Activity days ideas!

 

 

Activity days is where girls and boys ages 8-11 work on things to strength their relationships with God, their family, their friends, and themselves. It’s my calling in my church. I’m over the girls ages 8 and 9! It’s seriously such a fun calling! I wanted to share some fun activities we got to do during this past year in case any of you need some ideas!

 

The BOLD sentences are the requirements and below is what we did. AND don’t give me credit for all these great ideas! A lot were my partners!

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

We talked about a prayer sandwich. The opening and closing is the bread and the stuff you are thankful for is the jelly and the stuff you need is the pbj.

and talked about what we are thankful for and need to ask God for. (like…maybe the cute new shoes or an ipad isn’t SUPER important things you should be asking for!) They colored this fun printable (get it here)

We discussed Joseph Smith and James 1: 5 If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God. and talked about how we need to listen–and by being in a quiet place can help that. One sided phone conversations are not fun!

and we also talked about being able to pray ANYTIME…ANYWHERE! (whether it’s quiet or not!) Heavenly Father is always there for us!

We also talked about if you have something you are wanting an answer too…

• You should study and think about it.
• Make a decision.
• pray about it
• and if your choice is a good one you will get a warm feeling.

We talked about how the brother of Jared followed this technique when he was trying to figure out how to add light to the barges.

and left them with the challenge to do this fun activity days:

Give a family home evening lesson on Joseph Smith’s First Vision (see Joseph Smith—History 1:1–20). Discuss how Heavenly Father answers our sincere prayers.

and ended with peanut butter jelly sandwiches! (of course!)

 

*Learn to sing “Choose the Right” (Hymns, no. 239). Explain what agency is and what it means to be responsible for your choices. Discuss how making good choices has helped you develop greater faith.

WE actually spent one activity doing this…and then the next few activities we made sure to practice the song before we started activity days. The girls got up and sang it in Sacrament meeting! BRAVE! They did such a good job!

Make a list of the qualities you like in a person. Choose one quality to develop in yourself. Discuss how showing respect and kindness strengthens you, your family, and others.

This was one of my favorites! We had each girl take a piece of paper and write their name across the top. Then we rotated them around the table and each girl took a turn writing something they admired about each girl.

In the end they had 12 things about how nice, kind, funny etc. A good morale booster! We then talked about the toothpaste…(even squeezed it all out on the plate)

 

 

Learn about and practice good manners and courtesy.

Okay this is my favorite activity to date! We had a fancy tea party. Each girl got a special invitation. The girls were supposed to “dress up” however they wanted. We made individual mugs for each girl- and lots of goodies to eat!

If you notice…no napkins forks, spoons or knives. We passed them out when we were all seated and talked about how to properly set a table.  

You can grab these invitation printables here! 

 

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We talked about all these manners

and played this fun matching game. You can give each girl a question and have them try to find the match around their room! (source) 

 

 

This activity was right before general conference:

Read a recent conference address given by the prophet. Decide what you can do to follow the prophet, and do it.

I raided my oldest daughters magazines and found popular Disney stars that the girls would know.

Then I took pictures of the quorum of the twelve and tried to see if they knew all them! I emphasized the point that we know lots of singers and movie stars…but very few general authorities!

We had them do a fun game where they had to try to match the names to the picture (you can buy the pack with all their faces at Deseret Book and print off this sheet:

 

We talked about the importance of listening to the prophet and his counselors and gave them this sheet to fill out while they listened to conference.

 

Read the twelfth article of faith. Discuss what it means to be a good citizen and how your actions can affect others.

We thought it would be such a fun change of pace to invite a police officer to come and talk to us about obeying the laws of the land. He let us ask questions. Told us how one bad decision can really turn out bad. and then let us try out his cop car!

 

Read D&C 89. Discuss how Heavenly Father blesses us when we faithfully live the Word of Wisdom. Help plan and conduct an activity to teach the Word of Wisdom to others.

 

Another really fun idea! We talked about why we should stay healthy…an even showed some gross images of healthy lungs vs sick lungs because of cigarettes!

My daughter has lots of play food. So we lined up bowls along the floor with signs in front of each one with all the food groups. The girls had to pick in the bucket and pull out some play food and toss it into the appropriate bowl. A learning game!

