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I am now partly in charge of the 12- and 13-year-old girls at my church. My main responsibility is to teach the Sunday lesson, but I also help with the weekly activities. On January 4, we are going to have a planning session to lay out the weekly activities for the next six months.
I need ideas.
Susan says they love learning things, how to do things. They like service. It can't be expensive, and free or near-free is better. We have a small budget, but it tends to get used for the big activities. There will seven girls at the peak, but there will also be nights where there are just two or three or possibly just one.
I can teach them some basic of oil painting, and they always like learning to cook (it's creative and yummy). I have a star chart and I'd love to take them all out and plot out the stars sometime, but that needs to be a special weekend thing because We need to get them back to the church by 8:45 pm on school nights.
I'm really pumped about this - I think it would be great. Y'all have any ideas?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Cooking meals for families in need might be good.
Knitting is fun, can be cheap (depending on the yarn), and easy to learn. Knitting hats and scarves for people in shelters or are refugees would be another way to do service.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Soup kitchen. Cook things up for a local shelter. Habitat for Humanity (oops, you said evening). My local Knights of Columbus council often needs helpers for our special events, like Haunted House. Not regular. There's got to be a book of "fun things to do with your youth group," or something.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I always thought it was neat when my yw leaders would incorporate our personal progress goals into the activities. Then not only did we have fun, but we usually passed off one or two goals a month. I think they've changed the program since our time, but flipping through the personal progress book might give you some ideas that would work Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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My favorite service activity when I was in a youth group was the collage project. We went to the Jewish nursing home and talked with the residents. I think we each got two residents. We talked with them for a while about their lives, and I think we brought them cookies that we had made.
And then we made little collages for their doors with pictures of things they were interested in or talked about liking in the past (gardening, sledding as a child, travelling, etc). All of the pictures got cut out of donated magazines, newspaper circulars, etc. They also had the resident's first name on them (also collaged).
It gave us a chance to really talk with the elderly, but with a purpose. I think too often the young are put with the elderly and don't know how to act. And a chance to be "crafty." A lot of those little collages stayed up in their rooms or on their doors for years.
I don't know if there are LDS nursing homes, but I would guess that any nursing home would be more than happy to have visitors.
Posts: 289 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Get to know the girls. They may not be into homey type stuff. I remember that when I was that age, my church teachers were always cooking or embroidery, sewing and so forth, often with commentary about how we would be housewives someday and should know how to do these things... and I was not into those things at all. Part of it might have been presentation -- I never intended to be a housewife. I was looking forward to having a job, even when I was 12.
So you might have a night of story building. You could have a night where you open up a computer and look at the guts of it, learning the different components. You might have a night where you open the hood of the car and have a mechanic (or if you can do this yourself) teach about how cars work, what each part does, what parts wear out and have to be replaced. Yes, they're a bit young to think about driving, but I would think looking at the guts of a car would be very interesting. You could have a night learning about how buildings are run...like the mall. A behind the scenes tour, maybe.
I'd try to think outside the norm, just to spice it up and make it really different. OTOH, while I think this could be done with girls, boys are fairly focussed on what they will and won't do. My son flatly refuses to learn ballroom dancing... (which, btw, might be a fun activity for your girls, now that I think of it.)
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Those are great ideas - I especially like the one about computers. I'd also love to have a night where I teach them how to get free space and start their own web pages (maybe on My Space), and then we could talk about what is safe and not safe on the web.
The mechanic night would be fun - I still don't know how to do all of that.
We are going to have a money night where we talk about compound interest and the dangers of credit cards.
I'm looking forward to teaching them to paint. Maybe draw for an evening, too, which is something they can do for much cheaper on their own.
I'd love to have Disco night, where we teach them how to disco. It's so ridiculous and so much fun at the same time.
The girls don't go to school together. Our ward is because that they all attend different junior highs and high schools, so Sunday and the weekly activities are usually the only time they spend together. Are there things they could do to make them get to know each other better?
Our YW does do the "traveling basket", where every week someone brings it filled with things that represent them (favorite candy, trinkets) and shows what's inside so we can know them better. The girl of that week gives the basket to another girl, who keeps the stuff and then fills it with stuff of her own to pass along.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I just want to say I'll get back to this later, when I'm not studying and tired. I have tons of ideas we used in girl scouts.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Get the girls to plan the activities they want to do.
Seriously, that's what the class presidency is for. You're there to veto stuff that's too dangerous or expensive. If they plan it themselves, and have the assignments of carrying things out, they will be doing things they're interested in, will learn responsibility, and will be more likely to come.
