I Am A Child Of God

I found this pattern in the book I Know The Scriptures Are True by Christena Nelson and Brenda Braun.  I photo copied the faces on to white card stock.  Our Nursery has A LOT more boys than girls so I made a master copy with two boys faces on it.  I did this by copying Boy 1 twice, cutting out just the boys and gluing them to a piece of copy paper.  I could copy two boys on one sheet of paper.  That way I didn't end up with a lot of extra girls.

The picture doesn't show the mirror very clearly.  I used a 3 inch mirror for each face.  I found them in packages of five at Michael's.  I'm sure any craft/Joann's/Walmart would carry them.

I cut out the faces ahead of time.  We had the children color the faces BEFORE we folded them in half and glued the craft stick BETWEEN the front and back of the face.  We then added the mirror.  I used a lot of Aleene's Tacky Glue because I was concerned that the mirror might be too heavy for regular glue.  Obviously, the adults did the assembly.  We finished by writing the children's names on the stick.

the circle is the 3 inch mirror

I wish I had a picture of their faces when they looked in their mirrors and saw a beautiful child of God.  The moment they realized they were looking at themselves, their faces lit up and their smiles were ear to ear.

Leaf Tour 2004 - South Fork in Provo Canyon

I LOVE autumn!  Our annual fall leaf viewing, drive around the 'Loop', stop at Purple Turtle for a shake FHE inspired me.

American Fork Canyon 2009

I went to my trusty Joann's fabric store, bought 4 packages of 

Autumn Inspirations maple leaves ($1.99 minus 40% for a package of 35 leaves - the oak leaves were in uninspiring shades of brown 

so I stuck with the maple leaves), came home and 

emptied them into a Ziploc bag.

I plan to use them to teach this Primary song.

It’s Autumntime

 Children’s Songbook, Nature and Seasons, It’s Autumntime, 246

1. It’s autumntime. It’s autumntime.
The leaves are falling down.
It’s autumntime. It’s autumntime.
It’s all around the town.

2. It’s autumntime. It’s autumntime.
There’s yellow, red, and brown.
It’s autumntime. It’s autumntime.
Bright colors can be found.

Words: Rita Mae Olsen, b. 1932. © 1966 IRI
Music: Rita Mae Olsen, b. 1932; arr. by Vanja Y. Watkins, b. 1938. © 1966, 1989 IRI

I will give each Nursery child a handful of leaves and when we get to 'The leaves are falling down' and 'There's yellow, red, and brown', we'll toss our leaves up in the air.  At the end of the song, we'll 'rake' them up and sing our song again and again and again until they tire of it.  I must say the 'crickets' held their attention for quite a while and I have high hopes for our leaves.

I Can Be A Pioneer Too!

I have been released as Relief Society president and I'm now serving in our ward's nursery.  We currently have 17 boys (that is not a typo) and 4 girls.  We have successfully removed the 'picnic tables' (perfect swine flu habitat) and compromised on the 'Shenanigan Shack with Shutters' (more about that in a future post) by leaving it for the other ward but dismantling it and moving it out to the hall during our nursery's class.  It is humbling, inspiring, tender and tiring serving in the nursery and our boy/girl ratio lends itself to A LOT OF ENERGY!  I have a testimony of serving and so I lace on my Nikes (I'm still nursing a very sore foot), sit down on the floor and give it my all.

The last week in July, I taught a Pioneer lesson.  I shared the story of the 'Miracle of the Gulls' and we talked about what it meant to be a pioneer.  I had bandannas for the boys (I cut store bought bandannas in half diagonally and hemmed the edge - two for the price of one!) and lunch sack bonnets for the girls.  Then we stood up and pretended we were seagulls.  I had bought two bags of 50 count 1/2 inch black pompoms and poured them in a Ziploc bag.  These were are 'crickets'.  I tossed all of the pompoms around the room and then our 'seagulls' gobbled up our 'crickets' with their 'beaks' (hands), brought them back to me and 'spit' them out in the bag.  We did this several times with remarkable success.  There were enough 'crickets' that everyone had a chance to gobble to their hearts' content.

I think it made an impression because several weeks later after our 
'I Am A Child Of God' lesson, a mom told us that when she asked her son what his 'I Am A Child Of God' sunbeam necklace meant he said, "I no longer a pioneer, I's a child of God!"

Our 'former' pioneer and current Child of God
(and one of 21 reasons
why I started taking vitamins again . . .
and a nap . . . )