Gingerbread House Mother Daughter with a "love at home" theme

Optional: Developing Talents #2

• Learn to sing, play, or lead a song from the Children’s Songbook.Teach or share the song in a family home evening or at Primary. Discuss how developing talents helps prepare us for service to Heavenly Father and others.
• Learn to sing the super short, but sweet primary song "home" or "love at home". Have a brief discussion on the importance of love at home with the mom's and daughters.  Then have the girls and mothers build sweet homes of their own!

1. 2. At least twice a year, a Primary activity day should include opportunities for the children to share what they have learned and accomplished.
2. You may want to have a Faith in God tracking sheet for the Mothers and Daughters to fill out as they arrive.  They would go through and quickly check off everything they remember doing.  Have them write on the bottom of the sheet their favorite activity and tell their mom about it.  Make a note if they are on track (6+ activities for 9 year olds, 12+ for 10 year olds, 18+ for 11 year olds plus preparing for young women activities).  Save these in a file for the leaders during the coming year.
3. 
   

To preprare, two leaders got together and prebuilt about 20 graham cracker houses assembly line fashion.  Graham crackers should be a high quality brand and are MUCH cheaper at Sam's or Costco.  The houses were made by cutting graham crackers with either scissors or a steak knife to the right shape and then glued together using melted sugar, for stability and time saving purposes this is better than icing.  We used six graham crackers per house.  Two  cut into a "house shape" for the front and back wall.  The sloped edges should be cut so the walls match the width of a graham cracker.  The side walls were a cracker cut to 3/4 length.  The roof pieces were two regular sized crackers.  

Melted sugar is as dangerous as hot glue and works like hot glue, no kids should be around.  Put about 1/2 a cup of sugar in a frying pan, stir with wooden spoon, and heat it until it melts (medium heat.)  It burns easily so I have to keep adjusting the heat.   When you run out make more.  If the sugar gets too brown, you can still use it.  No one will eat it anyway and it works great.  Dip the edge of the two side walls and quickly attach to front wall, attach the other pieces the same way.  We put all the houses on cookie sheets for transporting.  We brought tons of bowls for distributing candy. 

You can cut up boxes with an exacto knife that are approximately 12"x12" and cover them with foil for bases.  If you assign each girl to bring her own base, that saves a lot of time and works just as well. The schools always make our kids bring their own cardboard and foil.  During the activity the houses are attatched to the base.

Have royal icing in freezer bags for each girl.  Snip off a corner when it is time to frost.  Batches

of royal icing can be assigned out or done by leaders.  Have each mother daughter bring a candy topping or two.  You can have sign-ups to get all the basics, or just do a potluck.  If girls do the sign-up, make invites, or help teach the song it counts for the "help plan an activity" goal.

Thats me and my daughter!

The Littlest Angel Story and Dollar Store Angel Ornaments

This activity is drawn from "Developing Talents" in the Faith in God book and could be used to pass off activity #4 in that section.  The scripture in the Faith in God book is:

"For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God." Doctrine & Covenants 46:11

The Christmas story that goes with this craft is The Littlest Angel (see below) Its a story book, but you could just read the text while the girls munch on a christmas snack.  You can talk about how everyone has different talents.  The little angel might have had a crooked halo and an unglamorous gift to give, but like the widow's mite he gave the most valuable thing he had and it was very thoughtful because he was thinking about what a little boy would like.  What kind of gifts can we make?  What are our spiritual gifts?  Why does Heavenly Father give us gifts and talents?

I went to the dollar store looking for things to make angels with and this is what I came up with.

• metallic pipe cleaners/chenille sticks
• clothes pins
• glitter drape  (glitter drape is a cottony drape designed to go under ceramic villages at christmas time and my dollar store had a ton of it, but you could use fabric, coffee filters, or tissue paper as well)
• extra wide gold wire ribbon.  This came in 3 yard rolls.
• cardstock, to print the angel faces on (had this at home)
• hot glue (had this at home, one glue gun per every five girls)
• treats are always nice too!

To make the angels, each girl cut a 7" circle out of the glitter drape and poked a tiny hole in the middle.  We pulled it around the clothes pin and glued it on with hot glue.  Then we took about 3" of pipe cleaner to make a little belt tie.  The girls enjoyed choosing their colors for this or even combining two colors.

Next glue on faces.  We printed angel faces that were 1.25" wide on card stock and each girl cut out her own.  Or they could draw their own.


note: you can right click on the picture and save it to your computer's "downloads" folder.  Then you can open it up on your computer and it should print. 

For the halo take another 3" (approx) piece of gold/yellow pipe cleaner and make a circle with a stem hanging down.  Glue the stem on the back of the clothspin behind the angels head.

