Jungle Birthday Party!

What do you do for your little boy who LOVES the movie Jungle Book?  Throw him a Jungle birthday party, of course! :)

I have been thinking about his upcoming 4th {agh! 4!} birthday party.  I remembered this one and thought I'd share.

I did a LOT of searching the web for ideas and thinking.  This is what I came up with:

    

THE INVITES:

"Have you herd?  The King of the Jungle is turning 2!"

"So, swing on over to XXXX on XXXX. We'll have snacks, cake, and lots of monkey business!"

DECORATIONS:

 I took 2 white poster boards.  Drew the spiral for Kaa on one.  And the head on another.  Used my tempara paint to paint him.  He hung by the jungle tree.  See it in the back of the picture below?  You can get Jungle leaves butcher paper at Hobby Lobby {used my 40% off coupon}.  And then I had some old brown packing paper I used to wrap around the pole for the trunk.  And Kaa was slithering out of the tree.  

 Used Green streamers for the vines.

It was cheaper just to buy solid color orange and white tablecloths from Walmart for $1 and used a permanent marker to make the tiger and zebra strips on the side.

THE GAMES/ACTIVITIES:

 When, the kiddos first got there, I had them color their vest.  These are just paper sacks that I got for free at Safeway.  You just go to Customer Service and ask for them.  If they are nice, they will give them to you.  Or they might make you pay like a $1 or something.  We cut out the necks and arm holes.  This is PERFECT to do at the beginning! Because as you know, kids will show up late.  If they didn't color it- no big deal.  Just a good activity to have the kids do to keep them busy while you wait for everyone to arrive.

SAFARI:

 Kids getting ready to go on a Safari!  This was so much fun, the kids LOVED it!

I gave them all hats, binoculars, and map to go with their vest.

You will need:

A Map 

{just click to download the one I made}

Safari Hats

Binoculars

Jungle Animals

Jungle Animal Stickers

I had hid these inflatable jungle animals around the backyard.

The kids had to go find them. When they found the animal they would put a sticker down.  For example, looking below, my son had found the giraffe.  So, he put the giraffe sicker on his map.  I had the giraffe stickers in a Ziploc bag taped to the animal for the kids to take one out.

ELEPHANT MARCH:

 I made these elephant trunks using dixie cups {tutorial here} and had the kids march in a circle on a circle I had drawn with sidewalk chalk.  I had taped down a brown piece of paper on the circle somewhere as the "mud".  They would march as the music played {I used a download of the Elephant march song in the movie Jungle Book}. Then, when the music would stop, whatever "elephant" was stuck in the mud when the music ended got to come over and get an animal sucker to go in their treat favor box.

 SOAK SHERE KHAN:

 I drew and laminated Shere Khan.  Taped him to a pole in the backyard.  Filled up water balloons and let the kids throw them at him.  They loved it!!

PARACHUTE:

 I own one of these from teaching.  But, you can buy one here.  I put the inflatable jungle animals I bought for the safari in the middle of the parachute.  The kids had fun shaking it and making the tiger, zebra, or whatever move around.  Sometimes I could get them to launch the monkey too.  Lots of giggles!

THE CAKE:

 Used the Wilton Elephant Cake Pan

Bought it at JoAnns using a 50% off coupon.

This party was so much fun!!  It's funny, whenever we go to one of our friends house, her son will say "Who is Ashley again?"  And she will say "Remember the Jungle Party?"  He will smile and say "Oh yeah, that was fun!"  That always makes me smile when I know my son, family, and friends had a great time!

The Godhead~ "What are the roles of the Holy Ghost?" Printable

Page 1

Page 2

You can download them HERE or in Dropbox HERE

Here are the printables I used for the lesson "What are the roles of the Holy Ghost?"

For my handout I did heart suckers with this scripture attached:

D&C 8:2

Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

UPDATE on "Come Follow Me INBs"

I have made all the title pages for all the months in 2013!

They can be found HERE on the original "Come Follow Me INBs" post.

Thanks for all the positive comments and e-mails about these notebooks!

Glad I could help! :)

Bowling Game!

What kid doesn't love to bowl!?

This is a favorite game my kids like to play!

This concept can be used to review math facts, reading, phonics, songs, etc...

Pretty much whatever.

I will show you the way I set up this game for music time in my church, but you could put anything behind the numbers they pic.  Like I said, you could write math facts, blends, phonics, quiz questions, etc... behind the cards.  I use this game in tutoring too.  So, the kid doesn't just get annoyed at me asking a lot of questions.  He bowls his questions.  I usually put a mark or something down in front of the pins so they have a line not to cross when they are bowling.  Put it farther away to challenge older kids.  Closer for the youngin.

I just cut these out of construction paper.  Numbers on one side.  Song on the other side.  {If we need to practice one song in particular, I put it behind two or three numbers}

 Just so more kids get to participate, I have kid #1 bowl.  Then, kid #2 bowl.  We add up how many pins they both knocked down together.  And that is the number we turn over.  So, below it looks like we are singing "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus" cuz they together knocked down 8 pins!

BTW, I always put "Pick your favorite song" behind 10.  And you would think this happens a lot in Sr. Primary... actually it doesn't. 

Primary Idol

Primary Idol!

I did this towards the end of the year when it was time to review all the songs before the Primary Program.  I asked 3 members from our ward to come in as guest judges.  My husband downloaded the infamous American Idol intro music on a CD.  I played that as our guest judges entered the Primary room and had a seat up front.  Each Judge had a sign with their # on it.  They also were each judging a different thing.  For example: Judge #1 was judging whether the kids were watching the chorister & giving great effort.  Judge #2 was judging whether the kids knew the words to the songs.  Judge #3 was judging the volume & reverence level.  They had these "thumb"s to either give a thumbs up or thumbs down for their category. 

