a couple easy projects

I am serving as a leader of a Girl's group at church for the second year in a row. I am in charge of the first graders (this includes my own little Maddie : ) We meet monthly and each month I struggle and stress about what project/topic to do for the month. It seems most other groups do some sort of craft or cooking activity, which is fun for them. But I'd like to have a theme for each month. I mostly did that last year. Then I left time at each meeting for them to complete a page or two for a book I bound and gave them at the end of the year. I also try to incorporate faith in each meeting/project. For our book last year, pages started with, for example, "God provides us with food. Some of my favorite foods are..." While I'd love to do some sort of book again, I have the same girls this year. So I'll have to come up with something different than last year's. I feel like they need to learn something-- about a new technique (sewing, baking, etc.) or more about a topic they maybe didn't know about. I don't want it to be something silly that will get thrown away a week later!!

In October, we created a mini book about trees. I must say, it turned out so cute : ) We used brown paper lunch bags to create a mini book. I then printed facts about trees which they glued into their books. The pockets were then to be filled with different leaves/needles from trees!

In November, we created a "thankful" frame. Here it is in the making...

I really love the way this turned out. The only problem is six year olds are easily influenced by each other, so they very much copied each other's "what I'm thankful for" list : ) Turned out cute, nonetheless. We started out by painting a bare wood frame ($1 at Michael's) and then made a list on paper of what they were thankful for. We adhered the little letters "so very thankful 2011" (I used my quickutz fonts and numbers) onto a 4x4 piece of brown cardstock to go into the middle of the frame. Once the frame dried, they added flowers and pearl bling, and I tied tulle around it. Then each gal used brown markers to rewrite her thankful list onto her frame. This could make a great gift or project for your Thanksgiving host/hostess! Or have everyone sign something they are thankful for from your gathering, and have a keepsake from Thanksgiving.

Here is Maddie's frame.