Inexpensive Gifts!!

This Monday night, October 25th, is our next meeting and we hope you all can come!

Along with dinner and an amazing speaker, we will also be making some inexpensive gifts.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the ideas:

We hope to see you all there!!

Teen Mops Meeting - October 11, 2010

We hope you all enjoyed Monday night! A big thank you to April's small group for the amazing soup and bread dinner!

And we were able to hear some great advice and instruction from Jennifer Williams on finding balance between being an overly permissive parent or an overly controlling parent! The key to finding that balance is having wisdom which can only be found in Jesus. Thank you for taking the time to share with us, Jennifer!

Jennifer mentioned 3 books that would really help us all in raising our children. If you weren't at the meeting or weren't able to write them all down, they are:

Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp

Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman

Toddlerwise by Gary Ezzo

And just a few tips she gave on raising our sweet children:

-Read to your child

-Teach your child to come to you when you call them

-Teach them to say "please" and "thank you"

-Watch your tone of voice when speaking to your child

-Make sure the tasks you give your child are able to be done at their age and make sure they heard you assign the task

-Don't reason with your child

-Love is spelled T-I-M-E and T-A-L-K

A child who is accepted, understood, and unconditionally loved will feel safe!!

Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying their time playing during our meeting:

We hope to see you all at our next meeting on October 25th!!

Cinnamon Clay Ornaments

For those who missed it or would like to do it at home, here is the recipe to make the ornaments we made that week too!

1 cup ground cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
cookie cutters
drinking straw

Add ground cinnamon to applesauce until the mixture becomes clay-like. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin and have students use their favorite cookie cutter to cut out the ornaments. Use a drinking straw to cut a hole in each ornament for hanging. Allow to dry at least 24 hours, turning occasionally.

When ornaments are dry, have students decorate them by gluing on small candies. Help each student insert a ribbon through the hole to hang from the tree!

Old Fashioned Salt Clay (Play Dough)

Hey there! So I know this is a little late, but I did tell you all that I would post the recipe for the play dough that we made at the last meeting! So here it is:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 cup salt (plain, not iodized)
1/2 cup water
food coloring

Mix the flour cornstarch and salt together in a large bowl. Place a few drops of selected food coloring into the water and add it to the mixture. Knead the dough until it is smooth. Add more flour or water to reach the desired consistency. Store the clay in sealable plastic bags or containers.

The clay can be used again as long as it is stored in a sealable container. Children can mold the clay and then bake their creations at 250 for approximately one hour or until hard. Allow to cool before giving the clay creations to children.

This makes enough clay for 6-8 students.