New Blog Address

Hello there!

If you are checking back to see if I have new lesson handouts,

I hate to disappoint, but I was released from Young Women's in March 2015.

Our ward was combined with another ward and everyone was

automatically released from their callings.

I have been called to serve the 12-13 year old Sunday School class.

I decided to make a general LDS Handout blog.

You can find the blog at http://ldslessonhandouts.blogspot.com/

I hope that you have enjoyed my YW blog.

I will be starting to delete posts and moving them to my new blog.

Happy 2016!

Plan of Salvation Lesson

Tomorrow I am teaching the lesson from Come Follow Me,

"What is the Plan of Salvation?"

I found a website that had a creative idea.

She posted it back in 2009 and I thought the
girls in my ward would really enjoy it.

You can find her post here.

All of the credit for this idea needs to go to Angela at angbrimwil.blogspot.com.

She created this lesson as a play.

There are three acts in the Plan of Salvation.

You can find all of the information on her website.

She has pictures of a Playbill that she created for the lesson.

Every YW received a playbill before the lesson and they could read along.

The only problem is that she never posted her playbill for download.

I really want to use this idea for my lesson, so I made one.

It wasn't easy!

It took me a lot longer than I thought it would have.

I took all of her information that she typed on her blog

and created a playbill to look similar to her's in the picture.

These are the changes that I made:

- I added a few scriptures to reference what was being taught.

- I changed a few of the summaries.

- I made simple spelling and grammatical changes.
 - I took the parable of the cookie jar out of the playbill,
but still plan on using it in my lesson.

Here is the cover of my playbill.

If you would like to download the entire document, you can go here.

The file is a .pdf file.

I had it printed in color and two-sided.

It should be all formatted correctly so that the booklet is in order.

Make sure to print two-sided and flip over the long edge.

If you just can't get it to print correctly two-sided, then print it one-sided.

Here are all of the pages in order, so you can use those if you want.

 I downloaded all of the cute pictures here.

Let me know if you have any questions!

New Beginnings "Embark in the Service of God"

One of our Young Women came up with a fun idea for New Beginnings.

Every YW will make a suitcase out of cardboard.

Then they will decorate it and we will use them as our decoration.

We only have one YW coming in this year,

so we will use her suitcase in our program.

Her suitcase will travel around to the different values

and each "stop" will have something that can be put in her suitcase

for use on her journey to "Embark in the Service of God".

Every YW will get to take her suitcase home after

New Beginnings to use as she see's fit.

We hope that the girls will use it for handouts

and other remembrances of YW.

For the refreshments (dinner):

Each YW and Leader, made a dish from a different country.

We tried to not duplicate countries, so we would have a variety of food.
There was a lot of yummy food to choose from!

After the dinner is done, we sang the 2015 theme song

"Embark in the Service of God" flash mob style.

Everyone will be eating and the girls will be spread out through the room.

The accompaniment will begin and one or two YW will start singing

and all the YW will stand up and join in throughout the song.

If you haven't heard the song, go here to download it.

Last night we had our activity to decorate the suitcases.

I don't know where they were purchased, but they are cardboard craft boxes.

The dimensions are 13" x 9" x 5".

The lid is attached to the box.

Here is a picture of the plain box, with a handle that we put on.

We used brown ribbon and fasteners for the handle.

Obviously, the handle is not meant to hold a lot of weight, but is for decoration.

I created three pages of stickers for the girls to choose from.

I asked them what destinations they would like to travel to

and from the images, you will see what they liked.

I printed them on full sticker sheets and the girls cut out what they wanted.

Here is a picture of a finished suitcase.

My favorite sticker is the Keep Calm one that I created.

I had a friend ask if she could print it off.

So I created it in poster size for anyone that wants it.

Please do not recreate or resale as it is my creation.

Feel free to use for personal use. 

If you would like it as a poster, click the size you would like

and it will take you the site where you can download it.

8" x 10"     |    11" x 17"

Let me know if you have any questions.

Money & Budget Activity

May of 2014 we had an activity about Money and Budgets.

I asked to be put in charge of it.

I pride myself on my budget that I created years ago,

after my first Europe trip.

I was tired of living paycheck to paycheck and barely surviving.

