Activity Days with Evelyn

Last night was Evelyn's second time going to Activity Days, which is a bi-monthly activity held by our church for girls aged 8-9.  (There is also another older group for 10-11 year olds, and then they start going to Young Women for 12-18.)  Evelyn already loves to go!  I was recently asked to help the woman in charge of Evie's age group, so I get to go along with her for a while!

Last night a brother in our ward - my Activity Days partner's husband - taught the girls about Japan, since he served his mission there.  He had a lot of pictures to show them.  Japan is a beautiful place!

We also did a little geography and math lesson, showing where Japan is in relation to Wisconsin (the mitten shape) and how old America's government is in comparison to oldest dated things in Japan. 

We learned a couple of words in Japanese symbols - like this 'ki', pronounced kee, symbol means 'tree'.

This second symbol ***I'm waiting for confirmation on what it means; I want to be recording correctly.***

He brought some sushi - nothing too adventurous, just some rice with carrots, cucumber and avocado.  It was funny that the couple of the girls who 'tried' it were already familiar with it.  Most of the rest - my daughter included - heard 'sushi' and said 'no thanks'.  Bummer.

They were all too willing, though, to try the treats!  These are 'pocky' sticks, which is basically a cookie/cracker stick dipped in something.  He had three options here: chocolate, chocolate and nuts, and a strawberry yogurt.  It reminded me of chocolate covered pretzels.

I have three pictures of the next one because they're so darn cute!  They're little pandas in various activities, like archery, running, and playing soccer.  Inside these little cookies was a chocolate or vanilla cream.

Bro. H also talked about how everything is so lit up and fluorescent in Japan.  He brought glow sticks to demonstrate that.  The girls all had a blast with them!

Evie put two - a purple and a green - together and swung it around and wanted to know what it looked like.  On a slow shutter, it actually looks kind of cool!