Princess in Training
Idea by Kathy

We devoted all our Activity Days meetings to learning how to "act" like a princess.  I began by reading the book, "Daughter of a King" by Rachel Ann Nunes. They loved the stories and especially the beautiful illustrations. We discussed how we were daughters of Heavenly Father and that made us each a princess. I taught them about how to carry themselves and have manners like a princess might have. The girls role played different situations where they would have to use good manners. A great reference book was from the American Girl Series entitled, "Oops-The Manners Guide for Girls" by Nance Holyoke. I was able to find it at our local library. We also began learning the song, "I Am a Princess" by Julie DeAzevedo. It is found on the "Come Unto Christ- Values for Young Women" CD.  They had copies of the words and sang along. They loved the song.  The next week we focused on table manners. My assistant showed them how to set a table for a family dinner and for a fancy dinner.  She talked about table manners and restaurant manners. I even learned a few things! I had found on the internet a copy of medieval manners. They were hysterical! I had planned to talk about those and how we have become more civilized, but we ran out of time. We did some fancy napkin folding and decorated gold paper crowns with colorful jewels bought at Wal-Mart. The girls also decorated a crown-shaped invitation for our Recognition Night with jewels. We also made little crown nut cups in preparation for our Recognition night.  The following week we had a "Royal Banquet" for the girls and their family. It was a potluck. We decorated with purple and gold. Table decorations were the decorated crowns the girls had made the previous week and little plastic high heel shoes that I had dipped in gold glitter. They look like little Cinderella shoes.  Very cute and a hit with the girls. They each got to take one home.  After dinner the girls put on their crowns and sang the "I Am A Princess" song and I gave out awards. I also presented them with a Princess Poem about our life in the pre-existence and that Heavenly Father gave us each a key. If we unlocked the right doors we could go back to heaven and become a queen someday. I made a copy for each girl and mounted it on cardstock and tied a key (found some gold skeleton keys in Automotive Department at Wal-Mart....2 for $1.  Another fun thing we did was we had a afternoon at the movies during President's Day holiday. I invited any of the girls that could come to my house to watch "The Little Princess" movie. We didn't have a really big turnout, but those that came, really liked it. You could also show "Princess Diaries". Anyway, it was a fun, successful month and hopefully the girls understand a little better about their divine nature!