Activity Days – Secret Service Recognition Night

Want a fabulous, fun and meaningful service experience for Activity Days or any or youth group?  Here it is.  We have done activities focused on individual worth and personal development and building relationships and we decided it was time to do an activity centered solely on service.

SECRET SERVICE MISSION

We pin-lifted this idea from theficklepickle.  as our starting point.  The girls became “Secret Service Agents” who received a top secret mission delivered to their homes in a large manila envelope.  Click on the links below to see what was included in the “Top Secret Mission” package:

• Mission Possible – Intro Letter
• Mission Possible Report Sheet
• List of Secret Service Ideas – Page 1
• List of Secret Service Ideas – Page 2
• Mission Possible Invite
• Magnifying Glass (because girls love things like that!)

Susan (our leader who was in charge of the packets) pretty much just reworked the downloads from theficklepickle.  Why reinvent something that was already done so well?  Susan also included a different list of service ideas from this blog post by katharinemaries.com.

To personalize their Mission Packets we asked each girl to choose a “Secret Agent Name” which was used as the label on their envelope.  Names could be a number or nickname or something they liked.  We had “Agent Triple S Squid,” and “Agent Nerdy Bird,” and “Agent Flexken 2″ but my personal favorite: “Agent M&M Mad Dog.”  Oh, she’s fierce.  All 42 pounds of her.

GOAL: Practice doing acts of service in a variety of situations and locations.  Learn to see where they can help and act on those observations. Recognize the joy that comes from serving.

Two weeks before the night of the activity the girls received their Secret Service Mission Packets.   During the next two weeks, they were to plan and execute a week’s worth of secret service.  Seven days.  Seven acts of service.  Ideas were listed in their packets.  Everything from taking shopping carts back, holding a public door open for others for 10 minutes straight and smiling at people to inviting someone to play, reading to a younger sibling, or baking cookies for a neighbor.

Each girl wrote down their service experiences each day.  What they did, how they felt, and what the reaction was.  They used this written report to share their experiences at our Recognition Night.

RECOGNITION NIGHT

INVITE

An invitation was included in the Top Secret Mission packet described above – delivered two weeks before the event.  All parents were invited to attend with their daughters and everyone was encouraged to dress in their best spy gear if they chose.   When they arrived to the activity we gave each of the girls a sticker nametag with their Secret Agent Name on it so they could stay in character.

DECORATIONS

During the weeks before the activity we asked the girls to wear their hair in a ponytail if possible and took profile pictures of each girl.  We then cut out a silhouette from that picture, mounted it to a circle of cardstock (created by cutting it with an Xacto knife and a dinner plate as a template) and then mounted it again to a 12×12 sheet of cardstock.  Tip: an easy way to cut the silhouettes was to print each photo in draft quality on a full-size 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper.  Hold a white sheet of paper under the photo and cut around the silhouette shape in the photo to create your clean white silhouette cut-out.  The photo becomes the pattern for cutting.  Try to get as detailed as possible.  There is no need to trace each picture to get a good silhouette so skip that step and simply use the photo as the pattern.  Wearing their hair up somehow, made a much better silhouette than having it down.

The “secret silhouettes” became the backdrop for our activity as well as an ice breaker as each person tried to figure out who was who on the wall!

PROGRAM

WELCOME + LESSON: Since we love to have the program focus on the girls themselves, we had a short lesson by a leader “Agent Hadley” who taught for about 7 minutes about the power of working together in our service efforts.  She used this talk as a reference and emphasized the impact they all can make if everyone chooses to work together in their efforts to do a little service.  Plus, she was funny.  That was a bonus.

AGENT REPORTS: Each girl shared their Secret Agent Name and then reported on their service experiences over the last week.  They shared their feelings about service and their favorite secret service ideas.  If you’re thinking that this would take a long time, think again.  8-11 year-old girls like to talk for about 45 seconds each.  Bam.  Done.  Move on to the next person.

SERVICE PROJECTS  TO GO: Since the girls had spent the last two weeks focusing on serving within their sphere of influence, much of their effort happened in their own homes.  We wanted to extend their service even more to the community.  We moved to another room where we offered two other service projects that they completed with their parents.  We wrote the instructions to each project on the board.

Service Project #1: “Thanks for Serving Me” Treats - 5 bubblegum packets each.  They tied a tag to each little treat bag and were instructed to give them to people in the community who helped them.  The bank teller, the crossing guard, the cashier…just keep them in the car or in their mom’s purse and hand them out when they receive help from someone else.  What a better way to watch for service in their lives – not only were we encouraging them to give service but to be grateful for the service that was done for them as well.  This idea was found here in the super comprehensive and creative list of ways for kids (and grown-ups!) to serve.  We pulled it out to add to our experience of service that night.

