FINALS SURVIVAL KITS

We all remember what a drag finals were!  It's fun to remember your YW with a Finals Survival Kit.  Depending on the number of girls you have, they can be as simple or elaborate as you would like.  The leaders can all donate one food or study item, place it in a bag and include a doorknob sign.  

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Easy and Inexpensive Handouts

Having been in YW a very long time, I always have my eye out for dollar items and ways to handout the theme for the day.  I feel the simpler it is, the better.  Hopefully, it will give them the thought from the lesson one more time during the week although I do not expect them to last long and some things can be used again for another purpose.  All these items were purchased in the Michael's dollar bin, at the Dollar Tree, or at the Staples dollar item aisle.

A Quote a Day for a Month

We had a fun, low key activity that allowed the girls to spend time talking to each other and to us.  We played music and had snacks with it.  Gather quotes from Famous Quote sites to cut and paste to your document.  I didn't spend long doing this and enjoyed the time reading them.  Have the other sisters in YW do the same to minimize the time spent if you like.  We printed them and took them to our activity night with colored index cards, glue sticks, stickers, and fun scissors.  They can spend the time choosing the quotes and pasting them onto the index cards.  We then bound them.  A ring can be used or you can give them an envelope or carrier.

Dr. Seuss and Integrity?

Our Beehive Advisor is the mother of small children.  For her lesson on Integrity this month, she pulled out a classic Dr. Seuss story of Horton Hatches the Egg.  The girls were enthralled as she read part and told part of the story of the elephant who is "faithful 100%."  Our Young Women, after all, are still children and love a good story!  Horton's dilemma fit the lesson perfectly as we discussed challenges we face as we strive to remain faithful.  What do we do to "shore up" our testimonies?  How do we keep going when life is difficult and choices are hard?  Is there a "happy ending?"  I felt it was a very effective and creative way to teach her lesson. 

Have you found a story or children's book that helped you teach a Gospel principle to the Young Women?

Great Ideas

I found a couple of blog sites that have some terrific  ideas that are very adaptable to YW.  Check out these creative ladies:  Room Mom 101 and  My {Creative} Place . 

Once Upon a Time....

 
Lesson 4 of Manual 3 in entitled:  "Preparing to Become an Eternal Companion".  As a supplement to this lesson, the resource guide recommends a talk given in the General Young Women's Meeting from April 2010, "Your Happily Ever After" by Elder Uchtdorf.  Such a wonderful talk!  What a great lesson supplement!  Some supplemental material just lends itself to great visual aids and this one certainly does.  There are times when the visuals can overpower the simple beauty of the lessons of the Gospel.  I found myself running amok with ideas for handouts and visual aids.  It is the testimony given by the Holy Ghost is what is will touch their hearts and simple is best.  I tried to make a handout that they could carry with them (Lipsmackers lip glosses) and think about the choices that will come their way in the next few years. 

Something fun!

Check out wordle.net to use their "word clouds" to make great handouts for your class.  I did one last weekend for the lesson on Living the Gospel Daily by using the 13th Article of Faith.  I made one today of the YW Theme for an example.  The size of the word on the picture is determined by the number of times it is typed on the paper.  The more times you put down FAITH FAITH FAITH, etc., the larger the word FAITH will appear in the "cloud."  Many combinations and several fonts and colors are available.  It will break up multi-word phrases hence the use of "works" instead of "good works."  It can then be printed for your YW and placed in a frame or used as a handout of some form.  It is fun to just play with!

Birthdays?

I am always looking for new ways to celebrate birthdays in YW and try to do something new each year.  In an effort to be creative, I decided to try to make a candy bouquet.  These look like such fun!  I think I really overdid the two I have pictured and will go smaller for the next ones.  These are quite large (1 ft. x 8 in.)  I would like to use milkshake glasses and think they are the perfect size.  I see them everywhere except when I want to buy one!  This was  my first effort at this idea.  They were so easy and I am a little excited about how they turned out.  Both bouquets took about an hour to put together in total.  I purchased just about everything at the Dollar Store, even most of the candy! Almost everything else I had at home such as curling ribbon, craft sticks, and skewers.  I noticed for the first time that I could choose a "color scheme" of candy wrappers.  Who knew?