I'm posting this because I owe the internet. Just about every activity I attempt in my church callings is the result of googling, sugardoodling or Young Women pinterest boarding until I find someone else's great idea and run with it. But as I researched for our New Beginnings program, handbooks and experts kept reminding me that the girls should be in charge of the planning. So I let them at it - and their idea was nothing short of spectacular.
Their first great idea was to invite the Activity Days girls from Primary. Really, they were going to do all this work for themselves and the one incoming Beehive? Nope, they wanted an audience and the AD girls were SO excited to be included. It was adorable!
The 2 themes of the evening were first, this quote from Bonnie D. Parkin:
"If we are in tune with the Spirit, if our dream is to return to our Father in Heaven, the sweet moments will come."
... and the other idea that sprouted from that was CandyLand. A perfect match!
I'll walk you through the evening. First, we opened at the back section of our cultural hall. There was a prayer, a few words of welcome from yours truly, and then the YW stood and recited the YW theme. We wanted to give a brief overview of the organization, so I had my counselors and I tell the girls about the 3 classes. We each spoke about what the class was, as well as had the member(s) of that class stand so we could also brag on them and tell everyone why they were such fabulous examples. They didn't know we were going to do that, but after all that hard work we wanted to give them a little sugar :)
Then we invited the Activity Day girls to pick up one of these super fancy baskets I whipped out of paper plates (here's a super easy tutorial) and had them follow the YW into the next room...
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| A bit of advice: glue gun. It was fast and easy. I'm not sold on the ribbon, but definitely use a glue gun. |
Like the Candy Land motif? It was all their idea and a 3 hour effort. The girls did a fabulous job, n'est pas?? We worked like dogs that afternoon to get it all together. The room was meant to look like a game board, with 4 tables set up as "lands." The girls came up with their own titles for their lands too - the only one I can remember now is Gummy Bear Island but they were all hysterical.
Each YW was assigned 2 of the values to introduce the Activity Day girls to in some creative way in about 5 minutes. They came up with the ideas all themselves too - there were some silly multiple choice questions, one girl did a blindfold activity to talk about faith, and another printed out these sweet handouts for Individual Worth.
The AD girls rotated around to each "land" and at each one, they were given different candies to put in their baskets. Their purpose came up in the last room where we had our closing.
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| this is the after picture - the cupcakes had been attacked. But you get the idea. |
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| Jenna demonstrating the perfect way to eat a cupcake - a cupcake sandwich!! |
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| Very tired, but very happy presidency. |
I added this last picture because the girls and the scouts that were also loose in the building cleaned everything up while I was puttering around the RS room - I'd expected to be there all night cleaning up, but within minutes this was the scene. I LOVE OUR YOUTH!!
Through this I gained an even deeper appreciation for our girls. I also LOVED the way the AD girls were so excited and looked up to them. They are worth looking up to.
Also, if you are wanting to do something similar, there's a lot of candy party decor inspiration here.
OKAY INTERWEBS, NOW WE'RE EVEN!
P.S. Also, we are not a ginormous ward from Utah. We're in Wisconsin and we're superduper thrilled to have 4 girls. It was 2. Some days it's 1. You do NOT need a big thriving program to throw something crazy cool. Just crazy cool girls :)
