Shoot for the Stars Camp Theme

‘Daughter of Light’ – possible scriptures are Matthew 5:16 some others are D&C 103:9.

STARS – Stand Together As Righteous Sisters – You can do a million things with this one.

Each ward was asked to come up with a name pertaining to stars. Here are the names … The Milky Way, Aurora Borealis, Depledias, The North Star, Pegasus, Mars and the Stake Camp, being a mixture of all the wards,(with the Youth Leaders), so they were called Heaven! Each ward were asked to come up with their own chant to use at roll call. Whenever we came together, each ward sang out their chant. Some even had several for the different days! All the chants were fun and very clever! Here is our chant:

We are the Northern Lights
We’re here to shine so bright
We strive to live as Christ
We’re telling youuuuuu
And in our memory
Dear to our hearts will be
Camp in the Raggeds
Shoot for the Stars
With all of you
Hey!

The Stake provided T-shirts for everyone. It had a young woman standing on top of a pile of books .. The books each having the title of a value ..and she is reaching for a start. Each ward received shirts that were the value color that was assigned to her ward. Our color was BLUE.

Things I did for our ward: crafts ..The first day I had the girls paint 1/2′ wooden beads with whatever value color they wanted. They decorated the bead with a design that stood for something about them. They made enough to trade with the other girls in our ward. (Friendship beads) We strung them on BLUE
narrow ribbon of course. Ahead of time I used DJ Inkers cut and copy books and traced onto shrink art several cute designs that were rewards for doing good works in camp and some of them were attached to handouts that we gave at devotionals, story times,
scripture study time…anytime we had an excuse to give them out ..we did!

Even had a heart that was just because we loved them. By the end of the week they had a necklace loaded with darling charms and friendship beads. These
shrinky-dinks took me hours but they were worth the effort. DJ Inkers has loads of star art and if you look around, stars are all over the place!

I had the YW leaders help me to sew BLUE pillow cases. I collected star stamps, where ever I went and curly cues .. What ever might be go with the theme. I had one heart to represent the love that Christ had for them. Then the fun began. I had gold paint, silver paint, white paint and fabric medium and the girls decorated their pillow cases. The one rule was they had to have a heart to remind them of Christ’s love. I also had a white fabric pen and some of the girls wrote our chant around the edge of their case. They all turned out wonderful. Of course we all had sweet dreams on them.

For handouts with our firesides we gave out star slinkies, (sometimes you have to streeeetch your self ) – Glow in the dark stars that we drilled and tied on jute and hung in their tents…a story went along. Star sunglasses – we talked about looking at the world with positive attitudes and the Gospel in mind. We put together journals using stamps that had something to do with stars. Each page was different. Our chore chart was a large circle with a rotating star to point out who did what at what times of the day. We made pins using card board and gluing the value colored buttons all over it and attaching a pin to the back. I even found star buttons!

For our secret sisters we made pins out of wooden stars. We painted them their ward color, (green), and placed a pin on the back. We gave them a bag of cereal that had marshmallow stars in it. One of the gifts was a necklace with a smiley face bottle of bubbles and we put star stickers where the cheeks would go. Star bursts were a popular treat. Their revealing gift was a necklace of thin green ribbon with a cute shrinky-dink star.

If the girls were in the ward camp with nothing to do, I had a box with BLUE nail polish and tiny silver star stickers that they could put on their nails. Big hit!! I had star poney beads that they could put on their shoe laces or sting in their hair. There were value colored ribbons to braid in their hair or make friendship bracelets. Colors, markers and color books.

This November we had our first camp meeting and I had a table full of all the fun things we made and received to remind them of all the fun we had,
and to let the girls that didn’t go see what fun they missed. This got everyone excited for what is in store for this year. I gave each of the girls that went to camp a photo and I framed it in a cute star-frame stamp by Stampin’ Up. A memento of a great year.

I found allot of items in the Oriental Trading Company Catalog. Look around… stars are so popular! Have fun!

Our theme this year is “Reach for the Stars”. Our daily schedule goes something like this:

Breakfast buffet (cereal, muffins etc.) 7-8.
Flag at 8
At 8:30 we begin a round robin class format each group of girls attends three classes in the morning until approx. 11:30.

They attend two certification classes and one Destiny Lesson (spiritual class)Then lunch in units with time to prepare for skits etc.

Then at 2:00 free time to do crafts, swim, nap, write letters etc. until4:30

Flag at 5

Dinner and mail call at 5:30

Campfire at 7:00 then treats and scripture study as unit

Lights out at 10:00 (HA! But we try)

Seems to work very well Every night we have a different campfire activity: Skit night, Song Night, Banner night, Bishops night where each Bishop
comes to camp and we play a game with them and the Stake presidency and have dinner with them and then off to Testimony Meeting.

Then on Friday night we have a special activity. Such as a faith walk etc. Last year we met girls on the trail that had been traveling from Nauvoo to Salt Lake and heard their stories. Awesome evening! This year we are still trying to come up with Friday night’s activity. We are leaning on trying to use Reach for the Stars and do a Star search but don’t want another skit or song night.

We are starting to gear up for girls camp next month. Our stake theme
is Camp Inspiration…Our Guiding Star. Each unit is to come up with their
own “inspired” theme. What we are going to attempt to accomplish at camp
(spiritually anyway) is for my girls to learn more about testimonies (got
lots of great help from all of you), and about being good examples by
following Jesus’ example. We also have to make a flag to hang in our camp
site that represents our theme.

A LIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS (each unit was a different light source)
emphasized the light of Christ within each girl and how they could make it
shine.

My husband built a lighthouse out of wood the would hold a lantern — it was perfect. The lighthouse was in the center of our camp and it lit up the whole camp.

Compiled from posts made at the lds-youngwomenfiles Yahoo Group