Showing posts with label Girls Camp Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Girls Camp Ideas. Show all posts

Monday, June 6

Secret Sisters - A New Way


We often struggle with Secret Sisters... Last year we came up with a new idea. We believe it was an answer to our prayers.

1) Before camp every YW and leader buys or makes FIVE items that represent things they love. For example. I love to crochet, so I made a little headband. I love chocolate, so I purchased one of my favorite candy bars... etc.

2) Before camp every YW decorates a small rock with their name on it - you could skip this step and just have small rocks with names that a leader has written on with a paint pen or something.

3) Every morning you gather all the rocks into a bag and pass them around - if you get your own name or someone you've had before during  the week - put it back.

4) Whatever name you have that day, that is your secret sister. You serve them, pray for them, etc. At campfire that evening we go around and each person announces who they have that day. They give them one of the items that they purchased and tell them why they love it and that they hope their secret sister loves it, too. This is a great way to get to know one another better and keeps the gifts a lot more evenly spread out. WE LOVE IT!!! We hope you do, too!

Camp Cards (Based on Sneaky Cards)


This is a pass-along game to play at Girls' Camp. It is based on the Sneaky Cards Game. There are FOUR files to download with 8 cards in each file. Please feel free to print, laminate and play at camp - but it is copyrighted so please do not sell the design or printed cards!!

Download the FIRST FILE HERE.

Download the SECOND FILE HERE.

Download the THIRD FILE HERE.

Download the FOURTH FILE HERE.

We'd love it if you'd come share your experiences with this game. :)

Tuesday, May 27

Camp Certification Sheets



We created this 1-Sheet (for each year) Certification List. Hope you can get some use out of it!

Be sure to use it in conjunction with THESE BOOKMARKS so the YW have a list of all certification requirements.

*You can order these badges HERE

Wednesday, February 26

Service Project - The Giving Tree


I'm not sure if I originally saw this idea HERE or not, but we did this at Girl's Camp a few years ago. We bought a paper punch LIKE THIS ONE and punched CUTE PAPER to make our ornaments. We used a PAPER PUNCH to put holes for RIBBON and made these cute ornaments. When the YW would perform service at camp, they would write their service on one of the ornaments and hang it on our tree. They worked really hard to get our tree decorated!

We used a large punch and actually decorated a tree outside. If you have good weather, this works well! Our ribbons were the value colors!

This would also work really well at Christmas time to decorate a Christmas Tree!

*This could be adapted for a Value Project idea!!

Friday, April 6

Camp Theme?

In re-reading the YW Camp Guide, I noticed that it says this about selecting a theme:







A theme provides a focus for camp. A theme may be:

  • A scripture
  • A statement from a prophet
  • A hymn
  • The Young Women theme or the current Mutual theme
Even though I think it's important to have FUN at camp, I am committed to have a spiritual theme. We'll be using the current mutual theme, "Arise and Shine Forth." I believe this theme can be both fun and spiritual!

I also want to have activities to celebrate Young Women Camp's 100th birthday! 

What are you using for your theme? What are your ideas for celebrating the 100th birthday of camp? Here's a list of ideas from lds.org!

Thursday, March 29

Have you put on your shiny??

I LOVED Sister Dalton's talk about putting on our shiny and my counselor thought it would be fun to put that sentiment on t-shirts for Girls Camp... I decided to share the images in case you want to use them as well. I think we'll do a different color for Laurels, MIA Maids and Beehives. :)

To download a high quality version of the image right-click HERE to save the yellow, HERE for orange and HERE for blue.

Saturday, February 25

New Beginnings... Camp Style


Our ward YW leaders planned a great New Beginnings program this year. It was casual dress and we were asked to bring camping chairs. When we got there, there was a fake fire going in the middle of the room. The girls all sat on the floor and the parents sat in their camp chairs.

They handed out the camp songbook our stake made, and we sang the opening hymn from it. After the opening song, prayer, and announcement of the program, a couple seasoned girls campers led a couple of the fun camp songs. We sang a camp song or two between each segment of the program.


To encourage excitement about camp, they had girls talk about camp and adventure camp after the talks on personal progress and the YW program. I don't remember ever being at New Beginnings where camp was presented like this! The whole program was fun and very memorable. It was also a great way to get the new girls excited about YW, and the older girls were a great example of how fun YW can be! (The cake pictured was NOT what our refreshments were, I just found it and thought it was adorable!)