Place all of the supplies on a table and let the girls choose which tags and treat combos they want to use.  Another small table held the scissors and hole punches.  A length of masking tape was a great way to help the girls measure the twine lengths themselves.  We wanted them to be independent and paying attention to the set up of the activity helped them make that happen.

Here’s the download for the tags I created for this project.  These can also be included in Project Life books or used as other paper crafting projects, tags, labels and cards.  Click on the title below to download the tags.  Print them out on basic cardstock (my go-to for church activities is a ream of white cardstock found at Wal-mart for about $5).  Cut the tags apart and they are ready for your event.

Thank You for Serving – Tags

Service Project #2: Fleece Dog Toys - donated to a local animal shelter.  The toys were then sent home with adopted dogs.  Let me tell you – girls LOVE doing things for little doggies!  Click here for instructions.  Be sure to check with your animal shelter to make sure that these can be donated there – the dogs couldn’t use them at the shelter itself because of threads and fabric getting in the air circulation system but they were willing to send one home with each adopted dog as a keepsake.

We were done in about an hour.  With everything.  And look at what happened in that hour – it was an activity packed with meaningful contributions from each girl, parental involvement, and a way to extend their experiences beyond the activity itself.  And we have loved hearing about their opportunities to hand out their thank you treats.  It took some bravery on their part and the excitement they felt when they recognized service being done to them and then expressed thanks for it was thrilling.

We are so proud of them for taking on their “Secret Service Missions” so completely and energetically.  And a shout out to the parents for supporting and encouraging them in their tasks.  Plan ahead and do this activity with your youth or children’s group – it’s a keeper.

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Sister Missionary Quote – Free Printable

The LDS Church recently announced that young women are welcome to serve a full-time mission for the Church at age 19 instead of 21.  The excitement over this prospect is high and the world is being flooded with strong, happy young women who want to serve others and teach what they believe about Jesus Christ.  Our family has 4 missionaries serving in full-time missions all over the world right now with one more niece headed out in June.  We are kind of in missionary mode right now!

Here is Kylee on her first day of her mission in Brazil.  She’s the one with the long hair in the light blue sweater – a darling girl ready to serve.

Here’s a quote about girls and their desire to serve in this way.  For those of you working with LDS young women, enjoy this free printable that I designed for our area.  Some people don’t believe that the youth of today have much to offer but I say they do – no matter your faith or beliefs or way of life, we have strong youth in the world today and they will affect this world for good.

Here’s an example of kids making a difference in their daily life.  I cried like a baby while watching it.  My desire is strong to help mold Coleman to be the kind of young man that will SEE the needs of those around him, RECOGNIZE that he can do something to help, then ACT on those feelings even when that action is different than what might be normal in that situation.  Seeing the need – to me that is the key.  So often we pass by opportunities to help simply because we do not see the need.   We don’t observe it because we are focused on other things.  I want to teach Coleman to see the need then have the courage to act on what he observes.

What amazing young people he has to learn from!  Strong, capable, happy young men and women who are accomplishing good things – whatever faith or beliefs they might have.

I love watching it happen.

Sister Missionary Quote

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Forget Me Not – Free Printable

Our crocuses are up.  The first sign of spring and one of my greatest joys this time of year.  A tiny bundle of light peeking through the snow or the cold-packed earth.  Another tiny flower of inspiration is the forget-me-not.  President Dieter F. Uchtdorf talked about the humble forget-me-not flower in this speech a couple years ago (printable version here).  It was a beautiful image and a beautiful message.  I promptly designed this printable, purchased a bundle of silk forget-me-nots from Hobby Lobby and placed one blossom on each little image.

I have been giving them as gifts ever since.

Now you can give it as well.  Here are different versions of the Forget Me Not message.  Click on each title to download the printable.

Forget Me Not – President Uchtdorf 5×5 - the 5×5 frame is from Hobby Lobby in their regular stock

Forget Me Not – President Uchtdorf 4×6 - if you can’t find the 5×5 frame, here’s a 4×6 to make it easier for you

Here is a non-religious version of the same idea.

Forget Me Not Own Words – 4×6 - this version is only in the 4×6 size

Five petals.  Five thoughts.  Five things to remember.  Just add the petals with your own silk forget-me-not flower.  Trim the blossoms from the stem and adhere with a glue dot for stability.  The dimensional look of the flower is perfect.