I had opened two credit cards for my Europe trip

and they were almost maxed out.

I just couldn't do it anymore.

So I sat down in Excel and created my "No Debt Budget".

With my budget, it took me two years to be debt free!

I wanted the girls to understand how much things cost.

How much it is to live on your own.

How much a cell phone bill actually costs.

What credit card interest is and why it is bad.

I wanted them to learn from my mistakes.

The activity turned out amazing!

The girls learned a lot about money, credit cards, and budgets.

At the end of my presentation, we did an activity.

I gave them a paycheck that had to last them for the month.

 They had to chose their own scenario.

One of my most memorable questions I received from one YW,

"I don't use the internet or apps on my smartphone.

Do I still have to pay for a data plan?"

Yes!

She didn't understand that and was floored at how much it costs.

In the powerpoint, I put a picture of my budget.

You can change it to look like your budget.

Whatever works for you.

Here are the links that you need to do this activity:

PowerPoint Presentation

Blank Checks

Let me know if you have any questions.

2015 Calendar

I have finally finished it!

Here is my 2015 calendar that I created.

It is not Young Women specific, just a general 2015 calendar.

Here are pictures of every month.

If you want to download them individually, right click on the picture,

click save as..., then save to your computer.

If you want to download the entire calendar,

the link is at the bottom of this post.

 

Click here to download the .zip file of the entire calendar.

I hope that you enjoy this calendar as much as I enjoyed making it!

Happy 2015!

Young Women's in Excellence...Mystery/Sherlock Holmes/Steampunk Theme

This year, our Young Women wanted to have a

Sherlock Holmes/steampunk theme for Young Women's in Excellence.

One of the counselors in the Presidency came up with a fabulous idea!

First, the girls need to fill out the following questionnaire.

Click here for the questionnaire

Second, the information from their questionnaire needs to be

written in a creative way for the script.

Here is the script for our girls.

Click here for the script

Both are Word documents and can be edited for your ward.

We started with a walkway down the center of the room.

This is the Personal Progress path, that is discussed in the script.

To the left of the screen, you can see brown sheets.

We covered two rollaway chalkboards with the sheets.

You will find out why later in the post.

A member of our ward made the white screen for us.

He made a simple wooden frame, and pinned a white sheet tightly on it.

One of the Presidency made the London skyline out of cardboard

and then spray painted it black.

I wish I would have taken a close up of Big Ben,

she even put in a miniature clock!

We setup tables on both sides of the room with value colored table cloths.

These were the display tables for the girls Personal Progress Projects.

Each table was numbered and the girls were able to pick their table.

These are the tables in the other side of the room.

We have two wards that combine to do YW in Excellence.

Here is our refreshment table.

We had cupcakes made with mustache toppers
and cookies frosted like mustaches.

We started the night with the usual song, prayer, and theme.

The Beehives did a musical number.

Then we began with the "skit".

We asked a member of our ward that loves to act, to read the script aloud.

We put a spotlight behind the white screen and

had the girls stand close to the screen so their silhouette was visible.

One member of the Presidency was behind the screen with the girls

directing them on and off of the stage.

Now you can see why we covered the rollaway chalkboards.

We did not want anyone to know who was behind the screen.

They were given this document with their program.

They had to try and guess the girl behind the screen.

Here are the pictures of the girls.

I added every girls picture since they brought their

individual personalities to the skit

      

  

 

This Young Women stuffed her shirt with pillows and ate a slice of pizza.

    This Young Woman put her hair in a ponytail at her chin.  

 

 

When we were done with the script, we gave the parents 5 minutes

to look at the tables and try to figure out which

table belonged to which young woman.

After that was done, the Mia Maids sang a musical number.

We played a video that one of the Presidency made

that documented the last year of activities.

The Laurels ended the program with their musical number.

Then the Bishops got up and handed out their awards.

We closed with a prayer and ate refreshments.

We had a former ward member setup a photo booth for

the parents and girls to get pictures taken.

We haven't received any back yet, but when we do, I will post a few.

This was by far my favorite Young Women's in Excellence

that I have been a part of.

The girls really enjoyed it and I believe that the parents did to.

Let me know if you any questions.