Summer of PI: Part Two

We just scooped 1/4c. instant vanilla pudding onto a plate with a dollop of whip cream. Mmmm...

We just finished our Summer of PI (Personal Improvement) tonight.  It was so amazing!  Our girls achieved so much this summer through scripture study, personal progress, temple visits, service, etc...I was blown away with how hard they worked, so much so, that we totaled 430 pies!  Eek!  So, we had to tweak it a little.  We converted their Pie tally marks into points so that 3 points=1 pie. That significantly reduced the amount of pies we had to make.  All-in-all we made 150 pies.  Half way through the girls throwing pies, the leaders (and bishopric members) decided to AMBUSH the girls!  So we ran over to the table and the PIE FIGHT BEGAN!  It was an event to be remembered!  Some of the girls said we need to make this a tradition and I hope we can! 

Before!

Getting Ready to begin! The leaders participated in earning points as well.  Based on our points, we earned Protective Gear: Poncho, gloves, goggles, shower caps, and a towel.  Thank goodness we had that. 

Throwing the Pies at the leaders.  Before they threw their pies, I had them tell us one of their favorite things they did over the summer to earn a pie.

This one got personal (mother/daughter fight)

What leaders are willing to do for their girls!!!

The girls had fun getting messy!

And of course to top it all off... PIE for dessert!

If you have any questions, please let me know.  I'd be happy to share more details with you.  Please refer to my first post on Summer of Pi: Part 1 for additional info.

SUMMER OF PI (Personal Improvement)-PART 1

Here's the chart for all the girls.  Each week during opening exercises we ask the girls what they've done and mark it accordingly.  In the week since doing this it has been awesome to see what the girls have been up to, who's been reading their scriptures, who's visited the temple, etc...

I adapted this idea from a friend of mine who did this activity in her ward.  I am so excited about it.  I've called it Summer of Pi (trying to play off the movie title Life of Pi, get it?).  But PI stands for personal improvement.  We have different categories that they can earn pies for.  It started June 1st and will end Sept 1st.  Then our following activity Sept 4th, we will have a pie night.  In which, they can add up all the pies they've earned throughout the summer and will get to throw the pies in the leaders faces!  We are going to have the bishopric come and will invite the YW stake presidency as well.  The leaders are earning pies along side the girls, but instead of pies to throw, we are earning protective gear: Poncho, goggles, shower cap, gloves, towel.  We will do it outside in the Bowery and (hope) it ends in a pie fight (and of course we'll eat real pie for dessert!)

Now, the pies are just a foam plate filled with pudding and whipped cream to keep costs down.  My friend who originally did this idea, based their points on Personal Progress goals and indexing.  I took it a step further, since many girls have finished personal progress, I broadened the focus and accounted for many different areas of improvement.

We are one week into this program and many girls have earned pies.  EEK!  I think we may do this every summer and since it's our first time, we may have to tweak how many pies will be earned (I am afraid they may potentially earn a lot!) 

This is just a close up of the chart.  I just use tally marks when marking it off.  If you'd like this chart format, I have a link for it below.

I will post the final result after our Sept activity, but wanted to get this posted in case others wanted to implement this before we get too deep into summer.  Let me know if you have any questions, or suggestions!

Attached below is the Pie earning chart that you can hand out to the girls so they know what each pie is worth and a personal pie tracking sheet that they can track their progress throughout the summer.  I thought this would be a good idea, so that I don't miss anything they've done. 


Summer of Pi (value chart)
Pie Tracking Sheet
Summer of Pi Poster size tracking sheet- It should print in several different pages and then you can cut and glue it together to fit the size of a foam poster board.

 PIE CATEGORIES:

PERSONAL PROGRESS:

1 pie= 1 value experience

2 pies= 1 value project

* Earn an extra 5 pies if you finish personal progress.

BOOK OF MORMON:

1 pie for every 5 chapters read in the book of Mormon (I would change this to be every 15 or 20 chapters instead)

1 pie for consistently reading 5 out of 7 days (that’s an additional 13 pies at the end of the summer). I am so proud of our girls, many of them earned pies through reading.  This was really effective!

*Earn an additional 5 extra pies for finishing the entire Book of Mormon (on top of the above)

SERVICE:

1 pie for every 2 hours of service performed

1 pie for every temple visit (Baptisms for the Dead)

PERSONAL DEDICATION:

5 pies: for PERFECT church attendance throughout the summer

5 pies: attending all mutual activities throughout the summer

5 pies= keeping a weekly journal throughout the summer (This was harder to tally, I ended up giving them a point per week they wrote, giving them a potential of earning 13 pies- I am sure you can figure a better way).

1 pie: attending Girls Camp

1 pie: Each time you share your testimony

1 pie: for inviting someone to church or mutual

*Please click on Summer of Pi: Part Two to continue reading.

  *I found and purchased the cute graphics from Etsy Here:

Gospel Busy Book Idea for Children-Compiled by The Friend Magazine

I recently went to a busy bag exchange and it got my wheels turning.  My girls LOVED all the activities, but I felt like I wanted something GOSPEL related that I could just Grab-and-Go for church.

My girls LOVE all the activities in the Friend.  However, up to this point, every activity in our Friend magazine's have been scribbled on.  I wanted a way to preserve the fun activities and be able to reuse them.  I really didn't want to spend $$$ on laminating them, so I found that just by inserting them into a page protector gave me the same result.
 

