Mary Poppins Convention?

No.  It's just the summer craft club.

 Every week a different mom hosts the club, providing a craft or two for the 8 participating girls.  This is one of the projects we did at our house.  They traced simple drawings on to these cute umbrellas I found at Oriental Trading Company and then they colored them in with sharpies. 

They had fun and took their time making their own one-of-a-kind umbrellas.

Here's a close -up of Cami's Pooh bear version.

And my favorite panel of all, done by one of the girls.  It cracked me up every time I looked at her umbrella.

The girls have also tie-dyed t-shirts, painted birdhouses, made truffles, made beautiful bracelets, made necklaces out of ribbons and washers, and hand painted silky butterflies, and still have four weeks to go.

In the meantime, Emma is developing new friendships and experiencing first-hand the sense of pride and accomplishment  from creating something beautiful.

It really is a beautiful thing.  

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Priesthood FHE Lesson

I think that teaching children the significance of priesthood authority is invaluable. It's one of the main things that sets our church apart from others and I believe that having a testimony of this concept is going to be a huge strength for children and teens as they navigate the waters of doubts and questions that will be thrown their way.

The purpose of this lesson is to teach about the restoration of the priesthood, the priesthood offices and responsibilities, and the blessings obtained through the keys of the priesthood. If you have a Gospel Art Kit, you may opt to not print pages 4-5, 10-16. I thought they were valuable enough to include in the lesson, but you could definitely save yourself some printer ink if you already have them.

Here's a link to a Priesthood quiz:   https://www.theredheadedhostess.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/priesthood-quiz-pamphlet.pdf

Click here to view the index of my other ready-to-print FHE lessons (with a new one published most Mondays).

The Priesthood FHE Lesson

PS For optimal printing performance, it is best to create a free account with Scribd.com and download the PDF file before printing. As always, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com if you are having troubles viewing or printing these lessons. I also love to hear your feedback and ideas for future lesson topics.

PS#2--THANK YOU for all the nice comments last week. They truly made my day! :)

Making and Storing FHE Lesson Packets

Family home evenings are a powerful tool for teaching our families the gospel and I believe that being prepared is vital to making them a success. It is my hope that these lessons will be helpful for you in this quest, so I have put together the following ideas for making your lessons as usable, durable, and organized as possible!

1. Print visuals onto heavy cardstock (67 lbs. or higher for greatest durability)

2. Cut out visuals

3. Laminate for increased durabilityMy workhorse laminator (Only $50, 10 years old, laminated thousands upon thousands of pages and still going strong) It's Royal brand.

Laminating sheets from oregonlam.com or  laminator.com. You want letter size pouches in boxes of 100. (these are much better prices when looking at a per sheet basis when compared to getting things laminated at an office supply store). Go in with a friend on your order to save money and shipping. I use 3mm thickness for most of the items and 5mm for the items that will have the most hands-on use (or have moveable parts). I get the 9x12-inch size.

4. Cut them out of the laminate--leave a little border around the edge to keep it sealed

NO--
don't try to save time by laminating whole sheets of paper then cutting. You will not get as good of a seal on the laminate and they will not be as durable



YES--

Much better.

5. Divide your lessons into sections and store the separate sections in their own separate baggies or sheet protectors.
I like to put the story/summary/rules showing on one side and the visuals showing on the other, so everything I need for that one section are all together and visible at a glance. I recommend indicating on the outside of the baggie/sheet protector how many pieces are supposed to be there, so that you will easily know if one has been misplaced during the lesson)
Story summary on one side

laminated visuals on the other

6. Place all the of the parts of the lesson into a large manila envelope or folder

7. Label the outside of the envelope with the title of the lesson with subtitles for the individual parts. You may also want to include any extra materials that are needed.

8. File them in a box or filing cabinet in an order that makes sense to you. I keep mine in alphabetical order by title to make them easier to locate.

9. Use them and enjoy them!

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New Way to Go Private

A few weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law announced that they were making their blog private.

People have a lot of reasons for making their blogs private and I understand and sympathize with all of their varying reasons.

But I can't lie.

I hate every single "We're going private" announcement like it's a glass of milk gurgling around in my empty lactose-intolerant stomach. I miss not being able to subscribe to their posts anymore and I'm sad to say that the private blogs are the first ones I "forget" about as soon as life gets busy.

Matt and Karey, though, have found a new way. A brilliant plan that I'm hoping that the whole private world wide web will soon embrace.

Basically what they did is they created a new private blog and transferred all the posts over to it from their old blog.

Then they took off all the posts off the old blog, but kept it functional and told everyone to stay subscribed to it.

Now every time they make a post on their new top-secret blog, they also make a post on their old non-private blog with a link and a teaser to the secret blog.

It's perfect. They keep all their exceeding cuteness top secret and their update teasers get pushed right up to the top of my subscriptions, so they don't get forgotten. :)

Check out this brilliant plan in action here.

Pioneer Day FHE Lesson

This lesson is loosely based on the primary song, "To Be a Pioneer", which states that you don't have to push a handcart or leave your family dear to be a pioneer, but when you are courageous and stand up for righteousness that you can be a pioneer today. I've included a list of some fun craft and activity ideas if you want to expound on it during the week.

Click here to view the index of my other ready-to-print FHE lessons (with a new one published most Mondays).

Pioneer FHE Lesson

PS For optimal printing performance, it is best to create a free account with Scribd.com and download the PDF file before printing. As always, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com if you are having troubles viewing or printing these lessons. I also love to hear your feedback and ideas for future lesson topics.

PS#2--Comments and emails about how your family is using the lessons (and hopefully enjoying them) is a jolt of adrenaline in my arm to keep going with this time consuming project. hint hint :)

Faith FHE Lesson

This lesson about nurturing your faith turned out to be a powerful experience for our family. I felt like even though they've heard the faith-seed analogy their whole lives, I love the in-depth discussion about "rescuing" your faith if it's wavering.

I highly recommend sharing a personal story about a time when you exercised your faith or your faith was strengthened. My kids were enraptured when I shared an email my brother had written about an experience on his mission.

Click here to view the index of my other ready-to-print FHE lessons (with a new one published most Mondays).

Faith FHE Lesson


PS For optimal printing performance, it is best to create a free account with Scribd.com and download the PDF file before printing. As always, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com if you are having troubles viewing or printing these lessons. I also love to hear your feedback and ideas for future lesson topics.