Taste the Rainbow - Personal Progress Blitz

I am the Personal Progress Leader for the Young Women in our ward. If none of those terms make sense, find out more about the youth program HERE. I weekly try to remind and motivate the girls to pass off value experience and to be making effort and progress on their Personal Progress. Whenever there is a fifth weekly activity night for the month, I hold special Personal Progress activities. This month I did a Taste the Rainbow themed Personal Progress Blitz. The goal was the get the girls to pass off as many experiences as they could during the activity.

The Sunday before the activity, I gave the girls invites to remind them of what we were doing and what they needed to bring. If you note at the bottom of the invite, we had a little competition motivator- the girls were to dress colorfully, and the girl that was the most RAINBOWRIFIC would win a prize.

The prize was a little pack of rainbow colored nail polish. The second pack would go to the girl who passed off the most experiences during the evening.

At the activity we had 8 tables, one for each value. On each table was a card that listed the experiences they could complete or begin that evening. (Click on images to download the free printable.)

 

You will want to go through and make sure you have everything for the girls to be able to pass off the experiences. They will need their Personal Progress booklets and journals, a For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, and scriptures, as most experiences require use of those. Some of the experiences require additional resources. I've included the printables that I made to help:

Integrity experience #4 requires the girls to look up Integrity in the dictionary, so I went ahead and printed this out so I wouldn't have to carry a heavy dictionary. (Click on image to download. Two sheets are included so cut in half.)

Individual Worth experience #2 requires the girls to read in General Conference talks about Patriarchal Blessings, so I found these excerpts. (Click on image to download.)

Faith experience #6 requires the girls to draw out and label a Plan of Salvation chart. I created this little chart for them to fill out complete with scripture references for help. (Click image to download.) I printed two of these per page to save on paper.

For some of the experiences you may want to bring Conference issue Ensign magazines, True to the Faith pamphlet, etc. so make sure to look through the experiences to be sure you have everything. For Knowledge experience #6 the girls need to conduct a hymn during a meeting, so I had a calendar available for them to sign up for when and what song they were going to lead in Young Women's opening exercises. 

On each of the 8 value tables I had a jar of candy. When the girls completed an experience, they could take a candy- thus they were Tasting the Rainbow. Here are the little jar labels I created. I just printed them out and laminated them, then hole punched and tied them on the jars with jute string. (Click image to download.)

These jars serve dual purposes. Each month we focus on a value. On Sunday we have that value jar out and if a girl has passed off a value experience or completed a value project they get to take a candy from the jar. Additionally, if they wear that value's color, they can take a candy as well. So now I'm prepared with candy for the next several months!

At the end of the activity the girls counted off how many experiences they completed. Most finished four, one girl finished five, and two girls finished SIX experiences. They had fun working together through the experiences, and were very excited to have passed off so many in one night.

I gave the girls a little treat reminder at the end. It just reminds them to taste the rainbow of values every day of their lives as they work on Personal Progress continually, and if they do they can reach the pot of gold at the end. (Click on image to download.)

I attached the tags to pretzel bags I filled with Rolo's and Skittles- the pot of gold under the rainbow. They thought this was really cute.

It was a very successful evening. Not only was it fun, but it was very effective in helping the girls make a lot of progress. I hope that some of this can help you and your young women. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or email me!

Sister's BABY Shower

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am that my sister is having a baby! I will finally become an aunt, and I have already been enjoying spoiling the coming baby. What's even more fun, is that her and I are both expecting boys within months of each other. Best Friends & Cousins!! CANNOT WAIT!

So when a friend offered to throw my sister a baby shower, I was first on board to offer to help in any way I could.

First, I began by designing the invites:

It was held at the other host's home, so she did most of the decorations, I simply contributed at chalkboard bunting that I wrote BABY on- no pictures of that project...

We had some yummy food:

Played a few games:

We played the ever popular Points in Your Purse game. I created this little printable (which will be available soon) and some ladies came up with crazy high scores!

We also played a really funny game where you chew up some bubbly gum then sculpt the gum to look like babies. We then voted on our favorite.

Then we, or course, opened presents. Here's what I made for my sister, or rather for the BABY!

Hand-stamped onesies. I cut out some simple shapes from foam, then stamped. 

Crochet bear beanie.

Triangle pieced car seat canopy. (I had been wanting to try out this triangle quilt that I pinned on Pinterest a while ago, and I figured this little canopy would be a good place to start. I paired it with a black & white striped and trimmed it out with piping. So fun!)

Now I just have to wait a bit longer to hold that little guy! Can't wait!