Christmas: The White Stocking

The lesson was on how our actions are our gift to the Savior!  See the poem below.
For the activity, I made white stocking christmas cards for the girls so they could write their gift on the inside and hang it up in their rooms.  Then we made baby Jesus christmas ornaments.


Most of you have heard about a white stocking christmas tradition in one form or the other.  I recieved a story about it one year and liked the idea, but the poem was badly written and confusing (my friend didn't write it, so no offense intended there, it was a great thought.) I sat down and thought it should go another way, in a few minutes I had written this poem.  I think it was inspired to help my family with a goal-setting tradition.  It has been ten years since I wrote this and we have nine years of wonderful gifts all still stuffed in the original white stocking (we took one crazy year off, because no one is perfect!)

The White Stocking

by Regina Slaugh

There were packages wrapped for the young and the old

Each stocking was filled and the Christmas story told.

Every child would be happy, no grown-ups were slighted,

Each soul was remembered and we were delighted.

But when the first rays of Christmas were dawning

The littlest child discovered the stocking.

Oh we were surprised, now where had in come from?

And where had it been when the others were hung?

While we were remembered with presents aplenty,

The little white stocking was hanging there empty.

In all of our efforts to love and remember,

Who had we missed for a gift this December?

Remember on Christmas we honor the birth

Of our Savior divine and his life on this earth?

Well this stocking so white with simple gold trim,

Started each of us thinking of giving to Him.

So then all at once we began to explain,

That surely this stocking had a meaning quite plain

We should include in our holiday giving

A gift to the Savior, the King of all Living.

Now each Christmas Eve we all gather together

And write down our gifts to Him on some paper

Next into the stocking our papers will go

Goals to help faith and obedience grow.

We try to remember the gift that we’ve given

And make it a part of our everyday living.

Then our gift to the Savior will last all year through,

Until next Christmas Eve, when we write something new.

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“In conclusion, the submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!”

Neal A. Maxwell, “Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father,” Ensign, Nov. 1995
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P.S. we have learned about making age appropriate "gifts" the adults usually choose a year long goal and the kids choose a goal that lasts as many weeks as they are old…

Tithing Parable

• Developing Talents #1

• Learn how to budget and save money. Discuss why it is important to faithfully pay our tithing and how Heavenly Father blesses us when we do (see 3 Nephi 24:10–11). Pay your tithing and begin saving for a mission.
• I find tithing a bit challenging to teach to children who haven't yet gained an understanding of money values.  Even the object lesson where they pay tithing on ten candies and then are "showered" with more candy seemed to distract them more than teach the concept, so I made up this parable to discuss with my primary class of six year olds.  The kids can act it out or make gold stones.  You could trade 10 beans for candy or yummy "golden" cold cereal or cheese crackers.  You could play several rounds and have the kids act out the three different groups to see how paying tithing is a blessing.  The kids could draw a picture illustrating the story for an activity as well.

• This parable also illustrates how the Lord doesn't require tithing for His benefit, but rather for our benefit so that He can bless us even more.  For Activity Days if the girls like theater, they could make this into a play to show their parents when they come to pick them up.  Perhaps ask parents to come ten minutes early to see the presentation.  

(for fun, the king's gold can be made by spraying fish tank gravel gold)

Tithing Parable: The King's Stones

• Once upon a time a very wise and powerful king gave each of his subjects 10 stones.  “These are very special stones” he said.  “Tomorrow, bury them in your field and work very hard all day.  Then in the morning of the day after tomorrow, dig them up and they will have changed into 10 nuggets of gold.  When you dig up your gold nuggets, you must immediately bring the biggest one back to the castle or you will be very sorry.  With the other 9 gold nuggets you will be able to buy your family whatever they need.”
  
  
  So his subjects each took their 10 stones home and buried them in the field.  Some of his subjects got up extra early the next morning so they could work from the minute the sun came up until it went down that night.  “All day long” just as the king had said.  It was the hottest day the kingdom had ever had, but still, they fed animals, washed laundry, baked bread, ploughed fields, planted seeds, and mended broken fences until the sun set.  At the end of the day they hurried home, ate a quick dinner and fell quickly asleep.
  
  
  There was another group of subjects that weren’t very excited to work hard all day long on the hottest day in history.  They took care of their animals in the morning as they always did, they half-way cleaned their houses, baked nothing at all, ploughed fields until lunch, and then feeling exhausted from the heat took long naps under shady trees or headed off to swim and fish in the stream all afternoon.
  
