Hey guys! It feels like I can hardly keep up these days. I just barely have time to clean up from one holiday before it’s time to start thinking about the next one! It helps that I’m SUPER excited about the next one, though. I think Valentine’s Day is so much fun. At the school where I work we call it Friendship day, which just adds to the spirit of the holiday. We could all use a little more celebration of love and friendship up in here, in my humble opinion! This year I thought it would be AWESOME to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a Friendship Breakfast. Not your typical fancy pants breakfast -- no waffles or crepes or quiche for this shindig. I live in a house of men now, remember. This is gonna’ be a CEREAL PARTY!!! Because I’m CEREAL-sly grateful for my friends! *insert eye rolls from teenagers here*
But cereal-sly (hee hee), the one food my family asks for more than any other is cold cereal. We love it! And so do most kids, if I’m not mistaken. Like I always say, every good party starts with a fun invitation. I designed this printable invitation in a 5x7 inch size that fits two to a page or as a 3.75x 5 inch which fits four to a page if you’re planning on inviting a crowd. I invited the 10-year-olds I teach at church and they were cereal-sly (OK, enough already) excited to come!
Download the blank images here. Upload the JPG images in a photo editing program like Photoshop or on a site like PicMonkey to add your own details, or print the PDF as-is and write in the details by hand. The font I used for all my info is called Lemonade Stand. You can download it here.
For your party, set up a buffet table full of a wide variety of cereals, toppings, and milks – some sweet, some healthy (if that’s your thing).
I put my cereal in glass jars with metal scoops – mainly because that’s how we always store our cereal here, but also because it looks super cute. I also used a few galvanized buckets with scoops to accommodate more flavors. Variety is the key word here!
For toppings I chose things like fresh berries, marshmallows, chocolate chips, whipped cream, and sprinkles (of course!).
You gotta’ represent all the milk groups, as well – white, chocolate, and strawberry. Glass milk bottles and tags up the cute factor by about a million. Each guest can choose the flavor of milk they want, pour it over their creation, and then grab a straw to drink the extra. Mmmmmmm, cereal milk!
For “bowls”, I picked up some inexpensive white 32-ounce take-out boxes on Amazon for a steal and added my own labels to tie them in with the theme. (It’s A LOT cheaper than buying cutesy patterned or colored boxes. Just sayin’. I love me a bargain.)
Hi, guys! I have been working with the 8-11 year old girls in our church for the past year or so in the Activity Days program. We meet twice a month for fun activities (hence the name) that teach spiritual lessons, help the girls discover and develop their talents, and provide opportunities to serve others. I have shared some of the more elaborate activities we have planned, like our Back-to-School Flamingle, and this "Experiment Upon the Word" Science Night. Not every activity is that fancy, believe me!! Some nights we just do a small craft or play games. Earlier this year I was in charge of planning an activity about budgeting. Yikes!! How was I going to take a topic that is soooo boring I am not so fond of myself, and make it fun -- and RELEVANT -- for a bunch of active tweens?! I decided to play The Price is Right to make sure they had an idea about how much common things actually cost. It was SUPER interesting!!
Send home an invitation/reminder the Sunday before the activity to get the girls excited! Download my design here and print them 4 to a page. Just use a black marker to write in the names on the price tags and the info about the activity.
I made the whole game into a PowerPoint presentation, so I could just hook my laptop up to a big TV at church and make the whole thing go really smoothly. For the first game they were shown two products and one price. They had to choose which product matched the price shown.
The answer is revealed in the next slide:
We talked a little about shopping sales and using coupons, but I tried not to overwhelm them with information.
After several rounds of that, the next game was Higher or Lower! They were shown a product and a price and had to decide if the actual price of that item was higher or lower than the price shown.
Again, the answer was revealed in the next slide:
They were actually pretty good at this one! We played this game for several rounds, and then . .
It was time for Squeeze Play!! The girls were shown an item along with several numbers. They had to decide which number needed to be removed to make the actual price of the the item.
It took some prompting to help them understand this game, but once they got it, they loved it! I used the actual retail prices I found online or from stores in our area when possible for each item as I was putting the game together. For a few of the items I had to google the average price and used that.
The Price is Right Theme Song is available on YouTube. I had my tech-savvy teenager help me embed it in my presentation, but I don't remember how we did it. Sorry! The yellow name tag template is available here. Print one for each girl on sticker paper to wear like actual contestants. Put all their names into a bowl and have your host draw one or two for each round and invite them to "Come on Down"!!
The entire Price is Right game actually only took about 30 minutes of our evening, so we also played this awesome game idea from Mormon Activity Days and called it The Game of Life in keeping with our theme for the evening. It was a more in-depth look at how to budget a salary for common living expenses and gave them some exposure to the options they might have. I would recommend pairing up one younger girl with one older girl for this game if you have enough girls in your group. If you don't have enough to make teams, plan for extra time to help the younger gals count out money and do the math. They can absolutely do it, but if you have a big group it may be helpful to have your partner on hand ready to help answer questions!
For treats, you could serve one or two of the food items they learned about in the Price is Right game or this recipe for "Millionaire Bars" from Center Cut Cook would probably also be a big hit! The girls had a really fun time and were totally engaged THE WHOLE TIME, which is straight-up miraculous. I would absolutely do this activity again. Good Luck, friends!!