Was great!  Kids really enjoyed it!

"Wheel of Wonder"~ DIY Spin the Wheel Game

The Primary Kids in my ward at the time named this the "Wheel Of Wonder". :)

You spin the wheel to pick what song you will sing next. 

The kids would DIE to spin this thing.  They loved it.  It was definitely an activity I was always saying "Be happy for your friends that got picked to spin the wheel!" :)

This is also soooo easy for switching songs appropriate for either Jr. Primary or Sr. Primary.

The songs on the wheel in the pic above are for: "Follow the Prophet", "Called to Serve", "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", "Once there was a Snowman", "Tell me the Stories of Jesus", "Do As I'm Doing", "I Lived in Heaven", and "Book of Mormon Stories".  Can you tell it's for Jr. Primary? :)  But as you can see I have more made for other songs.  So, easy to switch the songs on the wheel!  Also, lets say the kids are really having a hard time learning "I Lived in Heaven".  Then, print out 2 or 3 of that pic and put it on the wheel 2 or 3 times!  That way the probability you will land on that song to practice it are higher!

Materials you will need:

- Sticky Velcro {I use the dot kind}

- Construction Paper

- Glue Sticks or Rubber Cement

- Paper Clip

- Piece of Packing Tape

- Razor Blade

- Images for various songs you want to include on the wheel

-2 Foam Boards 

{They sell them at Dollar Tree, but you can buy larger ones for cheap too at Hobby Lobby}

1. I traced out a circle on the foam board.  Then, used a razor blade to cut it.

2. Cut out different colors of your construction paper.  Assort and glue to the foam board.

3.  Put a Velcro circle towards the top of each color.  Make sure they are all the same type.  Such as all the fuzzy side of the Velcro   Then, on the back of all the pics you make, you will have the scratchy harder side of the Velcro.  That way you don't have to worry about them not sticking together.

4. I used the paper clip to keep the wheel and the back foam board together.  I unbent the paper clip.  Poked a whole through the two foam boards.  Threaded the paperclip through both boards and then bent back the paperclip at each end.  Make sense???  But, before you poke holes and thread it through, do you see the little square of pack tape I put where the hole will be?  That is to keep the paperclip from tearing up the construction paper while it spins. 

 My little helper spinning the wheel.

What did we land on?

You pull it off and sing that song!

My son wants to use this at our next FHE.

P.S. 

You could use this wheel idea with more than just music!  You could make it geared towards reading.  The pics could be character, plot, setting, etc...  Possibilities are endless. :)

Sing-O-Meter!

The good ol' Sing-O-Meter!!

Great to use for singing time in the home, church, or at school!

I'm moving Feb. 1st and as I was going through some old teaching/church boxes I found some old visuals I used when I was a Primary Chorister for my church. Thought I would share.

I just bought a foam board from Dollar Tree.  Yellow, Orange, and Red Posters {also at Dollar Tree for .50 cents}

Cut out the poster.  Used glue and packing tape to keep it together.  Permanent Marker for the details and ta-da!  An awesome sing-o-meter you can use in the classroom, FHE, primary, wherever!

And here is my handsome assistant {who just started Primary for the first time this month} doing a great job demonstrating how it's used! :)

Yup, you can even have a Sunbeam come to the front to help you!  They will love it! :)

P.S. Sorry the ends of the poster is a little crunched from being in storage. 

Spreading Heartprints!

So, one night in January my son picked out this book for his bedtime story. It's "Heartprints" by P.K. Hallinan. It's a book about leaving "heartprints" behind as you serve and be nice to others. REALLY cute book with a great moral to the story. So, I thought it would be fun to make this into a Valentine activity for FHE {For those who don't know FHE stands for Family Home Evening. This is where we have a family lesson and activity every Monday night for some quality family time}. We started a "chain" service activity for Valentine's day.  So, kind of like the whole "Boo'd" during Halloween.  And "Egged" during Easter season.  This is "Heartprints" during Valentine's season. :)

I got the red baskets at the Dollar Tree. Put some Valentine candy, the book, and a poem in the basket. We cut out hearts and wrote something nice about each member of the family on a heart- why we love them.  So, on the person's door we taped the "We've been heart attacked with Heartprints" sign and the hearts with nice things  about them. The basket was left on the porch.  You could heart-attack the rest of the house if you want.  Then, ring the doorbell and run! :)

Then, when the other family gets ready to move it on, they copy the "We've been heart attacked with Heartprints" sign or they just print one online here on my blog. Refill the candy.  Put the book back. And pick a family and do the same.  The families should leave the "We've been heart attacked with Heartprints"  sign and the hearts on their door.  So, #1 they remember the love shown throughout the Valentine's season and #2 other families know they have already been given Heartprints.

What a great and fun way to spread love this Valentine season!!

Want to do this with your family?

You will need:

-Basket {got mine at Dollar Tree}

-"Heartprints" Poem I wrote- Download Here

-"We were heart attacked with Heartprints" sign- Download Here

-Valentine Candy or this yummy Valentine Chex Mix

-"Heartprints" by P.K. Hallinan- Buy at your local bookstore or amazon

 {I guess you could buy just one for your family and then photocopy it. Then, send around the photocopy version. Obeying copyright laws... of course. :)  That way in case you want to do more than one family.  Cuz buying more than one book would be pricey. But, I figure all the families that participate in this activity will want to go buy one for their own family anyways.}

Enjoy & Good Luck spreading "Heartprints" this Valentine's Season!