  
  The third group of subjects didn’t work at all, why should they, tomorrow they would have gold, right?  They heard there was a traveling circus nearby, so instead of working, they set off to the next town to eat popcorn and watch dancing ponies and tightrope walkers in the shade of a circus tent all day.
  
  
  On the morning of the second day, the subjects eagerly dug up their stones to get their gold.  The first group was thrilled to find 10 large nuggets of gold shining up at them as bright as the sun had been the day before.  They could hardly believe how rich they had become.  It was a miracle and they rejoiced!  Most of them carefully selected the biggest stone to return to the castle, but a few rushed off to the next town hoping the circus would still be there.
  
  
  The second group also found 10 gold nuggets shining up at them.  Although they were not very big, they were very pleased.  It should be almost enough to take care of their family through the winter.  Most of them quickly chose the largest nugget to return to the castle, but a few were very worried that it wasn’t quite enough and decided to take either the smallest gold nugget to the castle or to not take any gold at all to the castle.
  
  
  The third group also dug up their stones only to find that they were still stones and not gold at all.  They were angry that the king had tricked them and not given them magical stones.  A few decided that perhaps they were not gold because they hadn’t worked hard all day long.  They chose their biggest stone to take back to the castle even though it wasn’t gold.
  
  
  On the way to the castle the king’s subjects discovered that if they hadn’t brought the largest gold nugget, that they had problems.  Either the gold slipped out of their pockets and was lost or it crumbled to dust.  Only the biggest gold nuggets ever made it to the castle.
  
  
  At the castle the King thanked each man for bringing his largest gold nugget or stone.  He said that they would be very glad that they did.  In return he gave each man 10 more special stones to take home.  He said if they worked hard during the next month they could dig them up and find 10 more gold nuggets.  He also said they should immediately bring the largest gold nugget back to the castle or they would be sorry indeed.
  
  
  Well as you can guess, each subject hurried home to bury his new special stones and the next month even more of the subjects appeared at the castle with their very best golden nugget to present to the king.
  
  
  Soon there were people in the kingdom with huge piles of gold that never seemed to run out while some were very poor without enough supplies to make it through the winter.  Those subjects with much gold were very generous and tried to help others however they could.  Sometimes they would give gold or supplies to their neighbors, but once in awhile, they gave something even better, a pile of the king’s stones.  Do you know why the stones were better than gold?  If you do, you understand the king’s magic and you too will always have all the riches you need!  The End.

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!

Developing Talents, Visit a Museum

Developing Talents #5Visit an art museum or attend a concert, play, or other cultural event. Share your experience with your family or activity day group.

We went to the Springville Art Museum "The Art of Play Exhibit".  It was a fun, free, activity.  They closed early the day we went though, I should have checked the time more closely!  County fairs often have free concerts, there are a lot of other free cultural events to be found, but you have to plan ahead so you can get permission slips and drivers.

I wish I could show you all the girls, but here are my two girls and an anonymous one having fun.  This was a painting the girls could dress up and be part of...

 art book reading area

Box building area

Thanksgiving Activity: Gratitude Letters and Pie (Serving Others #2)

• Serving Others #2
• Write a letter to a teacher, your parents, or your grandparents telling them what you appreciate and respect about them.

Write thankyou letters to parents and then for treats, in honor of Thanksgiving, make pies.  By the way, why is learning to make pie related to the gospel?  Eating a meal or dessert together helps create unity in families and among friends in a way nothing else can, it is always a good idea for a girl to know how to make some really yummy recipes!  Cooking for others is always "serving others" and learning new recipes is "developing talents".  Dessert is always a fun way to finish off a great "learning and Living the Gospel" lesson.  I am all for pies!

This recipe won first place in our ward pie cook-off

Chocolate Rasberry Cream Pie 
12 mini pie crusts or one 9" unbaked pastry shell
1 can raspberry pie filling refrigerated (in unopened can)
or
2 c frozen unsweetened raspberries (or strawberries or mixed berries) + 3TBS sugar +1 TBS cornstarch combined, bring to a boil over medium heat, boil  and stir 2 minutes.  Cool for at least 15 minutes, refrigerate until ready to make pie.

Make filling by beating together until fluffy:
1 8oz pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

fold in
1/2 cup whipping cream whipped
(or 4-8 oz cool whip, the more you use the easier the filling is to work with for the girls and it tastes great no matter how much or how little you use)

Melt together the following, when they are just starting to melt remove them from heat and stir until completely melted and combined.
2 1-oz squares of semi-sweet baking square or 2 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
3Tbs butter.