Wednesday, June 29

Camp Incentive Program - Camp Currency

Before attending camp this year we decided that we needed an incentive program... something to keep the YW motivated to help with chores, perform service, etc. We decided that because we had a SAFARI theme this year we would have the YW earn beads for their deeds. Then, each day we would have a store full of goodies where they could shop. We literally had YW fighting over who got to do dishes! Amazing! We will do this forever - at camp and youth conference.

What we did:

  • We purchased inexpensive beads for our currency. You can use ANYTHING. I recommend giving the YW drawstring bags or something in which to keep their "money."
  • We purchased goodies - candy bars, crystal light on-the-go packets, water bottles (and other items YW may have forgotten!), bubbles, etc.
  • We purchased plastic containers to put store items in.
  • We marked on the containers the cost - 1 Bead, 2 Beads, etc.
  • We determined the cost of each item (based on about .25-.50 per bead) and put items in the corresponding containers.
  • Each leader was given a bag full of beads to distribute as they felt appropriate. YW earned beads for filling the water jug, doing dishes, helping cook meals, taking out trash, doing service for other camps, etc. They were constantly looking for ways to earn beads. 
  • The store was open at different times throughout the day and the YW were allowed to shop with their beads. Make sure to have a lot of small items (like the on-the-go drink packets) and some large ticket items. We actually threw in an ice cream party to earn the last day of camp (clean-up day) if they earned a certain number of beads!
  • Throughout the day items that were left around the camp (blankets, jackets, water bottles, whatever) were picked up and placed in "Mom's box." Before purchasing anything from the store, the YW had to buy back their own items that they had left lying around camp. This really kept our camp tidy - especially after the first day!

Saturday, June 18

Totem Pole

Our camp theme this year is S.A.F.A.R.I. (Stand as faithful and righteous individuals) and we are doing a lot of jungle "stuff" for camp. One thing we are doing is this awesome totem pole idea from Family Fun Magazine. Instead of coffee cans, we used #10 cans.

We had sisters in the ward save and donate the cans and then purchased extra lids (you need two plastic lids for each can) from the cannery (.10/ea). We soaked off the labels in the tub and scraped off glue with a dish scraper.

For paint, we went to a local hardware store and purchased the sample size of a bunch of colors (we did red, yellow, blue, purple, orange, green, brown, black and white). The YW each decorated their own cans. The exterior paint really only needs one coat and dries quickly. You may want to take a blow dryer or two to speed up drying between layered coats (like for eyes, etc.).

I found a website that had more traditional totem pole designs and copied and pasted a bunch of designs into Word so I could print them out for the YW to look at and design their cans. Encourage the YW to draw out their designs on paper before committing them to their can! Their designs can be more traditional or more modern (as in the illustration from Family Fun).

To put our totem pole up at camp next week we will be using a fence post driver (borrowed from someone in the ward) to put in a fence post (borrowed from someone in the ward - we borrowed enough fence posts to hold up our totem pole and our trees!). The fence post will hold up our pole (we purchased inexpensive pvc and our pole will be about 15' tall when finished!). I will take a picture of our final totem pole and upload it when I get back!

Thursday, June 16

Girls Camp Bookmarks

Girls camp is next week for me! One thing I decided to do was to make bookmarks for the Young Women to remind them of their reading for each day (as per the camp manual). We will encourage them to take time each day for their personal study. Hopefully these bookmarks will help!

There is a different bookmark for each year of camp (including YCL years). All bookmarks are included in the files.

Feel free to download the PDF and print and use them - or, you can download the Word file HERE and change them however you would like.

It might be a good idea, as leaders at camp, to read along with the YW. We could easily read the 1st Year's reading all on Day 1 and so forth through the 4th Year's atonement reading on the 4th day. I think I'll do that this year!

*Use these in conjunction with THESE certification sheets!

UPDATE: Fixed broken links!!

Wednesday, April 27

Pin S.W.A.P. - Girls Camp Getting-to-Know-You Activity

I guess Girl Scouts have been doing this for years, but until last year I'd never heard of it. My camp director told me about it last year and we hosted our very first pin swap.

What is a pin s.w.a.p.?

Our ward hosted it last year and we're hosting it again this year. That means we call around and find out which wards are participating and get a head count. Once we know how many people are participating, we can begin making the pins.