I love these words.  Whichever version you choose, I hope you love it, too.

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Activity Days – Cupcake Decorating + Service

Do you want to have 10-11 year-old girls come out in droves to learn something new at Activity Days?

Just tell them you will be decorating cupcakes.

We had virtually all of our Activity Day girls show up at my front door for our last activity and for good reason.   With the help of my neighbor Nikki and her skills with frosting, our Cupcake Decorating Service Project was a huge hit.  And I can’t forget the other three moms who came to help with our activity – we needed extra hands to help with the bag filling, decorating, card making, wrapping, and overall encouraging.  We had 5 adults for 16 girls and if you are lucky enough to have people willing to help you with this activity, that was a good child/parent ratio for this age of girls.  Our awesome activity would have been a completely different experience without fabulous moms willing to get up to their elbows in frosting and curling ribbon.

Goal #1: Teach the girls how to do different techniques using frosting tips.

Goal #2: Teach how to write a meaningful thank you or thinking of you note and experience serving others.

How we accomplished Goal #1:

1.  Nikki demonstrated how to create an icing bag using a ziplock and different frosting tips.  We pre-filled some bags with various colors and used a variety of tips for them to choose from.  Any other color/tip combinations they wanted were “made to order” as the activity went on.

2.  We divided the girls into two groups to spread out the activity.  This helped us give more one-on-one attention and made it so we didn’t need quite as many tools as we would have if all 16 girls had been decorating at the same time.  The other group worked on creating cards and cupcake toppers for their cupcakes.

3.  Skills taught:

• How to make grass.  We added jellybeans to the pile of grass on their cupcake for a great Easter theme if they chose.
• How to make flowers.  They were challenged to fill an entire cupcake top with star flowers – you could see them get better as they went along.
• How to do the famous cupcake swirl.  Everyone needs to know how to do this one, right?

They were then unleashed to decorate to their hearts content with frosting and little candies and sprinkles.  My favorite part was listening to them help each other, give tips to one another, and ask for certain tip/color combinations.  They did a great job of sharing and being creative as they created 3 cupcake works of art to give away and 1 cupcake for them to eat!

In the meantime, the second group was working on Goal #2:

1.  I covered the table in butcher paper to protect it and wrote the instructions in multiple places directly on the butcher paper so it was easy to see what to do.  They created either a thank you card or a thinking of you card by adhering all pieces together.  They added fun foam glitter hearts because glitter + hearts = fabulous.

2.  Inside their card, they were challenged to write a MEANINGFUL note to someone special that they were going to give 3 of their cupcakes to.  Here were the steps that I outlined to help them write their notes.  This template can be used for kids of all ages to help them learn how to communicate their appreciation more clearly and meaningfully.

3.  They created a cupcake topper by taking two glitter fun foam hearts and attaching them back-to-back onto a toothpick.  Easy and so cute.

4.  Finally, they wrapped up their 3 “give away” cupcakes, tied on the card with a ribbon and left an hour later with gorgeous gifts in their hands, smiles on their faces, and the challenge to deliver their gift sometime that day.

I’m a big believer in activities with purpose so instead of just decorating cupcakes for themselves, we added more purpose and got the girls to think outside of themselves by turning it into a service project.  Service always wins when it comes to developing the character of our kids so why not build service into as many things they are already doing as possible?  I think that decorating their cupcakes with the intention of giving them away changed their commitment to the project.  It got them focused on celebrating others while loving the activity at the same time.  And the sense of accomplishment was even stronger when service was involved.  Give it a try – let me know if adding service makes a difference in your activities.

Is that a horse made out of Hershey kisses?

One word.

Wow.

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I’m A Mormon – Love It

I want Coleman to love things.  To love life.  To love friends.  To love family.  To love reading.  To love soccer or lacrosse or chess or whatever activity he chooses.  Jason is a very loyal, passionate person.  He is a super fan of so many things, including Cole and I. I want Coleman to feel that same passion for whatever he chooses to do in his life.  Including his faith.

There is so much good in the world.  So many good people who believe in doing good and being good.  I am grateful for the opportunity to rub shoulders and be friends with people of all faiths and beliefs.  But I think I’m not alone when, as a parent, I want my child to feel as strongly about his faith as I do.  I want him to be proud to believe in things of the spirit.  I want him to know it for himself and by knowing it, choose to live it.  I want him to love it.

