Wednesday, March 24, 2010

"Bee" a Great Sitter!

Our Activity Day Girls were invited by our Enrichment Committee to babysit for one of our Relief Society Meetings. To prep the older girls for the challenge, I held a "Bee a Great Sitter" night, where we discussed the basics of babysitting, safety tips and fun games that the girls can play with the kids.

I derived most of my ideas from LDS Activity Day Ideas, another Activity Days Blog that I love! I used their content and put my touch on it, giving it a "Bee" theme. All of the content adapted from LDS Activity Day Ideas has been reposted with permission.


To download my "Bee a Great Sitter!" Files via Google Docs, click the links below:

Handouts
Babysitting Tips
Safety First
Important Information Forms
Fun Games
Primary Songs
Things to Add to Your Kit

Labels
Labels for Folders
Labels for Games

Great Finds for this Activity
Home Goods, which is essentially TJ Maxx with all home goods, has fantastic large, reusable shopping bags for under $1 each. I found some on clearance for only 70 each. They have fun, decorative designs on them that the girls loved. They are large enough that the girls can add virtually anything to them including old sheets, dress up clothes, coloring books, etc.

 Wal-Mart had some really fun folders on clearance for 25 cents each in the clearance isle. They were more colorful and durable than the plain ones I was planning on getting! I am always amazed at the cute stationary finds in the clearance section at Wal-Mart.

The Clearance isle at Wal-Mart was also great in finding items for the games that we put together. I found socks for the Sock Guessing game and misc. items for the Sink or Float game. I was amazed how little I spent on the activity!

Preparation
I made each girl a folder with one of each of the hand outs. The only files I printed in color were the Labels for the Folders and the Labels for the Games (which I printed on full-sheeted sticker paper). Black and white copies of the handouts were fine.

I purchased/found materials for the following Games: 
  1. Sock Guessing Game (1 cute sock per girl, found on clearance of course!)
  2. Blowing Cotton Balls (6 cotton balls and a piece of twine for each girl)
  3. Ribbon Matching (Just brought all of the spools of ribbon I had laying around my house)
  4. Sink or Float? (found a number of random items on clearance and around my house. Mine included a piece of sponge, practice golf ball, plastic bracelet, straw, binder clip, plastic spoon and a fishing bob)
Our Activity
For our activity, we all sat in a circle, and I gave each girl a folder. We went through the Babysitting Tips and Safety First handouts together. The girls took turns reading each bullet point, and we discussed each one. I then showed them the "Important Information for Sitters" handout, and told them they could make copies and take them to each babysitting assignment they had.

Then, I briefly touched on the remaining handouts - Things to add to your kit, Primary Songs, and fun Games. Then, we spent the rest of the activity assembling the four games I had prepared. They cut out their labels and assembled all of the items for their kits. They took everything home the great bags that I found. The girls learned a lot and had a lot of fun!

23 comments:

  1. Wendy! This is darling! I remember making something similar when I was in Merrie Miss a million years ago. I love all the details and work you put into this but I especially love that you are willing to share! I am my Stake Primary and I have a training tonight with my Activity Days Leaders - I'm going to direct them to your cute blog! Thank you!!!

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  2. I glad you are finding my stuff useful. This is what I LOVE doing!

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  3. This is soooo adoarble! and I also want to thank you for sharing, my group is doing a babysitting kit soon, and I'm excited to use some of your wonderful ideas!

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  4. Wow what a great idea! We will use these for our Activity Days! Thanks for sharing!

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  5. My daughters will love this. Thanks for all the useful ideas!

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  6. What is the sock guessing game? And do you just match the ribbons to each other or is there more to it than that? :) Thanks.

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  7. We just had this activity yesterday! The girls loved it and we had so much fun. As we went over the tips and safety sheets, the girls shared stories about favorite babysitters. Thank you so much for the amazing idea! It was a hit!

    Thank you for taking the time to blog such fantastic ideas here to share with us!

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  8. Wendy, we are doing this activity on Wednesday. Thanks so much for all your time and effort on each activity. You are amazing. Luv, Andi

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  9. I am doing a Babysitting 101 activity for my Beehives (so the "Bee" theme is PERFECT!) this week, and this was such a blessing to find! It's making it so easy for me, thanks!

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  10. How do you get the folder labels to print on labels? The direction is the wrong way for printing. Any help would be appreciated.

    candacefielding(at)gmail(dot)com

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  11. Thank you for sharing your ideas and hard work. I really appreciate it and know my girls are going to love this activity!

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  12. I'm so glad that I found your blog! I was so unsure of how I would put together a baby sitting kit for my Activity Day girls. But this is very informational, cheap, fun, and easy! Thank you so much. :D

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  13. Thank you so much for sharing your activities with us! I hope it helps you feel like all your efforts were worth it (besides for the girls) because so many are grateful

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  14. Thank you for your fantastic ideas! We had this planned, but was unsure of a few details...this helped finalize it all! At our next activity we will actually be doing a babysitting afternoon at the church for some of the children in the ward, practice what they learned. :)

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  15. thanks so much! These are the cutest ideas ever. i need ideas so i can babysit my friend`s aunt`s friend`s kids in Layton.

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  16. WOW!! Thank God I found your site and God Bless you for sharing all this very helpful information. Just took over as Cadet Leader and was desperate thanks for coming to my rescue and giving it all away for free. I've already printed everything out just have to buy the games supplies, bags and folders and we're off to a great start. Thank you Thank you :)

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  17. I love this idea and we are doing it tonight for Beehives!! How perfect that you included a "Bee" theme. Thank you so much for putting this together and making it available to other people. :)

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  18. This is fabulous...thank you!!

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  19. This is so wonderful, thank you for sharing..

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  21. It's really an amazing article about baby sitter,
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  22. Thank you! You are a lifesaver. You just saved me tons of time. I'm going to use this tomorrow, the girls will love it!

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