Quote - No Matter What Your Past Has Been, Your Future is Spotless

This is one of my all-time favorite quotes. It has provided a lot of hope for me.  I thought it was fitting to put it on my blog at Easter time since Jesus Christ is the reason our future can be spotless.

Easter Handout - Jesus Died that You Might Live

Here's a handout I made for my friend to give to her class at church.  I think I'll make the same thing for my class of Primary children :)

Pretzel Day

I love being in charge of Teacher Appreciation at my local elementary school.  Next week I am doing a "Pretzel Bar" for the teachers.  We'll have a variety of pretzel mixes for the teachers to munch on and a playful poem to tie it all together.

Here's the poem I wrote to go with the pretzel theme:

Here are the recipes I am using: 

Spicy Pretzels

5 oz (4 cups) mini pretzels

2 tsp melted butter

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp garlic powder w/parsley

1 tsp salt (I will leave it out – too much salt for me)

350 degrees.  Toss pretzels with butter and spread in pan.  Bake for 5 minutes.  Add rest of ingredients and toss.   Bake for 2 more minutes.  Let cool before storing in airtight container.

Cinnamon Super Pretzels

2/3 c. canola oil

½ c. sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 lb pretzels

300 degrees.  30 minutes.  Stir twice.  Let cool before storing in airtight container.

Teacher Appreciation Ideas

Teacher Appreciation Week will be May 6-10, 2013.  I'm in charge of making cute little handouts to go in the teacher mailboxes each day that week.  I thought I'd share my ideas in case anyone wants to use them.

You may wonder why there are two handouts stuck together.  Well, I designed them so that I could send them to Costco (or whatever photo place) and print them as 4x6 pics and then just cut them in half and attach them to the candy.  It seemed a lot easier and more affordable than printing them on my printer at home.

This handout goes with "Caramel Apple Sugar Babies" candies.  They are surprisingly yummy but probably terrible for your teeth!

I bought some mini "Three Musketeers" bars right after Valentine's Day that were strawberry flavored with dark chocolate around them.  Quite tasty!  You could also use this handout with chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry licorice, or any strawberry flavored item.

I also bought some individual size "Reese's Pieces" candies and will attach this saying to it.  Another cute idea would be buying the pieces in bulk and putting them in a cute little container or bag.  I think Reese's Pieces are an under-appreciated candy.  If they were good enough for ET, they are good enough for the teachers, right?  (NOTE:  When I went to Costco to get these printed, the first graphic below wasn't very bright orange so I designed a second one that is brighter and matches the Reese's Pieces packaging.  Feel free to use either one).

Here's a handout I made to go with a little baggy of Hershey's kisses.

I will do a few more fun things but I thought I'd share what I designed already.  I'll post more ideas

Gethsemane Song

This is my new favorite song.  It brings tears to my eyes when I hear my Primary kids sing this at church.

Gethsemane

Jesus climbed the hill
To the garden still
His steps were heavy and slow
Love and a prayer
Took Him there
To the place only He could go

Gethsemane
Jesus loves me
So He went willingly
To Gethsemane

He felt all that was sad, wicked or bad
All the pain we would ever know
While His friends were asleep
He fought to keep
His promise made long ago

Gethsemane
Jesus loves me
So He went willingly
To Gethsemane

The hardest thing That ever was done
The greatest pain that ever was known
The biggest battle that ever was won
This was done by Jesus.
The fight was won by Jesus.

Gethsemane
Jesus loves me
So he gave His gift to me
In Gethsemane

Gethsemane
Jesus loves me
So he gives His gift to me
From Gethsemane

Click HERE to hear the song on YouTube.

Primary - Memory Matching Game about the Organization of the LDS Church

I created this fun memory matching game for my Primary class to go with Primary Manual 5, Lesson 11 (click HERE for complete lesson).  I printed the pages out and then attached them to 3x5 notecards.  I played it with my son and he absolutely loved it.  I know my Primary class will have fun when we play it later today.  (PS I searched and searched the internet and couldn't find a picture of Peter Whitmer Jr. on his own so I had to use a group shot)

It Is What It Is...

In June 2011, I received a phone call that you never want to get.  As I was busy finishing the frantic "last minute before company arrives" cleaning of my house, the phone rang and it was my mom.  She said, "We've been in a horrible accident."  They were driving across the desert to come and visit us and my mom had fallen asleep at the wheel while my dad was already napping in the passenger seat.  She said they both seemed to be okay but that the emergency vehicles were coming.

My heart sank and I sent my husband off on the 2+ hour drive to get them.  I was so shaken that I feared I would cause another accident so I stayed home with the kids, planning to meet the at the hospital.

The car had been on cruise control and my sleepy mom drove from the slow lane across the lanes of traffic and sped right into the median area.  Luckily the median was wide and they didn't cross into oncoming traffic.  They rolled their car and landed upside down in the middle of the freeway.  My dad was able get out of his seatbelt and crawl out through the trunk which had been blown open.  My mom was hanging there, upside down, until a good samaritan came and helped pry the door open with tools.

