray, Pray!, Don't forget to pray! Anytime, Anywhere!, etc)

clear nail polish with glitter

(I just noticed from my picture that we used "sinful colors" nail polish on our prayer themed necklaces! lol.  We used blue sparkle polish on the blue and green necklaces and pink on the pink, yellow, and peach colored necklaces.)

ribbon, string, braided embroidery floss

optional: beads (I had them, so I used them, they are nice to keep the washers hanging straight, but its fine without beads as well.)

directions:
apply modge podge to washer and then paper of your choice.
choose some text and modge podge that on next.  Remember the ribbon/string/floss will be hanging top and center so arrange the text with a space for that.   If the text has several words cut them out individually so they fit around the circle.  Do a top layer with clear nail polish.  I love glitter nail polish.  You can use pink glitter polish, blue glitter polish, clear or whatever.  If you don't have nail polish you could ask around, the girls might have some rather than buying it.  Then let it dry on paper plates while you have treats.  Make sure when you cut string/ribbon that it is long enough to fit around the girls heads easily.  If you are going to use beads have a threader on hand so it goes quickly.

Here are a few the girls made, I wish I could include the pictures of their smiling faces too, but I don't have permission.