Christmas Party

We had a Christmas party at Corey's house where we decorated gingerbread houses and played games and made an ornament craft.

Margaret displays the ornament craft

The Art of being Perfect in Christ

Corey gave a beautiful lesson about what this scriptures in Moroni 10 means:
 32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, anddeny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
Particularly focusing on what it means to be perfect in Christ even though we are imperfect beings. She then tied that into art and how we look at a things that don't necessarily reflect reality, but still "perfectly" represent something artistically.

The girls practiced doing a still life (a lemonade container) and partner portraits with the caveat that they weren't allowed to look at their drawing as they were making it.

Corey's amazing demonstration portrait of yours truly

Knives!

I gave a lesson about knife safety,

and then we practiced using knives safely by making ivory soap carvings, featuring stars, hearts, circles, and triangles.

We had one small incidence with a cut, but Megan was ready with her first aid kit.

Webs and Weaving a Network of Support

Corey taught us how to make giant decorative spider webs (tutorial below). We talked a little about the refugee crisis and will be looking for ways to reach out and create a network of support. A few stayed after and we learned how to pitch a dome tent.

Cambridge Culture

We had lunch at Henrietta's Table, followed by flowers at the Brattle Street Florists, and polished off with hot chocolate and macaroons from Burdick's. Special thanks to Bert Chesterton for the nice afternoon.

FHE Simulator

We made FHE job charts and Corey talked about how to run a Family Home Evening.

Getting to Know You

We celebrated our first activity of the school year with a couple of games. First, we reviewed the Faith in God program and made sure everyone has a booklet. Next we had a discussion about the art of conversation, and played a game called "Tabletopics."

Then we had the girls write a few unique things about themselves on index cards and then we went outside where Elizabeth Beutler read a unique thing and we sprayed the person who's card it was with silly string. We are so happy to welcome McKenzie Eastman to our group!

Boating and Birding

We took a beautiful paddle up the Concord River. We spotted many birds and turtles, culminating our trip at the designated turnaround spot lovingly named Goose Poop Island. It was a great day!

Birds and Bocce

We began our activity with a discussion of birding and talked about how we begin to learn about identifying birds. There is a very helpful set of videos here that provide a helpful beginning to birding. We will hopefully practice our skills when we go canoeing on the Concord river.

We then had (healthy) snacks and enjoyed some lawn games- tug of war, bocce ball, frisbee tossing, human pyramiding, and badminton volleying.

Olé! Cinco de Mayo

It's always a party at activity days! This time we held a Fiesta for Cinco de Mayo and celebrated Mexican culture and talked about the historical significance (and insignificance- did you know they don't really celebrate Cinco de Mayo in Mexico like we do in the U.S.?) of the holiday.

We made a traditional Cinco de Mayo banner and decorative tissue paper flowers. We listened to mariachi music as we snacked on chips and salsa and guacamole, Mexican cookies (thanks Ellie!), tres leches (thanks Jensens!), and leftover funeral cookie (thanks Elisabeth!). Sorry if they had no appetite for dinner. I had a slew of games that we didn't get to, but rest assured a good time was had. Olé!

Improv Activity

Bryn, Matteo, and Elisa helped us learn some fun and exciting improv exercises. Corey has a couple of great websites full of ideas for improv games: here and here.  We laughed, we pretended to cry, we scared people off a park bench. Good times! If anyone has pictures, send them to me and I'll post them.

Luck 'o the Irish

We enjoyed an Irish cultural extravaganza on St. Patrick's Day Eve. We played a word game that increased our Gaelic vocabulary, threw gold coins into a pot, had Megan Sweeney teach us some step dancing, learned to conduct in 3/4 while singing "Cockles and Muscles," had a Saint Patrick's day trivia bee, and finished off the evening with Irish soda bread.