Each ward makes an inexpensive pin (we budget $5-$10 total for all the pins our ward makes) for each YW (including their own ward) participating. At camp the girls will be given a pin for themselves and several pins to exchange with other YW in other wards. Then, when they meet a YW who is wearing a pin they don’t have, they can exchange for one of their ward pins. The goal is to get to know other YW and to collect pins from each participating ward.

How do I make the pins?

You can purchase flat-back pins and glue anything onto it – or you can use safety pins without the end stopper (as pictured above) or you can also purchase a tie-tac type of pin.

Last year our theme was The Little Mermaid and we glued tiny pink seashells onto flat-back pins. They were so pretty and inexpensive. The YW had a great time exchanging with other wards. Our YW wore their pins on their hat bands. This year we're making them neckties in zebra stripes (we're zebras for our safari theme) that they can put their pins on. We haven't decided on the pins themselves yet. Any ideas? Leave them in the comments!

You can find out more information and get ideas by googling camp pin S.W.A.P. (Special Whatchamacallits Affectionally Pinned).

Certification Requirement!

The 4th years have as one of their certification requirements: "Help to plan an activity for the whole camp or you own group that will help the campers get to know each other. Involve everyone." They made the pins and passed this off!

Tuesday, April 26

Need to Make a Tree??

Our camp theme this year is a safari theme and I decided that in order for us to really have that jungle feel we really needed TREES. Jungle trees! I found these amazing trees and knew they were the ones for me. Awesome looking and CHEAP and simple to make.



What you need:
What you do:
  • Cut the bottoms out of the paper bags and scrunch them (one after the other) onto the trunks, stapling to hold them on good.
  • Design and cut out palm-style leaves from the green vinyl.
  • Tape the end of each leaf onto the top center (button thingy) of the umbrella - covering the entire umbrella with leaves.
  • Staple the leaves onto the fabric of the umbrella - not necessarily flat (the tutorial above says "pooch" them) - I think we're going to tape ours so we can re-use the umbrellas. That way I can just bring some from home!
  • Place the umbrellas in the tops of the trees - VOILA!
I think we'll hang our lanterns from the trees - should look awesome!! We'll put a few tiki torches around and we're also going to make a totem pole by simply painting a couple of the carpet rolls. I'll post that project when we get there.

The trees in the photo were held up using microphone stands. We're going to put them up around our camp over metal fence posts that we will put into the ground to hold them in place. I can't wait!!

Monday, April 25

Secret Sisters

Every year at camp we do Secret Sisters. Here is our Secret Sister Form that we have the YW fill out. This really helps to get an idea of what the YW like and don't like.

We have purchased a shoe hanger like this one to use. We let the YW decorate their "cubby" with their name, etc. In the extra cubbies, we had paper & pens so they could write thank you notes to one another. We encouraged them to find the opportunity to write to each of the other YW while at camp.

YW can put things in their secret sister's cubby at any time throughout the day, but we scheduled a time each evening to get our mail. The YW sang the Blue's Clue's song when it was mail time! We have had good success with the secret sister program.

If you have a difficult time with equality for your secret sisters (even after setting a price limit, etc.) you may want to do what some wards have done - have each girl make one item for all of the other YW and give them during the week. So, maybe one YW makes a large cookie for each of the other girls and then puts it in their box. Any other secret sister ideas? Share them in the comments!

Wednesday, April 20

Lantern for Girls Camp


We made these awesome lanterns last year for Girls Camp. We decided to make them again this year. We emailed our Relief Society group and asked for jar donations. We explained that we like them without the embossing - mayo jars and spaghetti sauce jars work well! We received all of the jars that we needed for our project. We had the YW clean them well and we used a Cricut® - actually, we used two - to cut shapes out of contact paper. This year's theme is S.A.F.A.R.I. and so most YW chose to do jungle animals, etc. Some YW chose to free-hand their ideas on the contact paper (they're so creative!) and cut them out with scissors.

Then we sprayed the jars with glass frosting (from a craft store) and crafted wire handles for them. We will put tea lights in each of them and I know they will look amazing. They did last year hanging from our canopy!

You can see all of the instructions for making these jars @ Under My Umbrella (the blog where I got the idea originally)!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Everlasting Tealights Battery-Operated Flamess Candles with Soft Flicker, 12-Pack