For the wings we took about 10" of the gold ribbon and folded it into a rectangle,  we made it into a bow by tying another 3" bit of pipe cleaner of any color in the middle very tightly.  Like this.  We left a candy can shaped tail on this pipe cleaner to be the ornament hook.  

They turned out easy, inexpensive, and cute!   The girls loved it!

The Littlest Angel

An abridged version of the short story by - Charles Tazewell

Once upon a time in Paradise, there was a most miserable, unhappy, little angel child known throughout Heaven as The Littlest Angel.

From the moment he arrived, the Heavenly Peace was never quite as peaceful.  He had a shrill, ear-splitting whistle that was constantly ruining the meditation sessions of other angels.  Also, he sang with a loud off-key voice in the Heavenly Choir, spoiling its delicate harmonies.   On top of all that, he was always late to nightly prayers and when he finally arrived he always managed to knock everyone's wings askew as he clumsily bumped and pushed his way into his place.

Of course these annoyances might have been overlooked if not for the added problem of the Littlest Angel's untidy appearance.  Some angels said he didn’t even look like an angel!  His golden halo had black marks all over it from trying to hold it on with sweaty hands while running irreverently all around heaven.  And even on the rare moments when he was standing still, it always hung very crooked, covering one eye or the other.  He had the bad habit of biting his tattered wings when he was nervous and when he was supposed to fly he always tumbled down through the clouds head over halo instead!

Then one day a wise police angel called an Angel of the Peace sat down with the Littlest Angel and had a chat.  The littlest angel explained that there wasn't anything for a small angel to do in Heaven!  And that he was very homesick for Earth, and climbing trees, and pirate caves, and running barefoot in dirt, and fishing in streams!  The Angel of the Peace smiled and asked the Littlest Angel what would make him most happy in Paradise. The angel child replied "There's a box. I left it under my bed back home. Could I have that?"

The Angel of the Peace nodded his head and it was done.

From then on a there was a great change in the Littlest Angel, he was the most happy angel child in Heaven. His behavior was perfect. His appearance neat and tidy, and he finally learned to truly fly like an angel!

Then came the glorious news that Jesus would soon be born to Earth and that all Paradise would celebrate by making gifts to give him.  The Angels and Archangels, the Gate-Keeper, the Wingmaker, and even the Halomaker put aside their usual tasks to prepare special gifts.  All but the Littlest Angel, what could he possibly make?  He couldn’t write prayers or sing hymns or make Heavenly ornaments.  "What, oh what, could a small angel give that would please the Holy Child?" 

But then he came upon the perfect idea! And when the Day of Days came, he proudly brought it from its hiding place, and humbly placed it before the Throne of God. It was only his small, rough, unsightly box from Earth, but inside were all those wonderful things that even a Child of God would treasure!  However, as soon as he placed it among the other gifts of the other angels he regretted it.  Unlike his, the others were so grand that they glowed with radiant light.  His looked awful, he would surely be in trouble for such a shabby, irreverent gift!

But it was too late, all of Heaven was assembled and the Hand of God moved directly over all the other magnificent gifts and plucked his from the pile.  And what was his gift? Well, there was a butterfly with golden wings, captured one bright summer day on the high hills above Jerusalem, and a sky blue egg from a bird's nest in the olive tree that stood to shade his mother's kitchen door. Yes and, at the bottom of the box, a limp, leather strap, that had once served as the collar of a beloved dog.

The littlest angel trembled in shame at the odd assortment, it must have looked like junk in comparison to the other gifts!  Why had he ever imagined the box was so wonderful?  If only he could hide and never be found!  All Heaven sat perfectly still with eyes on him.

Then suddenly, he heard the majestic Voice of God!

"Of all the gifts of all the angels, I find that this small box pleases Me most. Its contents are beloved treasures from Earth and men, and My Son is born to be King of both. These are the things My Son, too, will know and love and cherish as he lives there.  I accept this gift first, in behalf of my son, born of Mary this night in Bethlehem."

Then the most amazing thing happened!  The rough, unsightly box of the Littlest Angel began to glow, a little at first, then more and more until it became a radiant brilliance that blinded the eyes of all the angels in Heaven!

The Littlest Angel was astonished as he saw it rise from its place before the Throne of God, and miraculously take its place in the night sky over Bethlehem.  Yes, his humble gift was shining brilliantly over the stable lighting the place where the Son of God was to be born.  And there it shone on that Night of Miracles, the lowly gift of the Littlest Angel transformed into a star that all men would call forever "The Shining Star of Bethlehem!"

What gifts/talents do we have? 

