Simple Pioneer Family Home Evening

It's Pioneer Day again this weekend!  For Activity Days tomorrow (I don't know if I've mentioned that's my church calling... again) we're going to be putting together Family Home Evening packets so the girls can present a pioneer themed FHE Monday night.  I thought I'd share the simple lesson plan I came up with.  My favorite part is the pioneer treasure hunt.  I've seen a couple online, but I wanted to do one that was easier and use coloring pictures so the girls can color the pictures on the clues tomorrow at our activity so I whipped one up!

Pioneer Family Home Evening

Song-

Pioneer Children: Children’s songbook p. 214

Click to enlarge, then right click to save and print.

Thought-

“A dictionary defines a pioneer as ‘one who goes before, showing others the way to follow.’ Oh, how the world needs pioneers today!” ~President Thomas S. Monson

Lesson-

In February 1846, the pioneers were forced to leave their homes in Nauvoo. The weather was so cold that the huge Mississippi River was frozen solid. The early church members walked on foot and drove their covered wagons across the slippery ice away from their beautiful homes in Illinois. It was not easy to travel this time of year, especially with young children and in the bitter cold. The Saints stopped at many places along the way, including Sugar Creek, Garden Grove, and Winter Quarters where many people became sick and died.

These first pioneers traveled over 1,000 miles across the plains, following their leader, Brigham Young, to their new home in the Rocky Mountains. The first group of Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. We celebrate Pioneer Day every year in July to remember the pioneers who made their way across the plains to their new home in Utah.

Activity-

Pioneer Treasure Hunt:

Make pioneer cookies ahead of time for the treasure... or use another pioneer treat such as root beer barrels or taffy.

Click to enlarge, then right click to save or print.

Keep clue #1 to start.
Hide #2 under your dinner table.
Hide #3 in your kitchen sink or somewhere you drink from.
Hide #4 under or in a bed.
Hide #5 in a clothes closet or dresser.
Hide #6 in your bathtub.
Hide the treasure in your fridge or food pantry.

Refreshments-

Pioneer Washboard Cookies

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream together sugars and shortening and beat in eggs. Dissolve soda in boiling water and add to above mixture. Blend in vanilla. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and blend into mixture. Roll dough into balls by hand and place onto greased cookie sheet; flatten with a fork. Bake at 375° for 10-15 minutes.  Pull out of the oven when they're barely turning golden.  These are easy to overcook.

Happy Pioneer Day!

Pioneer Berry Ink

Berry juice was sometimes used as ink back in the pioneer days. This is a super fun craft to do with your kids. You could squeeze the juice from the berries yourself if you want, but I do the cheaper and easier way and just buy juice concentrate... grape, cherry and cranberry all make very pretty ink.

You can use feathers, pipe cleaners or paint brushes to write with your berry ink. Paint brushes are the easiest, but feathers are the most authentic. This is a great pioneer craft for a pioneer family home evening or anytime!

72 Hour Kits Tips and Hints

 I feel really strongly about having 72 Hour Kits in our home and I pray we never have to use them! This week I'd just like to share some tips and hints for your kits!

Now that you know what goes into a 72 kit, let's talk about the perfect container. Rolling backpacks are absolutely the best thing you can use, especially for kids' kits. We use old school backpacks for the kids and larger thrift store found backpacks for the adult and car kits. The smaller the kid, the smaller the backpack. The reason I use rolling backpacks is so they can be thrown on the back if walking over rough terrain, but they can also be rolled for long distances. Bottles full of water get heavy after a short while! My car kit is extremely heavy and I know I wouldn't be able to carry it very far at all. I know of people that keep their 72 hr kits in a 5 gallon bucket. How far could you carry a 5 gallon bucket full of food and water? How far could your kids carry it? Make sure whatever you use for your kit can be easily carried by the person it's intended for.

Some people put off having 72 hr kits because they don't know where to store them. Whether I've been in a big house or a small house I've been able to find a closet bottom to keep the kits in. The backpacks actually stack up pretty nicely.

They take up very little space at all and the bottom of a coat closet is a perfect home for them! Wherever you keep them, just make sure they are easily accessible and that everyone in the house knows where they are.

Every year when I rotate our kits I include the kids in the putting back together part. That way they know what everything is and what it's used for. We discuss why we need the kits and under what circumstances they might need them. It makes for a good family home evening on preparedness and the kids are less fearful of natural disasters if they know they are prepared.

This is all the food that had to be replaced in our kits this year. It costs me about $80 to replace our 72 hr kit food each year. That's for one adult kit, three kids' kits and a car kit. Really $80 a year isn't a bad investment for the peace of mind having these kits gives my family. And not all of it goes into the garbage. Much of the food and water is not expired and only close-dated, which means we use the fruit cups in lunches, munch the jerky, eat tuna casserole, etc. The food and water in my car kit does go in the garbage each year though, just because of the extreme temperatures we have here in Utah. We have everything from blizzards to 100 degree weather and sometimes that's in the same month...  I figure better safe than sorry and all food and water from my car kit is thrown away.

This is what my living room looks like during the couple of days we work on our kits. I usually take one day to open all the kits, sort the food and make lists of foods and medicines that need to be replaced. And then a day or two later after I've purchased all the provisions the kids and I put them back together.

Something to entertain yourselves is often overlooked while putting together kits. I don't know about you, but the idea of being stuck with my kids for days in a make-shift shelter or my car doesn't sound very appalling. A deck of cards, a notebook w/pen, comfort-type foods, etc. are all a good idea.

