Sunbeams

I taught Sunbeams a few times in January.  The very first Sunday I prepared to teach my new class, which has about 7 kids in it.  None of them were there, but I taught my Plan of Salvation lesson to the next class up, since they needed some help that day.  The 2nd Sunday, I wasn't planning on teaching - January was supposed to be my co-teacher's month to teach.  However, I didn't get the message that she wouldn't be able to be there (that was the day I was doing Nathan's party all day).  I had my Plan of Salvation lesson from the first week, which my new class hadn't heard, but then we only had 2 kids there.  The class above me only had 1 kid, so I asked if we could join them (since I hadn't prepared the current week's lesson and the numbers were small).  The 3rd week, I did prepare a lesson, but the class above me only had 1 again, so I asked if they wanted to join my class.  That 3rd lesson was about Adam and Eve and choices.  I didn't take any photos to document that lesson, but they got to hold up a smiley face for good choices and a frowny face for bad choices.  We also did a matching game, where they matched pictures of opposite things - like hot and cold or up and down.  

By the 4th week, I had officially coordinated with the class above me to combine our classes, since the number of kids and/or teachers has been small, and I wanted to take the guesswork out of who was going to prepare the lesson.  I didn't teach the 4th week but did the 5th week lesson on the city of Enoch.  We talked about how they showed love and unity for each other, and then we played a chutes and ladders game.  When they landed on the hearts, they had to share a way that they could show love for others.  They got heart suckers as treats at the end.  I don't bring treats often, but I thought it went well with the lesson.  There was one of my Sunbeams who was there for the first time.  It's a pretty hard transition from the nursery, where they get to play the whole time, to Sunbeams (where they have to sit through a lesson).  Anyway, she had a hard time most of the lesson... until she got a sucker.  Then it was the best day ever!  Her mom asked her about Sunbeams, and she said, "It was the BEST!" Good thing I brought the candy that day... 

One funny thing about one of the other kids.  I don't think she gets treats often at home.  She ate part of her sucker, but then gave it back to me at the end of the class.  I asked if she didn't want it, and she said, "Well, my mom wouldn't want me to have it."  Ha ha.  I thought, "Okay, yes we'll hide the evidence then..."  😀 

The kids say or do the funniest things sometimes.  I think I should start writing a book about being a Sunbeam teacher.  

 

January blessings and such

We had a special day in January.  Weston got the priesthood, being ordained to the office of deacon.  Owen became a teacher and Jared became a priest.  Nathan and Jared participated with Alex in ordaining Weston to the priesthood.  It was a spirit-filled time.  We also enjoyed watching Weston pass the sacrament for the first time the next week.  Owen prepared the sacrament, and Nathan and Jared blessed the sacrament.  We also got to go with Weston to the temple for the first time to do some work there.  Savannah isn't old enough yet, so we were missing her, but we got to be there with all the boys (along with the youth group).  It was an early session, at 7:00am, so there was a beautiful sunrise when we got there.   

Savannah got to do an overnighter when we went to the temple, since the rest of us had to wake up so early.  She was really excited about that - she made a whole list of things to take on the white board.  She got the list-making from me... she likes to plan and be organized and prepared.  

Savannah had her 100 days celebration at school.  She wishes she had 100 puppies, would donate $100 to charity, wants to eat 100 cupcakes, and can do 100 math problems!  I think it describes her pretty well - animal loving, charitable, sweet tooth, and smart.   

Nathan put together a slide presentation for a solution to putting the broken Lego sets back together - he named his "company" Nater Solutions!  I bet he has many presentations in the future.   

13th party

I didn't have any time to relax after Nathan's party because it was right on to Owen's party the following Saturday.  Owen's birthday was in December, but we didn't have any free days for a party, so we planned one for January.  I did a similar style party to Nathan's, with 13 different activities, but they were more minute-to-win-it style games.  Most of them took longer than a minute to complete, especially with teams, but they weren't as long as Nathan's party activities and they didn't correlate with anything from Owen's life.  We didn't quite get to all Owen's games either - we completed 10 of the 13 challenges.  Here's what we did:

- Tissue boxes strapped around waist - shake ping pong balls out

- Color sort - fastest to sort out colored circles

- Getting balloons in a bucket without using hands

- Block tower building - rolling dice for building instructions

- 21 cup stack - over and over until you get to the first cup

- Pyramid cup stack - build and take down the fastest

- Rubberband shoot the pyramid cup stack

- Bounce balls into a bucket, eliminating one ball each round and eliminating people each round that don't make it 

- Candy grab with 2 card decks

- Skittles and straws - suck skittles from 1 plate to another

There were prizes for each game, along with cake, chips, and soda. Only 7 of 16 friends were able to make it, but we had a fun group.    

18th birthday

We have another adult in the house!  About a week before Nathan's birthday, I decided that we had to do a party.  I asked Nathan what he wanted to do, but he didn't know, so I decided to plan it.  It was like a surprise party, except he knew when it was and who was coming.  He just had no idea that we were going to do.  I decided to go back through his childhood and do activities that related to things he liked or past parties.  I planned to do one activity for each year of his life.  It turned out to be a ton of work, but pretty fun.  We had dinner first and then watched a video slideshow of highlights of Nathan.  Then we did most of the years (we didn't quite do all of them): 

2004 - Diaper changing relay with bears that had Nathan's baby face on it.

2005 - Australia video and hopping with a balloon relay

2006 - talking - ice breaker questions

2007- trains - made paper trains

2008 - Apples - rolling race

2009 - Superheroes - Captain America shield throw

2010 - Good memory - memory game with Nathan pictures

2011 - Singing - watched past videos of him singing and then everyone got to sing an action primary song with a partner

2012 - Sports - Slideshow sports video and paper football game

2013 - Basketball - Hoop shoot game we have in the garage

2014 - Legos - Building a car competition

2015 - Soccer - balloon relay

2016 and 2018 - backpacking / Survivor - Scavenger Hunt and Decoded message

2017 - England - saying British phrases with an accent

2019 - Driving - Pushing the Lego cars with a broomstick

2020 - Sculpture - Playdoh

2021 - Missionary Work - Church Jeopardy

We didn't end up doing the last 2 years and accidentally skipped the memory game.  They were just ready to hang out for a while after doing 14 of the activities.  The activity that took me the most time to prepare was the scavenger hunt.  I made 4 different hunts (for 4 teams) throughout our house.  They found the clues (backpacking items) and then each of the clues had a word to be decoded and unscrambled.  Then the words had to be unscrambled to make a phrase - sort of a Survivor style challenge (Survivor was his 13th birthday party).  The phrase was "Celebrate the last night of childhood with a journey through the ages."  

The party seemed to be a success - the only downer was that only 5 of the 12 guests were able to make it to the party.  Two of his friends couldn't come at the last minute, because they had just found out their Mom had Covid.  Otherwise, everyone seemed to have a good time!    

 

New Year 2022

 We started off the new year with watching OSU beat Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.  Alex took some of the kids in the afternoon to find the snow up in the mountains.  (I needed to work on a Sunbeam lesson.)  We finished up a puzzle we started after Christmas.  We had a nice start to 2022.