We then passed around plates to all the girls and they drew a healthy meal that they would love to eat.

Our treat was apples…and we bought 7 different kinds of apples and the girls got to sample all the kinds and pick a favorite!

We left them with a fun challenge: Plan, prepare, and serve a nutritious meal. (which is another fun requirement from the faith in god book)

 

Mother’s day:  List five things you can do to help around your home. Discuss the importance of obeying and honoring your parents and learning how to work.

We also made some of these cute cookie bouquets! 

For Father’s Day:

Write a letter to a teacher, your parents, or your grandparents telling them what you appreciate and respect about them.

 

We did these mad libs…

 

 

Read and discuss the parable of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:30–37). Plan and complete a service project that helps a family member or neighbor. After completing the project, discuss how it helped your faith grow stronger

We have done a service scavenger hunt (our church is on the same street as our ward….so we just walked down the street.) We split in teams and had a timed scavenger hunt! Added an element of fun!

You might want to give a heads up beforehand to some people because a lot of people didn’t have anything for us to do (or maybe didn’t want us trooping through their house.) But we did knock off all the outdoor stuff: pull weeds, water flowers, take trash out etc. I was thinking it would be fun to do just bring rags and brooms and sweep porches and wipe down front doors and clean windows without even knocking! (like the bishops house etc!)

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Serving Others:

Write a letter to a teacher, your parents, or your grandparents telling them what you appreciate and respect about them.

You could have the girls make their own cards (our group of girls love anything crafty) or you can use these coloring printables!

Plan, prepare, and serve a nutritious meal.

We bought each girl a little recipe box with cards. They got to decorate them with stickers and then we taught them how to make orange Julius. They copied down the recipe and added it to their box. Little individual pizzas would be a fun and easy food idea too! 

We thought it would be fun to a occasionally do new recipes for activity days to add to their recipe boxes! 

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.

We turned to candy to help teach us how much tithing we needed to pay. Each girl got 10 pieces of candy and had to take out one for tithing.

Found some piggy banks to decorate from oriental trading that each girl can paint!

 

Make an item from wood, metal, fabric, or other material, or draw, paint, or sculpt a piece of art. Display your finished work for others to see.

We broke this up into two activity days. First we talked about all the different art mediums and played with clay and painted the color wheel. The girls had to go home and work on something to display and we held an art show. Just lined up tables and the girls decorated their names and brought stuff to display and we invited the ward.  We had tissue paper and each girl picked a color. That way you could tell what belonged to who! 

 

 

Plan a physical fitness program for yourself that may include learning to play a sport or game. Participate in the program for one month. 

We thought it would be fun to have a lady from our ward that teaches Zumba come and teach the girls! She taught them about the importance of stretching and warming up and cooling down. Throw in some fun music they had a good time! We gave them an apple and water bottle for a treat!

Prepare a pedigree chart with your name and your parents’ and grandparents’ names. Prepare a family group record for your family and share a family story. Discuss how performing temple work blesses families.

One of my favorite family tree printables is HERE  We had each girl fill out as best they could (and sent them home to finish it!)

We had asked each girl (and told their mom) to share a story about someone from their family tree–and if they had pictures to bring them! Each girl had a turn sharing fun stories about grandparents and great grandparents. We talked about how important it is to keep a record so our great grandkids could know about us. We gave each girl a tablet (this was right around when the school supplies were in stores) and then had them decorate them with stickers and gave them a fun pen! We had them glue the family tree in their notebook and challenged the girls to keep a record of their life! Fun things they like, food, movies, friends etc!

Read and discuss the parable of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:30–37). Plan and complete a service project that helps a family member or neighbor. After completing the project, discuss how it helped your faith grow stronger

We got a new bishop…so we spend an activity cutting out hearts and writing nice things on them for the old and new bishop and then snuck around their house taping them on!

 

Last fun activity: The lady I served with is a beautician. She talked to the girls about hygiene. deodorant. and how often to wash your hair. She showed us some fun cute hair styles that the girl can do and then put together little bags with makeup remover cloth to wash your face, hair brush and little odds and ends. Then she taught us about painting our nails and put special oil on our fingers and showed us how to give a hand massage (which I still bribe my daughter into giving me a hand massage!) Girls loved this girly activity!