I bought 5 tab dividers I inserted within the Book and came up with 5 different sections of activities.  If you log onto www.lds.org, you can find past issues of The Friend and can print out many of the activities. You can also cut the pages out of your magazines, which I what I did for most of it.

Dry Erase Markers work really well on Sheet Protectors.  For the eraser, I just used pinking shears to cut a decorative edge on felt.

 Here's the 5 Sections:

My girls LOVE Seek n' Find games!  These come out of the "Fun Stuf" section of the Friend, which can mostly be printed out online.

2013 Friend magazines are highlighting one Prophet each month on the back page.  I just simply cut out each one  and will collect them throughout the year.

This is perfect for my 6 year old daughter who has learned how to read. This is even great to read to little ones to reinforce gospel teachings. I also have some of the stories of Jesus, which The Friend highlights.

I am thrilled by this!!!  I went to Deseret Industries one night and found some LDS and BIBLE children's activity books in the book aisle for $1 each.  So the activities from above came from those books as well. My girls LOVE mazes and connect the dots and what's better than religious ones!!!

Right: I printed most of the coloring pages from online, but I have also just copied them out of The Friend and placed them in the pocket on the tab page.  On the Left: I made this printable activity myself and will attach it here.  I put it in the "ACTIVITY" section and it's on the Word of Wisdom.

Top: This little binder pocket was from Walmart for $.50 and holds the supplies you'll need for the book. Bottom: Sometimes kids just want to doodle so I added extra paper and stickers for fun.

This has been a HUGE success for me.  My kids ask me for these activities every week and it helps with reverence during Church.  I think it's a great way to preserve your favorite moments from The Friend.  Not to mention, when they get tired of an activity, you can  constantly rotate it.

I purchased this cute bag from Walmart.  My goal with this project is to have it "grab-and-go".  It is important for me, seeing as I have 9am church and it is hard to get there on time!  Also, keeping this as a "Sunday Only Activity" helps keep it fresh and exciting for my girls to look forward to each week. I also have used some of the file folder games from the Finch Family Books (sold online and Deseret Book), which are also in my bag.  I will later post on some of them on here.

"Ink"redible Valentine Cards

You're "Ink"redible Valentine!

I found a sale on some cute Valentine Stamps at Oriental Trading.  My girl's wanted these stamps to give to their friends, but I had no idea how I'd tie it into a Valentine.  After looking all over the web and finding nothing, my husband came up with this cute little saying.  I think it is perfect!  I stumbled across the most AMAZING free, personal use graphics site: My Cute Graphics.  I am so grateful there are people out there willing to share their amazing talents! Thank you!
I toyed with the idea of how to attach them.  I finally found that a hole punch, did just the trick! I think it is about 1/2"-1" (just as long as it is small enough that the big part of the stamp won't go through). Print out on cardstock and there you have it! In the words of my 6 year old, "Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!"

Click Below if you'd like to print out these Valentine's for yourself.  Remember, only personal use, not for resale!

 "Ink"redible Valentine Card Printable

YW Personal Progress Valentine Exchange

For our Young Women mutual activity tonight, we had a Valentine Exchange.  The girls had so much fun.  We made Valentine boxes to judge and the girls brought Valentines to give to each other.  To tie it into Personal Progress, I had the girls write one positive quality about each girl (Individual Worth #3,7) on their Valentines.  After we were done with the exchange, we then frosted sugar cookies.  For the Valentine Box Contest, I had 7 different categories for the awards.  I was blown away with how much time and effort the girls put into their boxes.  The contest categories are as follows:

• "Take My Breath Away"-Best Overall
• "Laugh Attack"-funniest box
• "Queen of Hearts"-Box with the Most Hearts
•  "Eternal Love"-Most time spent
• "Hopeless Romantic"- Frilliest and Fanciest
• "Clever Cupid"-Most Creative
• "Heartbroken"-No effort/ Ran out of Time

Here’s a link to the voting sheetValentines voting sheet

 Here are some pictures and details of the night.

.

This Cupcake Box won the "Hopeless Romantic" Award

This box  won the "Eternal Love" Award.  I can see why, that does look like to to FOREVER!

Justin Bieber obviously won the "Laugh Attack" Award!

 This was the Grand Prize Winner: Bubble Gum Machine.

This Duck came in a close second place for most creative!

This won the Creative Cupid Award.  She wrapped it in red and white lights and when you opened the box, it played music (she used a Hallmark card that sang a song and taped it to the hinge).  So cute and clever!

This pig was a close runner up for Funniest!

 She won the "Queen of Hearts" Award.

Taking home the Grand Prize!

PRIZES:

These are the Prizes that I made for the girls.  I saw a similar idea on Pinterest.  I found these glasses at the dollar store, filled them with bath salts, a rose-shaped soap, a sponge for the top.  For the straw, I used a decorative pen.  The girls LOVED them!

This was the Grand Prize Award.  I found this kit at the dollar store and embellished it. 

Inside I added some goodies.

I just had to share my valentine box.  I am so proud of it!  My little girl wanted me to make a Flamingo.  I made this for under $5, only bought the feathers and paint.  I used balloons, toilet paper rolls and paper mache.