(Based on my experience with both kinds of YW presidencies: the kind that planned everything for us, and the kind that made us do the work. We grumbled at first but it was SO much better the second way.)
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Minerva, that collage idea is one of the greatest I've ever heard.
I'm going to store it away against the time when I might have need of it.
My 12 year old likes to make jewelry, but it can get expensive when you get all the supplies.
When she and a big group of friends get together they play mafia. Maybe not appropriate at church.
You know, KarlEd said you make the book thongs for pretty cheap, I'm dying to try it, and your girls could make them and then donate them to a school or library as part of a reading awareness week or something like that.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I remember one where we learned to sew on buttons, and made little hand sewn pillows. They were with embroidry floss and felt, so the pillows cost less than a dollar each. We cut shapes ,I think mostly stars and hearts out of the felt, you could get both sides out of an 8x11 piece, then you sew a button onto one side, and stitch it together, a bag of stuffing would be enough for your number of girls, and it's a great project because you learn a skill that's needed in life (really sewing on a button is).
At girl scouts one time about that age we researched careers, that was really fun, getting to look through books and pick one we wanted, then figuring out how to get it.
I posted on a thread narnia started with lots of get to know you games.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I agree that you should try to get the girls to plan the activities. It would be good for you to be armed with ideas, if they get stuck in the "I dunno" mindset.
Some of the things I did with the Activity Day (8-9 year olds) that I think might also work for 12-13 year olds include: Budgeting (give them a list of possible monthly expenses and a set income and have them come up with their own budget and explain why they chose the expenses they did) Nutrition (teaching them not only about balanced nutrition but about meal planning and how to read nutrition labels) Book Night (have them bring in their favorite book and talk about it) Letter writing (having them write a letter to a family member, friend, or missionary) Painting Christmas ornaments Learning about different styles of music Putting together temple pictures (a picture of the temple and a picture of the girl, that they put on a sheet of cardstock, decorated and put in a frame) and a discussion about the temple Writing thank you cards Learning about the symbolism of the US Flag (and proper care for it) Making service coupons for family members Learning about manners (you can make this into a game)
I like the ideas for Book Thongs, visiting a Nursing Home, mechanics and computer nights.
Good luck with it all! Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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When I was that age I enjoyed thinking about my future wedding. (I may have been about 14, actually.) One activity we had fun with was making a wedding wish book - we just went through magazines and picked out pictures of the perfect dress, cake, ring, etc, to paste into a notebook. We wrote out the inevitable "list" of what we wanted in a spouse. And they finished it off with a few words about the most important qualities in a spouse and a marriage. Must've been interesting if I can still remember it after 20 years.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I think you can google "Achievement Day Activities" and you can find a whole bunch of ideas that other people are doing. I havnen't read all the posts in this thread, so sorry if that was already mentioned. Have fun, I loved doing this and girls this age are so enthusiastic! You are lucky.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Everyone in the LDS church should know how to lead music. I highly recommend that as an activity and it can be very fun. I actually learned by reading the last pages in the hymnal during sacrament meeting when I was about 10 or 11, so the info is there. Anyway, it's a good skill to be comfortable with.
Posts: 77 | Registered: Feb 2005
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12-year-olds, if I remember being one correctly, are still interested in learning how stuff works, and there are plenty of community activities that can combine that with the service orientation you sound like you're looking for.
- Community Garden. These crop up from the place to place and are a fun way to learn about the care and feeding of useful and interesting plants. If there isn't one in your neighborhood, maybe you could start one.
- Animal Rescue. Most areas have a non-profit animal rescue center of one sort or another. This isn't necessarily a "dog pound", many rescues take in exotic animals that people thought would make good pets (but don't), and they might be happy for some free help.
Other folks here have made some excellent suggestions. Let us know how it goes.
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
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one of my all-time favorite yw activities was when we learned to french braid hair. Sounds cheesy I know, but we all wanted to learn and I still use that skill today!
Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Some things that I did with the middle-schoolers last year.
Master builder - put girls in groups of 3-4. Everyone gets an identical "kit" (legos, candy, etc). One girl builds something, but doesn't show it to the others (we used a file folder standing up as the barrier). She needs to describe it to the other girls so they build the same thing with their kits.
Build the tallest tower possible with gumdrops and toothpicks. Best in groups of 2 or so.
Groups get a piece of tin foil. They have to make a boat out of it. The challenge is to design your boat so it holds the maximum number of pennies. To make it more challenging, there can be several iterations.