I met them at the hospital, insisting that they get medical care.  They went through all sorts of tests and x-rays and were told how lucky they were to be alive and relatively unharmed.  While we were waiting for hours and hours at the hospital, the discussion kept turning to questions such as "Why did this have to happen?", "What could we have done to prevent it?"  There were complaints from my tired parents about the long and slow hospital process.  They were upset that I had to be up all night at the hospital with them and that we were all losing sleep.

Finally I said, "IT IS WHAT IT IS."  There was no use second-guessing what we could have done differently.  There was no use complaining that the care we were getting was not quick enough at the busy hospital.  There was no use worrying about what tomorrow would bring.  We were all in the situation we were in and we just needed to deal with it the best we could in the best way we knew how.

Primary - Organization of LDS Church Summary

I made this fun little one page summary sheet for my Primary class.  It goes with THIS LESSON (Primary Manual 5, Lesson 11).  The kids will color it at the end of the lesson and hopefully it will be a reminder of the  WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, and WHEN info about the restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Feel free to use it if you'd like.

Teacher Appreciation - Test Survival Pills

I designed these fun, fake prescription labels to put on real pharmacy bottles that I collected from a friend and then sanitized.  We will fill them with MnM candies and give them to the teachers right before the big standardized testing begins.  I think they'll love them!

Note: Our school nurse was not happy when we passed these out.  She wants to make sure kids don't think pills are candy.  Some of our aides were passing the candy out to the kids on the playground which was totally inappropriate.   So if you pass these out, have the teachers keep them away from the kids to avoid confusion and by all means don't pass them out to kids.  Someone was having a brainless moment when they did that.

Catastrophe, Compassion and Kindness

I live in a house full of males.  Despite this fact, we have sure had a lot of CHICK DRAMA lately.  Let me explain.

We have chickens.  Ten to be exact.  We became "chicken owners" about 2 years ago.  Click HERE to read about how our middle son added chickens into our home life.

While we currently own 10 chickens, we've actually owned 17 chickens total over the past few years. Never all alive at once though sadly.

My elementary school age son has been learning about ratios at school lately.  Here's our ratio related info on how many chickens we've managed to keep alive and in our yard -
Ratio of living chickens in our yard to total chickens: 10:17, Fraction: 10/17, Percent: 59%.

My teenager point out to me that our statistics stink.  (Teenagers can be blunt!)  Did I mention that we do have 8 very healthy full-grown chickens and 2 baby chicks that are still alive?  Let's look at the positive side folks, right?

Quote - “A Little Better Day by Day”

This was a great lesson that I read this week.  Click HERE to read it yourself.

I was inspired and made this handout to put on my fridge and share on my blog.  Enjoy!

Quote - We met for a reason....

I totally believe this and consider this whenever I meet new friends.

Object Lesson - How The Book of Mormon was originally printed

I am very spatially challenged so this was a good thing for me to try.  This object lesson shows the printing method for The Book of Mormon in the olden days.  It could also show how other book were printed in that time frame of the 1800's.


This is directly taken from lds.org (see link at end of post):

Have each child fold a piece of paper into eight sections (see illustration). Then have the children unfold their papers and write numbers on each side as illustrated:

Make sure the children write 15 on the back of 16 and 10 on the back of 9.

Have the children refold their papers: first so that 14 and 15 touch; then so that 12 and 13 touch; and finally so that 8 and 9 touch. Each paper should look like a small book, with 1 on the front and 16 on the back. With scissors or a paper knife, cut the top and right edges of the pages so that they open like a book. Have the children turn the pages so they can see that the numbers are in the right order. (Practice this activity before class so you can show the children how to do it.)

Explain to the children that this is the way the pages of the Book of Mormon were printed: pages were arranged in a certain order and then printed on one large piece of paper. The large piece of paper was then folded and trimmed so that all the pages were in the right order. Many of these small “books” were then combined to make the Book of Mormon. Some books are still printed today using this process.

I teach the younger kids at church (age 8) so I designed my own form so that the kids could just fold the paper and cut.  I thought it would be too challenging for them to have to figure out how to write all the numbers in the right places.  Here are my pages below.  If you print them out, be sure to do them double sided and have the right pages match up on the back.  Believe it or not this was a challenge for me.  I'm glad my children inherited their dad's spatial skills and not mine.

Front side:

Back side:

Click HERE to read the Primary lesson that goes with this object lesson.

St. Patrick's Day Fun

My niece went to a fun "Activity Day" at church today with a bunch of other 8-11 year old girls and made some St. Patrick's Day crafts.  I wanted to share them in case anyone else wants to copy the ideas :)

This fun little treat says "You're my POT OF GOLD at the end of the RAINBOW" and has colored licorice and cold candy coins.

She also made a "Leprechaun Catcher" which sounds so clever.  Wonder if she'll get lucky and catch her own leprechaun...

This treat says "Happy St. Patrick's Day - Have some of me LUCKY CHARMS... They're magically delicious" and is filled with Lucky Charms cereal (what kid doesn't love that!?)

I just may have to do some of these with my own kiddos.  A big THANKS to my darling niece for the fun ideas!