The Art of Conflict Resolution

Carri Hulet ran an excellent workshop on conflict resolution. Her basic premise was that when we are in conflict with someone, be it our parents, peers, teachers, or someone else, we are in conflict because we each want something and that something is not the same thing. So the way to start resolving it is to ask more about why the person wants what they want, and only then can we start to find solutions and common ground.

We did role-playing involving a couple of different example conflicts: A) wanting to stay up later and B) wanting a pet.

Bread-making with Baker Shari

Shari, Danielle Harrell's sister, was so kind to share her professional baking tips with us and helped the girls make this delicious honey whole wheat bread. They also made raspberry passion-fruit jam and home-shook butter from heavy cream. Several impromptu conga lines sprung up for butter shaking purposes, including a special Happy Birthday conga line for Ellen Bishop, who was joining us for her first time on her birthday!

All about Easter

Michelle led an Easter-themed activity that included a fascinating lesson about Easter traditions globally (focusing on Europe- we watched clips from Rick Steve's Easter special), and then made adorable egg wreaths and polished off the evening with homemade hot cross buns and mini cadbury eggs.

Combining with the YW- games and hair

The Young Women led this activity. We spent a fun 45 minutes playing games and then went upstairs where the YW showed us a few hairstyles and then did some hands-on styling.

Bryn's creation on Cailee

Clara sports three styles-in-one!

Claire's coiffed hair

Ivy's hair done by a YW

Thou Shalt Have Treasure in Heaven (and in the dirt)

We divided up into 4 teams and did a treasure hunt throughout the church (teams searched for their own color coded set of clues) which culminated in the teams having to cooperate to figure out the last clue and led them outside to an actual "X marks the spot" in the dirt, complete with shovel. 

The girls dug until they reached a treasure box which held mardi gras beads, ring pops, Hershey's treasure bars, and fidget spinners. Once back in the classroom, we read the scripture in Matthew 19:21: 

"21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me."

Charlotte shared the insight that treasure hunting was hard work, and suspected that obtaining the treasure in heaven would similarly require hard work. We also talked about the Savior helping us and making up for our inadequacies in our journey through the atonement.

We also played games- Heads Up, Five Up, Four Corners, and Hangman.

Here were the clues for the four teams (same clues, just different permutations of order) and the rules:

 

 

Wonder-ful movie night

The Moores hosted a most excellent movie and game night. After quick rounds of exploding kittens, pit, and telestrations, we settled in to watch Wonder on the big screen.

DNA extraction- exploring our heritage

We had a lesson on our heritage- both familial and biological. We extracted DNA using the process below, and during some of the waiting steps, told stories from family histories.

If your daughter needs to do a pedigree chart to help fufill one of the requirements for the Faith in God program, I recommend using Family Search. You'll need their confirmation number (which you can find if you log in to your lds.org account directory).

We used the following process for the DNA extraction:

Materials
drinking water,
clear dish soap,
food coloring,
table salt, and
70% isopropyl alcohol
clear disposable cups,
pipettes,
glass pendants & lids,
jump rings, and
necklace(chain or string) to hang pendant from.

Step 1: Mix 500 ml drinking water with 1 tbsp salt (premixed)

Step 2: Stir until salt is dissolved. Then transfer 3 tbsp of salt water into a clear cup

Step 3: Swish the salt water around your mouth for 1 minute. [You really have to encourage the girls to move the water around in their mouths. I would suggest even lightly "biting" the insides of their cheeks to loosen more of the dead skin cells. Most of the girls got very few DNA strands because they weren't agitating the water in their mouths enough.]

Step 4: Spit the water back into the cup. Now your cheek cells are suspended in the salt water.

Step 5: Gently stir the salt water with one drop of soap. (Avoid bubbles as much as possible). [I had them using their pipettes that will later be used to transfer the DNA necklace as a stirring stick here.]

Step 6: In a separate cup, mix 100 ml isopropyl alcohol and 3 drops of food coloring. (premixed)

Step 7: Tilt the salt water cup and gently pour the alcohol so that it forms a layer on top (about 2 cm thick).

Step 8: Wait about 2.5 minutes. You should see white clumps and strings forming.
That's your DNA!

Step 9: use the pipette to gently extract the DNA from the alcohol and then squeeze it into a glass vial used to make necklace.

***Ivy's and my necklace pendants both evaporated through the cork lid. This could be remedied with a different type of vial and lid (one that seals better) or by replenishing the colored alcohol on days the necklace is to be worn, since the DNA did not evaporate and is still in the vial.

Turkish Delight was Delightful