Stop action movies, with a digital camera. It's pretty trivial to make them into a movie using iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. Each child needed to have a storyboard. We did them without sound because it is a challenge to coordinate the sound with the stop action. And then we had a "film festival." I suppose you could have them film a religious story. This was more time-consuming than I had anticipated.
Each girl gets the name of a famous person taped to her back (maybe people from the Book of Mormon or the Bible). Asking just "yes and no" questions, she needs to figure out who it is.
Posts: 289 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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get them hooked on playing world of warcraft, god knows the female gamer is an endangered species.
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At age 12 or 13 Boys and Girls usually like the same stuff. (unless someone tells them that its just "Boy" of "Girl" stuff.) Try planning hikes and/or cookouts. If you keep the cover covered, you can find lots of helps in Boy Scout literature.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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In the "how things work" category, you could also get a tour at a local business to see what their processes are. I'm always seeing thank-you notes posted in small businesses like pizza places, doughnut shops, etc.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Planning meeting is tonight - Ishould have bumped this thread a few days ago. Any other last-minute ideas?
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Learning how to make omelettes: it's a useful skill, things like seperating eggs are handy to know for other recipes, and eggs are relatively cheap, so there's room for error.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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A lesson one night on dressing in layers to keep warm and keeping your feet dry, followed by a Saturday "Snow Hike" w/lots of hot chocolate in the trunk at the end of the hike.
No mud, no mosquitos, It dosn't get any better!
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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My son and his friends went for "Mitzvah Clown" training -- they learned clown make up and acts and they visit nursing homes to perform. They include magic tricks and some stunts (unicycling, juggling, etc) in their act. The training and performing is fun, and their visits are appreciated by the nursing home folks (who, face it, are usually delighted just to see nice polite children behaving beautifully).
Even a shy girl can enjoy hiding behind the whiteface and participating in the act. Clowns don't even have to talk -- they can just hand out tissue paper flowers.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Katie, I did this same calling too! I loved it!
One night we all brought our favorite books and told about them, and what they meant to us. That was so fun, and how I discovered the Lemony Snickett books.
Another thing we loved was we all brought junk electronics things, old broken dolls that lit up and moved, broken radios, cars and toys. Anything that once moved or ran. I brought in tools and we took them all apart and figured out how they worked. The little electric motors we hooked up to batteries and noticed that they ran faster the more batteries we added, they ran in reverse if we swapped the wires, etc. The girls got a *huge* kick out of that one. We never succeeded in making a working robot but it was still loads of fun. The girls got familiar with how to use screwdrivers and things, and with electricity, motors, lights, etc. I think the central miracle that thrilled us all was that you can take stuff apart and see why it does what it does.
Cooking was great too! We made stuff several times. The girls really responded to being the ones who got to choose. We worked out between us what we wanted to do, with me providing suggestions and channeling things into the most productive directions.
Let them contribute and choose. I can't stress that enough. The sessions caught fire when they realized they were really the ones who counted.
Service project are great fun, too! We collected surplus books for disadvantaged 1st and 2nd graders. We got tons!
We did a knitting session, in which I brought in all my knitting supplies, knitting needles, and surplus yarn, and we all learned to knit a small swatch. The time isn't long enough for us to actually knit something real, but we learned how.
We did skating skillz one night, out in the ward parking lot, since we all had skates. One night we went swimming and showed off all our swimming skillz and helped each other to learn things we didn't know how to do, handstands, and different strokes, etc. We had a race. You need to get a signed form from parents to get permission to take them off site. We lined up all the permissions in advance and made sure it was okay with everyone's folks.
A few of us ran in a local 5k road race one Saturday morning, and one of our girls took second place in her age group. (We elicited entry fee donations from local runners, pitching it as a way to foster young girls interested in running.)
The girls and I had a blast, and it sort of caused problems because the boys were kind of jealous that we had so much more fun than they did. It seemed to be a real problem that it was such a great program. Eventually they squashed it and I gave up. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I know it's too late for tonight's meeting, but a suggestion to keep in mind if you do get them knitting or crocheting: Snuggles Project.
Basically, it's security blankets for shelter pets. They can range from 12-by-12 inches up to 36-by-36 inches and can be knitted, crocheted or sewn. I think Cayla's going to knit some, while I'm planning to take some old flannel shirts of my husband's that he'll never wear and make something of them.
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A behind the scenes tour, maybe. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Any other last-minute ideas?
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"get them hooked on playing world of warcraft, god knows the female gamer is an endangered species."