I think I want this for the simple reason that I know life is challenging.  My faith has guided me, strengthened me, and given me peace during dark, difficult times.  I would love for my son to feel that same sense of strength throughout his life as he faces the natural twists and turns, ups and downs that our journey takes.

I’m sure these thoughts are on my mind right now because Jason is back in the hospital for an 8-week stay.  He just finished 6 weeks in the hospital this fall from surgery on a bone that was causing chronic bedsores.   Unfortunately, that surgery didn’t heal properly so the surgeon had to go back in a second time.  We had a fabulous holiday with our families and after two weeks of cousins and food and laughter and fun, we left grandma’s house to drop Jason off at the hospital while Cole and I headed home.  Surgery was two weeks ago (two weeks down – hooray!) and Jason is actually doing amazingly well as he is required to lay on the fancy no-pressure sand bed to heal.

Life brings challenges.  Adversity is around the corner.  Faith doesn’t solve the problem or take it away but it helps us manage our struggles.  And sometimes that’s all we need.  Here’s to faith – whatever yours is, wherever it’s found.  May you find hope and peace and courage to help you work through anything life throws you.

Faith – Love It.

For those of you out there who loved Ann Dibb’s talk about being a Mormon, here’s her quotable quote from that lovely talk.  Free Printable….Yes!  I can see this in our Activity Days future.

click: I’m a Mormon Quote

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Activity Days: It’s In the Bag Recognition Night

Have you ever had one of those experiences where everything comes together perfectly?  When reality surpasses all of your ideas of how something should go?  When a good idea becomes a great moment because all the stars align and everyone actually does their part and you end up with a perfect evening instead of simply a good idea?

That’s what happened at our last Activity Days Recognition Night.  The idea was not mine.  I stole it.  I’m a big believer in building on ideas that are already good and proven and then adapting them to fit our individual needs.  This activity was passed from my sister to my sister-in-law with fabulous results.  They did it for their young women’s groups (ages 12-18) but I knew it would translate perfectly for our 8-11 year-olds.

 

 

UPDATE:  I have received emails and comments about the invite so I’ll add that here.  I purchased glassine bags (look like wax paper) very inexpensively from amazon.com.  Click here to see the ones I chose.  They are 4 1/2″ x 6 3/4″ in size (11.4 cm x 17.1 cm).  I used that size because they came in a package of 100 for only about $10 and the numbers worked out that we could use one package for both the invitations and the refreshments so I got them large enough to put the popcorn in.

I designed the invite in Illustrator and it is not possible to offer you a file that you can manipulate in Word so you won’t be able to just use this invite, but I’ll tell you that it doesn’t have to look exactly like this to be darling.  Add some baker’s twine (I pick mine up from pickyourplum.com whenever the spools go on sale because it is heavyweight and lasts forever).  I put ALL the info on the invite so that everyone could be prepared with their presentations.  

If you look at the picture further down in this post you’ll see the back of the invite has the message to the parents and what their responsibility is that night.  To create the gray lattice on the back I used my Silhouette Cameo and cut out one of my pattern shapes. I used that as a mask and simply placed it over the back of each invite and lightly sprayed spray paint over the top.  I didn’t take the time to adhere the mask so I just sprayed very carefully directly over the top of the page (a little farther from the page so that it wouldn’t blow the mask up) and called it good.  I like the effect of the paint being blended and “not perfectly crisp.”  If you want the pattern more crisp then you’ll probably need to use removable adhesive to adhere the mask down each time.

Text About the Bags Said This:

GIRLS, PLEASE BRING A BAG THAT REPRESENTS YOU (such as your backpack, purse, dance bag, sports bag, etc.)

and fill it with three items that reflect YOUR PROGRESS in each of the three areas of the Faith In God program (be prepared to share about them for 3 minutes total)

1.  Learning & Living the Gospel

2.  Serving Others

3.  Developing Talents

 

Overview:

Each girl brings a bag of their choice (purse, backpack, dance bag, whatever) with 3 things in it – one item for each of the 3 areas of the Faith in God program (service, living the gospel, developing talents).  They knew they would share for no more than 3 minutes total about their items and I was totally impressed with their preparation and the thought they put into their items.

We started with a very short message about “what we are carrying” in the bags of our lives and how to keep the most important things handy.  Then each girl shared their items in their bags – what each item represented and why they included it.