"For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God." Doctrine & Covenants 46:11

Here are some ideas I got from the Faith in God Book:  Being good at managing money, Having the Faith to pay tithing, singing, playing an instrument, writing songs, stories, and poems, crafting and art, acting, story telling, dancing, learning, scripture knowledge, being a helpful family member, honoring parents, cooking, gardening, understanding health and nutrition, healing, being able to dress nicely or style hair especially well.

What gifts can we give the Savior? 

Spiritual Goals such as preparing wholesome sunday activities, memorizing a hymn, sharing talents, repent and make changes, etc

Lip Gloss Activity

Activity: Uplifting Thoughts, Uplifting Music

I was teaching a My Gospel Standards lesson on uplifting thoughts for the activity day girls in our ward. We talked about having uplifting thoughts and how music can help us clean out bad thoughts. Then we made lip gloss. I wrote a little poem to tie it all together. It is based on Elder Packer's talk "worthy music, worthy thoughts"
This is what the finished project looked like, I had some old pots in my craft cupboard that I recycled for this project it turned out really cute. If I didn't have pots, I would go to the grocery store or a party store and get those souffle cups (like restaurants use to put sauces in). The souffle cups would be way too big, but for 8-12 year old girls they would be ideal because they would be easy to fill.

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Update:
This activity was hard to clean up and a bit hard for the girls to do themselves, but this version of lipgloss making you could have all the ingredients in a ziploc bag before the activity starts and then throw the bags away for clean-up.  Sounds like genius to me.  You could talk about the different ingredients and what they are for while the girls squish their  ziplocs to make the lipgloss and then they're all done!

When I orginally did this activity I didn't know where to get supplies for making real lip balm, but now I know that you can pick up pretty much everything at a healthfood store, so if you would like to help the girls make really high quality lip gloss, try this recipe.
herbal infused lip balm.
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"Hum your favorite Tune"
     Lip Gloss Poem

The lip gloss I have made today
Reminds me I should smile,
And make the thoughts inside
My head uplifting and
worthwhile.

For ev’ry minute that I live
My mind is like a play.
With thoughts of either good
Or bad always on display.

Now sometimes in the theater
That is running in my mind
Little dark and impish thoughts
Come sneaking from behind.
And then it is my duty,
So the Spirit can abide,
To find a way to clean them out
And shape things up inside.

The prophets have advised us
On a way this can be done,
They’ve said when thoughts
Aren’t what we want…
The best thing is to hum!

So once again I grab my gloss
And rub some on my lips
And hum my very favorite hymn,
It always does the trick!

~Poem by Regina Slaugh

We went with a vaseline/koolaide recipe when we did this activity.  You can even get vaseline with vitamin E or cocoa butter in it already, which is a nice touch. The girls wanted to know all the cosmetic benefits of the additions, I wish I had known.

What worked best was to do an assembly line with the leaders doing everything that was hot. Give each girl one or two jobs in the process and encourage them to watch the other steps. Then at the end they all get to take home one or two glosses. My girls liked swirling the pink and clear together. For the young girls (8-9) they would be just as happy to decorate a souffle cup with stickers, watch the leaders demo how to make lip gloss, and then get a bit to put in their cup to take home.

This was how we did it...

1-have one or two girls measure out the vaseline and put it in the top of a double boiler
2-have a leader start melting the vaseline
3-I used stevia because I have it, but if you're doing honey instead of stevia, have someone measure this and melt it in the microwave.
4-have someone set out a bowl for each flavor of gloss you're making and put the koolaid powder in
5-have a girl put 1/4 tsp of water in each bowl and dissolve it. A different girl can do each flavor. We did three. The pink and invisible were much more popular than the reds. The girls want to wear pink, not movie star red.
3-have the girls open up the koolaid. Most of the koolaid colors were too dark. you can google koolaid color chart online for ideas.
4-divide the melted petroluem jelly between all the bowls. (you might want to line the bowls with foil so you don't have to clean them at the end.)
5-have a leader put in the stevia or melted honey.
6-demonstrate the suggested amount and then have the girls add little pea sized or smaller globs of koolaid, its easy to get too much and make the gloss sour, so maybe a leader should do this.
7-we added mint extract to some of the gloss just to give it a tingly feeling on the lips.
8-use a knife to scoop gloss into a container when its cooled just a bit. I had souffle cups and little paint pots. The girls didn't like the scooping part because it was messy, so the leaders got that job while the girls individualized their containers with stickers. They would have had an easier time using the souffle cups since they were bigger than the paint pots, but the souffle cups are so much bigger than a tablespoon of gloss that they look almost empty, so its hard to say what is best.

Bring a mirror so they can see to put it on.






tubes
lids