Money is also a good idea. Each of our kids' kits have $5 and mine has $15. This isn't a large enough amount that I have to worry about having cash in the backpacks, but it's enough to get me a bit of gas or other necessities if needed. I keep my cash in a mini mint tin. It tucks right into a pocket and is pretty protected. I have 2 $5 bills and 5 ones. Smaller change could come in handy, you never know.


Another thing I've mentioned in past postings, but want to mention again is copies of your important documents such as birth certificates, shot records, drivers licenses, military ID cards, etc. Also when you update your kit each year, update your emergency phone list. Include your own home address and phone numbers on the list. I also keep a list of social security numbers and the phone number for our bank. Copies of insurance cards are also fabulous to have. Security-wise, I don't keep these things in my car kit other than my drivers license copies and phone numbers, but we do have them in each kit in our house. This information could be extremely useful to you if you had to evacuate and in a situation like that, you wouldn't usually think to or want to take the time to grab your important documents like birth certificates.

I hope you've learned something about emergency preparedness during these last few weeks. I know that "if ye are prepared ye shall not fear" (D & C 38:30). 72 hr kits are just one aspect of being prepared for emergencies and disasters, but it's a great place to start!

Homemade Fast Food Party Idea

Who needs to waste money on totally grease-filled fast food? Not us!


We had our own fun Fast Food Friday family night!

I bought the popcorn boxes at Target in January. I paid $1 for an eight pack. The plastic baskets and hot dog holders were a recent yard sale find. They came together and there were eight of each for only a buck. I pick up the little portion cups and fast food trays at thrift stores and yard sales whenever I see them. I can usually get a huge unopened pack for a dollar or less because people buy them for big parties and don't want what's left.

Friday at work we received a box of promotional items for an upcoming movie. We're a performance hall, not a movie theater, so they don't do us much good. I got a bag, a really cool light-up mirror for my purse and I grabbed four of these paper cups. They were exactly what I was missing and they showed up on the day I needed them! The table cloth was a .25 discount store find and I just thought the tickets were a fun addition :)



Here's what was on the menu:

-turkey hot dogs w/buns & ketchup
-baked chicken nuggets
-baked french fries w/mozzarella cheese
-homemade milkshakes made with light ice cream and skim milk
-fry sauce made with low fat mayo & ketchup or bbq sauce (depending on the person)
-water bottles

I figure if you're going to eat fast foodie-type things, you might as well healthy them the best you can, which doesn't mean they are healthy, just healthier.

Fun Family Night Idea- Medieval Dinner

dramatic kids

This was really fun... and totally silly. The kids really don't understand what medieval times are, but we wanted to have a themed dinner and thought why not Medieval?  The kids raided my costumes and came up with the most random "medieval" clothing.

The kids made up funny names for themselves such as Sir Cul, Lady Enchanted and my kooky Alyssa: Lady Lactose Intolerant. 

Our feast consisted of chicken quarters, ribs, bread and peas. We had rice pudding for dessert from a recipe I found on a medieval recipe website:

cooked rice

milk

almond extract

sugar

honey

Heat to a simmer and serve forth. It's quite a bit like oatmeal, but with rice

pioneer handkerchief doll

This is another fun pioneer craft idea that would work great as a pioneer family home evening activity. It's really easy and makes a cute little doll.



Materials needed:
handkerchief, bandana, or any square piece of fabric
4 pieces of ribbon,
small amount of batting, cotton balls or kleenex
Fold your fabric in half to make a triangle.
Place your triangle point-side-down.
Place your batting in between the two folds in the center of your fabric, and gather around it, tying it with a ribbon to make your head.


Tie the left and right points of your triangle with ribbons to make arms.


Make a waist with your last ribbon.
Cut the hands a bit so they aren’t so long.
Separate the bottom pieces into 2 for a boy, or fluff it up to make a skirt for a girl.

Pioneer Button Spinner

A button spinner is a fun and easy pioneer activity. They are also called whirligigs. If you're looking for a simple craft idea for a pioneer family home evening... this is it.

2 1/2 feet of heavy string

1 largish button with 2 or 4 holes

Thread your button through two diagonal holes. Tie the ends of the thread together. Holding the thread with a finger on each hand, twirl the button until the thread is pretty tight. Stretch it out and pull to make the button spin. Pull hard stretching and then relaxing the string. This takes practice to keep it going, but once it does it's really cool! Check out the short video of a button spinner in action. 

Pioneer Family Night

We love celebrating Pioneer Day (July 24th in Utah).  At our last pioneer family activity we had a couple of the kids prepare pioneer stories to share, sang pioneer primary songs, made kettle corn over the stove with everyone taking a turn at the crank, made butter and we had a full pioneer dinner with authentic recipes. It was a blast. The kids all dressed up and had a lot of fun. Here are some other great pioneer FHE ideas we've done:

-play old fashioned games like potato sack races, wheel barrow races, three legged races and a stick pull
-try pioneer candies, like horehound
-eat a pioneer dinner by candlelight or outside
-watch a movie about pioneers, our favorite is The Legacy
-make butter, place cream into jars with lids, have every take turns shaking, when you think it'll never happen, then wow... you have butter.
-cook popcorn over the stove, either in a heavy pot, or in a stovetop popcorn popper
-read pioneer histories, either from your own family, or search online for some great ones
-buy a metal tub and a scrubbing board (I've seen them at hispanic markets around town for pretty cheap) and let everyone take a turn "washing" laundry