The “Service” category included things like writing to their brothers on their missions, helping friends at school and babysitting the neighbor’s baby.  For “Developing Talents,” we learned a lot about the loves and hobbies of our girls.  Piano, softball, sewing, reading, dance, karate, and even cutting vinyl!  Lots of talents were shared and celebrated that night.  Finally, as the girls shared about “Learning and Living the Gospel,” we learned about scriptures, prayer, Primary, and family home evening.  Each girl was very thoughtful in what they chose to bring in their bag.  They had practiced what they were going to say and did a wonderful job of talking about their own progress in the Faith in God program.

What could be better than the program being carried out by the girls themselves?  It was often touching, sometimes funny, definitely surprising, and always meaningful.  We learned that Savannah earned her lacrosse bag by selling 29 coupon books in the fundraiser!  No one else even came close!

We learned that Olivia aspires to be a fashion designer and learned to crochet from just one 30 minute lesson from her mom.  Oh, and she loves pigs.

We learned that Karissa has been befriending a less-fortunate girl at school who was being teased by their classmates and Madison has been working on developing her talents in the kitchen – especially with “baked goods.”  Yum.

Parents:

After their daughter shared their items, parents were asked to take 1 minute to share ONE QUALITY that they have seen grow in their daughter over the last 6 months.  It was a focused, simple way to have parents share publicly about their daughter but keep the time under control.  Happy tears were shed, smiles were plentiful and there were lots of spontaneous hugs to go around.

About 45 minutes and 20 girls later (not bad, right?), we wrapped things up with a short message encouraging the girls to cling to their parents as one of the best things they could “carry” with them throughout their lives.  We then gave each girl a letter from their parents that we had gathered before the evening.  This step takes forever to pull together but it’s worth every phone call and reminder text to track down a letter for each girl.  Treasures.  That’s what those letters were.  Not only did each girl get to share their goals and achievements, but they got to hear what makes them special from their parents – both verbally and in writing.  And the whole fabulous night only lasted a total of about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Decorations:

So simple.  We just gathered shopping bags from appropriate shops and stores that coordinated (pink, black and white became our color-scheme because that’s that the majority of shopping bags color motif).  We  used my trusty pedestals in our colors and placed shopping bags on and around them.

Add some tissue paper in each bag and tie a balloon to the handle and you’ve got fun and beautiful decor on the cheap.  I used my foamboard covered in fabric as a backdrop and added some pink banners and called it good.  I think the decorations cost about $2 for the tissue paper that I didn’t have on hand.

Refreshments:

Popcorn drizzled in white chocolate (thinned just a touch to make it light and easy to pour) and placed in the rest of the glassine bags (same as we used for the invites).  I used box lids as the “trays” and covered it in wrapping paper to keep the color-scheme going.  Those glassine bags were also used for our invitations.  I purchased a package of 100 for $10 and we had enough for both the invites as well as the popcorn.

Easy.

Simple.

Meaningful.

My top 3 qualifications for a great idea.  This one didn’t disappoint.  It’ll work for any group, young or old, boys, girls, whatever.  It’s easily adapted and totally perfect.  Perfect because it is focused on each individual.  It’s for them, about them, and in celebration of them.  And that’s what turns this good idea into a great one.

Try it with your group and let me know how it goes.  I can’t wait to hear.

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Activity Days – Favorite Things Party

Great girls.  Great plan.  Great activity.

Another fabulous Favorite Things Party in the books.  I posted about the invitation idea here.  It will work for any time of year…not just Christmas.  All you need are some gift tags to give them some pop.

1.  Everyone was asked to bring a wrapped gift to swap – it needed to be one of their favorite things and could cost no more than $5.

2.  Everyone was also asked to bring a favorite homemade treat or food to share – and we encouraged them to help make it.

The great thing about a Favorite Things Party is that it runs itself.  Everyone who brings a gift puts their name into a bowl.  Then each person chooses out a name.  Then each girl shares why the gift they brought is one of their favorite things and whoever’s name they had drawn out is the lucky recipient of their gift. (Cheer!  Hooray!  I love my gift!)

As for refreshments, simply go around the group sharing why they brought their particular treat then dive in for the festive feast.  Since we had the party at my home with Christmas decor in place, all we had to provide was some plates, napkins and cups and we were ready to go.

We added a short lesson at the beginning on the importance of being a good receiver (a hard skill to develop in young girls sometimes) reading this book and  this talk as a reference to giving and receiving.  The rest was up to the girls.  They shared and laughed and encouraged and spent time together in a meaningful way.

This activity works for any age – young girls, teens or women.  Try it.  It’ll be your favorite.

