That's what friends are for...

Great day for the SuperGirls!

Our theme for today was FRIENDS.


To start our day we gathered at the craft table to make picture frames for our 
photo booth shots from two weeks ago.

I did a little contrast and fading to make them look a little artsy.

Bring out the popsicle sticks,
glue, glitter, sticker and 
ribbons and some pretty cool frames were made!


I thought they turned out great and I am hoping the girls will hang them in their bedrooms.

Our next activity was to get in pairs and make two lists.

1) What qualities make someone a good friend?
2) What are some things you would not want in a friend?








We got back in our circle and shared our ideas. Many had similar things to say. We focused more on the good and made up one big list together.

A good friend would be:


nice 
friendly
respectful
trustworthy
considerate
helpful
shares
fun
there for you when you need them

Mia helped out Aspen who didn't want
her picture taken.

The girls were really engaged in the conversation and shared some situations they have been in and various examples of what should or shouldn't happen within a good friendship.

It is clearly very important to them.

Peyton and I also shared some personal stories and reminded them that the friends they have now may be friends for a life time!














In fact, here is a picture of me and my BFF in 1987 on the way to a rock concert.
Just to give you a laugh for the day!
We just celebrated our birthdays together last week.

Yes, that is a white leather fringe jacket
and matching mini skirt

After a snack break we tackled the subject of gossip. I shared my personal story of how in my first year of high school a group of girls started spreading some rumors about me that were not true.

There were so many people who believed them that I had a horrible time in school for a couple of years and was bullied relentlessly.

So, this is something close to my heart and I will always stress being kind and not talking about others, especially if you don't know if what you are repeating is true!

To illustrate how fast rumors can go we had a little activity. I asked for two volunteers and told them that the feathers I was holding was a rumor that someone had started that I was a mean person and even maybe a witch (I did a great cackle)! If they couldn't catch them before they hit the floor, then the rumor would spread all around Deerwood school.

I started with a couple of feathers, moved onto a handful and then when the girls had their backs turned I dumped a whole bag in front of a huge blowing fan.
You should have seen them scramble!
They had fun and I think they understood the point.
You think you might be telling one person but if they tell someone and so on, it's soon out of control.

One more quick teamwork game of Head's Up which is an ipad app.

We played Act it Out. Last week we had to use words to describe something, this week we did it with actions and no words.

There were definitely some good "actors' and others were good "guessers".

Our time was just about up so we headed out to the front yard to do some jump roping, tree climbing, chalk drawing and silly dances.

See you next week!

Team baking

A great day today with a smaller group of ten. 
Much more manageable!
Peyton and I's sanity stayed intact.

We started the morning off with some circle time and catching up on what the girls have been doing, anything they have coming up and some of the frustrations from the week before.







It all came back to being respectful if someone is talking and listening to other's ideas.

Vivienne's creation with wings and feathers

We also went over our THINK card that I'd sent in the mail to reinforce the importance of thinking about what we say and how we say it before we say it.


After saving up a few toilet paper rolls I decided we needed to make a craft with them.


I made a butterfly as an example but I also showed some photos of googly eyed monsters and fluffy birds and left them the option to create their own creature.

Mia's magnificent butterfly

They came up with some really fun things and seemed to have fun doing it!
And, we always have some good banter and some laughs while crafting.

Next, we broke up into two teams for our cookie baking challenge.
They were supplied a recipe and they had to go shopping for ingredients and then measure everything accurately and mix them in the proper order.

It was a good opportunity to talk about how important it is to read things carefully and take time to do things the right way. In this case, if we rushed through and put too much or too little of an ingredient in, the cookies would taste bad.

Mia was quite the confident baker and we thought that some day she'd open her own shop called "Mia's Muffins".

The girls worked well together as a team and mixed everything up just right. As the cookies baked they had a snack and 10 minutes later they tasted their cookies.

Team one thought theirs tasted better and Team two thought theirs tasted better. Interesting.

Onto another quick teamwork game of "Don't Say It".
The point of the game is to describe the word at the top
of the card but without using the three words listed below.

As much as these girls can gab and tell elaborate stories, I was surprised that they were totally stumped when it came to this game.
We'd say go and they couldn't come up with anything!

I gave them all hints and they started to get the hang of it but really, it was a pretty quiet game that ended up in a tie.

I mentioned, if only we stopped ourselves and were that thoughtful in our regular conversations we would likely talk a lot less!






Time to do a bit of running so we headed to the park. First they played hide and seek and then it was another type of tag game. They always enjoy going to the park and I only had to get two girls down from a precarious situation when they went too high and were stuck.

We came back to the house, had a cold drink of water and looked at some of the photos from last summer.
It sure is fun to look back at all of the fun times we had together.

Maybe you'll have those pictures posted at their high school grad parties? Ha!

Now that we have lemonade, signs and cookies made we'll likely have our sale next Friday or the week after depending on the weather.

Time is flying by and we have so much more to do!

Until next time..

Please, thank you and May I

Truth be told, today was a tad challenging with our SuperGirls!

We had a big group with two visiting friends, some attention spans were rather low and team work was a bit of a challenge.
However, we accomplished what we set out to do and still had some fun while doing it!

First on the agenda: Planning our future lemonade stand.

We needed to decide how much to charge,
what supplies we'd need,
how we'd work as a team to manage the stand
and talk about where to donate the money we made.

I suggested Hope for the City which supports families in the Twin Cities.

Their Lunch Box for Kids program provides meals for children who aren't getting lunch on a regular basis because they are not in school for the summer.

I will watch the weather to see when a sunny Friday will be upon us so we can set up our stand for a good part of our time together.

Off to make our signs which said various things like:

Lemonade, Treats and Yum.



They turned out colorful and fun and should attract some attention out on the corner of our yard.














While the girls finished up their signs we had to take a few moments to do our "photobooth".
Various props were supplied including mustaches, big lips, hats, scarves, glasses and a boa of course.

Genevieve gets the award for best alter ego in costume!

Time for our snack and Ella was kind enough to bring sugar cookies in celebration of her birthday.

Next we gathered in the shade in the yard to talk about manners. In my time working up at the school and having numerous kids over daily, I realize some of the simplest manners are not being passed down to this generation. I'm hoping you'll jump on my band wagon and help teach them at home.


We talked about these words and when to use them:

Please
Thank you/No thank you
Excuse Me
May I?

When meeting someone:
Eye contact
Smile
Hand shake
Nice to meet you

When visiting a friend's house:

Unless it's a lunch or dinner invitation don't expect to get fed

Eat what is offered even if it isn't your favorite food

Don't take more than one and don't ask for more
Don't be wasteful
Help clean up
Treat their property with respect


Some girls were quite attentive at this point and others were distracted, but I'm going to reinforce these things as we go through our summer so it just becomes a natural way for all of them and for my boys too!



Our team work game was called Eagles' Next. They were split into two teams. They each had a hula hoop on the ground with 6 balls or "eggs" in the hoop.

They couldn't guard the hoop too closely and on the word go they had to run to get the other teams eggs but they could also tag each other and get opposing team members out.

There wasn't a ton of discussion going on with strategy here so at one point, it was a stand off in the middle and no eggs were taken from either nest.


Then I was hearing things like "I don't like this game" and "it's not fair because...".

Rather than Peyton and I suggesting any ideas for a better game, we got two huge squirt guns and started getting everyone wet!

Time to cool off. We were going to head to the park but it was quite hot so we got out the journals, had a water break and grabbed a shady spot on the deck.










Some girls headed inside after the cool down to do some dancing.

Vivienne was able to join us for the
last few minutes after attending Princess Camp!




See you next week~