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:

Fabric Covered Flip Flop Tutorial

For our 2013 year theme, "Stand Ye in Holy Places", we decided to give the upcoming Beehives, a pair of flip flops during our New Beginnings night.  I wanted to think outside the box and come up with something a little different than the rag-tied flip flops that I have seen before.  I simply wrapped the fabric around these flip flops from Walmart ($.98) and Voila!  Cute colorful flip flops.  I thought I'd share the tutorial below. 

We wanted to do these in the Value Colors.  You can see I only have 7 colors because the white flip flop counts as Faith. *Note: Each strip will do one pair of shoes.  So, you can make a at least 40 pairs of shoes (depending on the width of the fabric) out of 1/4 yard of fabric!

You can leave the shoe plain as seen above in Step 4 and be done, or if you'd like to add an embellishment between the toes as I have done, than you can do so. Note: I just used hot glue and it seems to do a pretty good job, however, for more durability, you may want to use a stronger fabric glue.   

I added our theme on the sole of the shoe for an added touch.  I wrote these on here with a fine tip permanent marker.

Here's the end result!  I chose to add little roses between the toe (made out of felt), but you could embellish it with whatever you'd like.  The possible variations of this project are endless!

Here's how we packaged these for the girls.  The girls were THRILLED to have these shoes!

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.

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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. 

Personal Progress goals to finish in a Day

I am over Personal Progress in my ward and the challenge we have had with the girls is that they feel overwhelmed.  I went through the book and created a list of all the personal progress experiences that you could do in one day.  I gave it to the girls and I am so happy to report that is has helped!!!!  For an activity one night, we helped the girl log in to Personal Progress Online.  We help them set up their account and told them how to work it.  As I checked their log, one of my beehives had about 8 more done.  When I talked to her about it, she said she did the ones on the list.  Wahooo!!!!  That is success to me!  If you'd like to print off the list, Click Here.

Lesson #9: Honoring Parents

Sometimes SIMPLE IS BEST!!!!  I love making handouts and doing fun things for the girls, but it can also be a lot of work.  This time I found some cute notecards on clearance at target and I found this idea on Sugardoodle.  I gave the girls each a "thank you" card with this saying on it by Pres. Monson.  I told them to go home and write a note to their parents and tell them how much they love them.  It was perfect, and to top it all off, I had a plate of brownies to share too!  If you'd like the printable of the saying to paper clip with the card, you can print it out here.

Value Color " Cheat Sheet"

I can never remember which color is which!  So I made the little go to "cheat sheet" to help me!  I just printed it off (carstock is best) and put in on the clear outside pocket of my young women binder.  As you can see by the tear in the corner, I have already referred to this quite a bit!  Just a helpful little tool if you want to use one!  Click here to download this document.

Idea for Integrity #3- value experience

I am the beehive personal progress leader in my ward and on the first Tuesday of every month I am in charge of an activity that focuses on a value experience.  I always want to do something elaborate and fun, but sometimes we need to get a little serious.  This acitvity acutally ended up being really fun, even though we spent a lot of time in the scriptures.  I made a matching worksheet and then my own word search (google custom word search) for the night.  We went through each scripture on the worksheet and talked about the people who showed integrity, then found the matching descriptions on the right.  I gave them a great start to working on this experience after our discussion.  At the end for fun, I bought a first and second prize (candy) and wrapped them.  Then we played breakfast scramble, which is a minute to win it game.  I cut out the fronts of four cereal boxes and cut them into equal amounts of puzzle pieces, we then put the girls into groups, and saw who could complete the puzzle in under a minute.  We did a few rounds, kept track of scores, then gave away the prizes.  It was a great night. 

Here is the like to the worksheet if you'd like it: Integrity #3 worksheet

"Stick with Personal Progress"- sticky notes

I am so excited about this idea!  We made these to give to the girls at our Young Women's in Excellence program.  I was inspired by another leader who told me as she was working on her personal progress goals, she would put sticky notes on her mirror to help her remember which goal she was working on.  I thought it would be perfect to customize some sticky notes for our young women to do the same.  I found a website, VISTA PRINT, that will customize them for you.  If you "google" vista print, you can find an offer for 50% off sticky notes.  This was kind of more on the expensive end, but totally worth it, and it turned out to be less than $1 per girl.  I went through the personal progress book and found that there is a little over 16 goals that require "two weeks or more".  These are what the girls would use the sticky notes for.

For example, If they were working on being more christlike for two weeks, they would write which value experience that would be, then in the goal section write: "be more christlike", and what the date will be in two weeks when this will be completed. I just uploaded the photo of the temple I found on
Sugardoodle here, then used Vista Print's editing program to make a custom sticky note. Each pad comes with 50 sheets, and I needed 16 sheets per girl, so I was able to get 3 sets out of each pad. That may help you when deciding how many you need. The more quanitity you buy, the bigger discount you get. Once seperated, I just cut a plain white piece of paper the same size as the sticky note and put it on the back so that it looked like a full pad of sticky notes. 



















I attached this saying to the back of the sticky note, thne tied it with tuelle to embellish it.  If you'd like the quote click Here.

Lesson 2: Jesus Christ, the Savior

I am so happy with the way these turned out. Lesson 2 in YW manual 1 is on Jesus Christ, our Savior. I got this idea from  SugarDoodle and totally made it my own. I wasn't going to do a big handout this week since I have to speak in sacrament AND teach a lesson, but when I read that this could go with Faith #5 out of personal progress, I couldn't resist. Faith #5 talks about the Savior and asks the girls to journal it. So this is their personal journal about the Savior.

 I also used some pass along cards of Jesus and glued them inside these journals. I found the journals at Michaels for only$0.30! I was SO EXCITED!  They had a picture of a apple pie on the front of them, but I just bought a piece of scrapbook paper and put over the top of the picture, then did each of the girl's initals on my computer. I also found 3D butterfly stickers to embellish them. I just had the ribbon downstairs in my endless supply! So, this was a SUPER CHEAP handout. I am pretty excited to give them this.  This idea would be great for a personal progress activity too, if you didn't want to use it with your lesson. I have a copy the scripture list I used and the template for the initals, if you want them just comment and I can upload the link. 

-Here's the Link to print out the scripture list
-Here's the Link to make your own Monogram Letters
 (Just note that the letters are editable, which means my font will be different than yours.  If you like the font I used, you will have to download it here.  It is called "Little Lord Fontelroy").