What would be a good activity for third grade girls that we could do totally at home? There would be up to 12 girls.
I could get one or two moms to help me drive them home from school and do crafts or games. It would be more of a making friends/fun day.It is not for a birthday. We want to foster them getting along and getting to know each other. It would last 3 hours maximum.
Let them design and make a friendship quilt, using paper squares to design their pattern. Let each girl design their square, transfer to fabric, stitch the square and then you could piece all the squares together. They could have sewing lessons, design lessons and cooperative learning all together, and forge some really strong friendships along the way. Thrid grade girls are so fun....enjoy!
Friendship bracelets.
The ones we used to make as a kid with the embroidery floss.
Go to your online library lookup and look for "stupid sock creatures" or "hand and glove puppets". Might last more than 3 hours so you could make it a two or three time class- seeing eachother more than once helps foster and cement relationships anyways. These can be christmas gifts they make for siblings or friends or even parent. I love stupid sock creatures!
An inexpensive project is salt dough ornaments for xmas. ..recipe online.
When my kids got together with freinds they likes to plan "plays" for the parents, and then when the parents would come to pick them up, all the parents would sit down on lawn chairs and watch the play they made. They were so cute. Many times it was similar to a talent show.
My 3rd grader LOVES to cook. If you like to cook, you could facilitate a cooking club. I did this once and made each child a cookbook, I typed up a "before you start" page of cooking and safety tips (found them in a child's cookbook) and then put three recipies in each bilnder, in a plastic sleeve. fruit drinks and cookies are favored recipies. Making bread dough is also fun. They can make pizza out of it, or make cinnaman rolls. The first class can be using fabric paint and stencils , or even fabric pens (easier) to decorate thier own cooking aprons.
I had 10 3rd graders for a slumber party Saturday night. We had a spa night. We had 5 stations hair, make up, lotion, massage, and nails. We had the girls do each others make overs, so they could spend time together and the moms went around and helped as needs. We pick up fake eye lashes out Halloween mark downs. Then they put on a dance and singing show. This group of girls are the sports/tom boys of the school and you would of thought it would of been something they would of enjoyed so much. When they knew they were dressing to do a show they could be girl girls if they want to or not.
friendship bracelets, tie dye shirts, necklaces with beads, I'm sure there is a few other things they could do too.
I use the following website to get ideas to use with my 3rd grade Brownies Troop for Girl Scouts.
http://www.makingfriends.com/
I don't always buy the supplies from the site but it helps me to think of ideas to use with the girls. (Sometimes I go to a craft store and buy similar stuff.)
Being in Girl Scouts is definitely a way to foster friendships. Would you consider being a leader? You might want to check into it. My troop loves getting together for meetings and other places to earn fun patches.
Girls love having something in common to remember a good time. Make bracelets, necklace, t-shirt, etc... and then they can plan a day to wear them at school together.
Singing and dancing are always "big" at this age. Maybe a karaokee (sp?) machine to hook up to the TV.
Take a group photo and have them design a photo frame to put the photo in and they can have it as a keepsake of their fun day.
Caroling in the neighborhood is fun if it's around Christmas. You may need to print out the lyrics for the girls. Unless you agree to sing the very popular songs that they already know. Come back to the house and enjoy some hot chocolate together.
Playing games from the tv game show called Minute to Win It would be fun. Check out some games/challenges on their website. It's on NBC. My kids love that game show!
Painting nails and spa stuff is fun. Some places like Toys R Us has kits that the girls can make their own facial cleanser. You might want to have 2 or 3 options going on (like stations) so the girls can choose something that they really want to do.
If you really want to foster friendships, I would consider doing this again... maybe once a month (if possible) and each mom would take a turn hosting the "get together". Make a schedule with the other moms.... or something. even if that's not possible, just getting together once may spark a friendship that might never had happen if not for you doing this!
Have fun!
J.
You could do a kids pampering party. Paint their toenails and fingernails. They now how the polish that comes in paint sticks and you can put different designs on their nails. My daughter and I did that this summer on our cruise. And she will be having a slumber party next month for her bday and that is what we are going to do with her friends. What girl doesn't like to be pampered and have fun at the same time? And to make it even more fun, play bingo and have the prizes be little things that girls like, ex. rings, bracelets, fingernail polish(itty bitty bottles) just girly stuff.
My daughter went to a really cute friendship party last year. The mom had the girls work in groups of four. Each group was given a song and they had to create a dance to go with the song. Then at the end, they all shared their group dance to the other groups. It was so much fun!