Want to make Savannah’s cute mouse treats?  1.  Dip maraschino cherries in melted chocolate.  2.  Add two sliced almonds to melted chocolate to create ears.  3.  Attach Hershey’s kiss for the mouse head.   4.  Cute and yummy.

Enjoy!

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Stand in Holy Places – 2013 Theme

I am LDS.  Every year our Church decides on a theme for the Young Men and Young Women (boys and girls ages 12-18) to focus on.  I am not in charge of the Young Women or Young Men.  So why do I find myself designing posters and vinyl quotes for the theme each year?  Because my beloved husband IS one of these Young Men leaders.  And I get volunteered to be the poster designer for the kick-off meeting for all of these fabulous youth in our neighborhood that he is in charge of.

Since he gets to benefit from my choice of careers, then you do too.  You’ll find this vinyl quote version of the 2013 YM/YW theme as well as this and this Print & Cut file.  Jason is pumped about this year’s designs – and I am too, I must say.  It works for boys and girls (that’s hard to do) so along with having it available in various colors and shapes in my silhouette store, I’ve decided to make a printable here for you as well.  FREE.

Stand In Holy Places Poster

Happy theme-ing, all of you youth leaders!  I see this making an appearance at New Beginnings or Youth Conference or Girls Camp….don’t you think?

Not LDS?  Stay tuned for my next post.  It’s the best “recognition event” idea ever and can be tweaked to work for ANY group, ANY age, ANY class, ANY team, whatever.  Totally meaningful but totally adaptable.  Trust me.

See you soon.

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Easy Invites With a Pop

Remember when I told you about our neighborhood Favorite Things Party here and here?  We’re adapting the idea for our Activity Day Girls.  Click here to find out how the fabulous party went down.

I wanted to send invitations to each girl because getting a letter in the mail is the best thing ever, but with the busyness of the holiday season, I needed something quick and easy to make it happen.  Here’s my tip for fab invites or cards that look way better than the time they take to create them.

• Create a box slightly smaller than your envelope and outline it with the color of your choice. (I used basic small letter envelopes found at any office supply store).
• Choose a couple of cute fonts and simply center the type  down the middle of the rectangle, leaving a space in the middle of the card.
• Add a GIFT TAG to the center of the card with a pop-dot adhesive (I found mine at Hobby Lobby for 50% off).
• Done.

Look for gift tags that have some bling for a great impact.  They will look professional in such a simple way.  Yes, our party is during the holidays so the holiday tags work great but lots of tags, even holiday ones, will work perfectly for other themes or times of the year.

Notecards, invitations, thank you notes.  All are fabulous with this little gift tag trick.

Enjoy!

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Activity Days: Service Star

This last week for Activity Days, my fab partner, Jessica, put together this darling project to encourage service within our families.  Here’s what you do:

1.  Gather supplies to create wooden stars.

2.  Paint, glitter, and embellish your star to your heart’s content.

3.  Add a ribbon and tie on the Service Star poem (I don’t have a download for this – use this as your reference).

Star light, star bright.

Who could use our help tonight?

A secret service it might be

It’s completely up to you, you see.

Whether raking leaves or shoveling snow,

Perform your service to so no one knows.

Now don’t forget when deeds are done

To leave the star for someone else to come find!

4.  Voila!  Service Star is ready for duty.

Jessica taught a short lesson about the importance of serving our own family and explained how to use the star.  Then they got down to serious decorating.  Glitter flying everywhere = heaven for our little tweens.

This is how the Service Star works:

1.  Start the service rotation by doing something nice (secretly) for someone in their family (i.e. make your brother’s bed).

2.  Leave the Service Star somewhere that the recipient of the service will find it (i.e. on your brother’s freshly plumped pillow).

3.  Recipient then pays it forward by serving someone else in the family (i.e. washing the dishes in the sink), leaving the Star for the next person to find (i.e. next to the dishwashing liquid – you get the picture).

Keep the service ring going and going throughout the holiday season – and beyond!  This activity can be done any time throughout the year.  If you want to focus just on the holiday season, here’s another possible poem found on this chatboard:

It’s Christmastime once more,

Here’s a tradition that’s old and true.

Use this magical Christmas star

And you’ll see what it can do.

Now everyday ‘till Christmas

Do a secret act in your home

For a member of your family,

Don’t let your identity be known.

And when the secret deed is done

Place the star upon their bed,

And they in turn do a secret act

For someone else instead.

And like that star so long ago

Brought brightness from above,

May this star bring to your home

The joy of service and love.

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