To make a mini pie:
spread a layer of raspberry on the bottom, about two spoonfuls.
spread a layer of cream filling over that, cover the raspberry and fill the pie up.
spread a very thin layer of chocolate on top of the pie.  Use a small spoonful, it is about the size of a quarter and then you spread it thin with a knife and it should cover the whole mini-pie.
Optional: let the girls add colored red sugar or sprinkles to the top of the chocolate, doesn't improve flavor, but improves funness (is that a word?) or you could use a knife to make designs in the chocolate topping.

In theory, the pie should chill two hours, but the girls might not be able to wait and it shoud taste pretty good right away too.  I let my girls choose.

If you  make this in a  pastry shell, line the shell with double thick heavy duty foil.  Bake at 450 for 8 minutes.  Remove foil.  Bake an additional 5 minutes watching carefully to avoid burning.  Cool on a wire rack, then assemble pie.  The original recipe calls for the raspberry layer to refrigerate before adding the cream layer and the cream layer to chill before adding chocolate, but it seemed to work fine to do it all at once.

Preparing For Young Women activity with "The Lost Purse" parable

My daughter is 11 and this was what her group did today.  I share it because it is simple, fun, and has a powerful message for the girls!

They brought their scriptures so they could pass off one of the activities in the section of their Faith in God book titled "Preparing for Young Women".  Then they read or watched Elder Cook's lost purse parable,
The Lost Purse
If you don't recall, this is a story about how what a girl carries in her purse showed what kind of a girl she was.  There is so much that can be taught from this story, it opens up a great discussion and it goes along with the theme of the activity "Preparing for Young Women" perfectly!  Then the girls made "purses" by hole punching the top two corners of a sandwich bag and making purse straps out of the gift-wrapping ribbon.  Then they put things from the story in them.

ideas of things to put in purses:

For the Strength of Youth cards (free at church distribution centers, or print the words from LDS.org)
breath mints
comb
notebook
a recipe
post-its of service opportunities
a pen

(Girls could also make duct tape purses with pictures of things from the story in them.  I see duct tape crafts everywhere I go.)

Holy Ghost Activity

Faith in God-Living and Learning the Gospel #3
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.

Have the girls bring their own scriptures.

Ghost Cookies:
Our girls tend to arrive up to 20 minutes late, so I had an "early bird" activity for this one, it was helping make the refreshments.  When the first girl arrived I had her help me start melting 1 cup of white chocolate chips in a double boiler.  The next girl set out 20 nutter butter cookies and 40 mini chocolate chip eyes  Then I gave a butter knife to all the girls who had arrived to frost the cookies with the melted white chocolate and to give the ghosts eyes (and mouths if you want).  You could melt the chocolate chips in the microwave and draw ghostly mouths with toothpicks.  This took about fifteen minutes.  I thanked the girls for helping me make a nice refreshment for the rest of the group.  Then we were ready to officially start the activity.

ghost cookies picture.

Note: (to make "ghost cookies" more budget friendly, you could use EL fudge cookies because they are also ghost shaped and are half the price, you could also use regular chocolate chips for the eyes because you probably have some on hand and they are also cheaper).



I often remind the girls of the purpose of the Faith in God program.  It is a series of activities given to us by the First Presidency to help us in the years after we are baptized to keep our baptismal covenents, grow our testimony, and prepare to go to the temple at age 12!  We discuss why they might have chosen a certain activity for us to do.  This one is fairly obvious.

Learn how to mark a verse in your scriptures:
This was the first time most of the girls had ever marked a scripture.  We explained that St. John is in the Bible and that it is in the first half of the quadruple combination and the second half of the Bible.  The first person to find it would tell us the page number.  We helped girls with scripture tabs know what the tab abbreviation was.  After finding each scripture I explained it and told a brief personal experience.  I tried to share things that could happen to 8 and 9 year olds so they could start to recognize it in their own lives.  The three scriptures took 30 minutes.

Ghost Craft
After the scripture marking activity, we made ghost families with sharpies and semi-clear cups.  I showed this great picture from ProjectsForPreschoolers.com and they took it from there.  So simple and lots of fun.  I found glowsticks 50 fo $4 at the grocery store.  The dollar store had 5 for $1.  I gave each girl a few glowsticks to put in her ghosts.  If you bend them into a "U" and tape closed the bottom of the cup, a bracelet size just barely fits.  Some girls saved their glowsticks for Halloween.  Others broke them open at the activity which was probably the funnest way to go, but I gave them the choice.

my daughter found leftover white chocolate after the activity was over...

 

I had the girls bring milk jugs too if they had them, I figured it would get them curious about what we were doing.

my daughter's ghost family at bedtime.

inspiration pictures from the internet.