Pinewood Derby Awards

Updated 2/21/15 | If you found me through pinterest, that's so exciting! I'm so glad you found this fun idea for your cub scouts! As of today there are 348 repins. I never thought this would get that popular! I'm no longer in cub scouts, I know super sad but I'd love to see how you're using the idea in your packs! So comment below with a link to a post about it on your blog or email me at emailelliemurphy {at} gmail {dot} com and I'll share them at the end of this post!

I saw these last year on a friend's kid. I thought it was genius but I didn't have anything but a picture. They're relatively easy to make.

I had my brother cut a limb of pinewood into a bout an inch/inch and a half discs. Then I laid them out on some tin foil that I put on a cookie sheet. You want to make them at 200 for an hour or so to kill any bugs and dry out the wood. You want to give each disc some room, so while baking I only put 12 to a sheet.

While they are baking cut the ribbons. I cut mine about 26 inches long, but I'd add at least two more inches because it was a little short on  a few of the kids. 

To keep the ribbon from fraying I singe the ends. If you look closely, one end is starting to unravel. You don't have to worry about cutting it before singing it, just gradually bring the flame closer to it and it will burn away. It doesn't take much flame to get the job done.  

To attach the ribbon I recommend hot glue gun. Mine was mysteriously MIA so I borrowed a neighbors. And I have never used a glue gun that I have loved as much as this one. If you are looking to buy one, get this one! I'm going to hate giving it back.

So I put a little less than a quarter size amount of hot glue and then put the ribbon on just a little more left than you would think to. You'll see what I'm talking about below. I like to pick a side that's a little bit cleaner looking so it looks nice and the letters show up better.

Then you put a little bit more than a nickle on top of the ribbon and then put the other end on top. I like to push down on it pretty hard so that it will lay flat and not have bumps.

Here's the awards. I used a sharpie to write the awards on them. I put the year since I did these last year and plan to do them again next year if I'm still in cub scouts. (Let's all say a prayer I'm not!) The wood will tear up your sharpies so use a bunch of old ones or buy a new net and have the pack reimburse you. To make 24 medals it cost me about $20-$25. But I have some left overs, like hot glue sticks. 

We had about 15 medals already written on but came with the others ready so that we could award kids for whatever reason.  This was a multi-pack race so we had an honorable mention for each pack because we've had it happen, on accident, that a pack goes home without a single award. we also had the 1st - 3rd place medals ready. 

Here's the list we started with:

Most Patriotic

Best Use of Color

Spirit of Pinewood Award

Most Unique

Most Realistic

Most Creative

The Spirit of Pinewood Award was new to us. But we often have some kids who either don't have a car but are great helpers and cheer everyone on or have a car and do the same. And we just wanted a way to be able to recognize them. We loved it and can't wait to do it again next year!

Finding unbiased and fair judges for judging the non-race awards is really hard. But being a ward missionary has it perks in a situation like this. I had the missionaries be the judges, one set of elders and one set of sisters, and then a couple kids and their mom since they don't make it to cub scouts often. The elders were the best at coming up with additional awards.

We added these:

Most Invisible for an awesome camouflage paint job. 

Most Arrow-dynamic for a car that litterally looked like an arrow

Most likely to time travel for a car that was the spitting image of a deLorean.

Hottest Car on the Block for a car that had some awesome flames

Here's some pictures of the kids with their awards

let's be honest, that shirt didn't hurt his chances of getting an award
GO COUGARS!

Yeah, I realize I spelled hottest wrong, already have another one made for him.

The Primary Disconnect

I've wanted to write this post so many times! I've started and didn't like it or it didn't feel right but someone needs to speak to the sisters outside of Primary and that includes Nursery. Nursery is part of Primary so for the rest of the post when I reference Primary I mean Nursery too.

I love my primary calling, really! I would pick a Primary calling any day and for most people that doesn't include Nursery but I do. I love Nursery. My first summer back from school I was a Nursery Leader and it was the best calling I've had to this day! I love being with those cute little kids and talking about Jesus's love for them! A fringe benefit for me having a Primary calling is getting out of Relief Society! I have never liked Relief Society in the 5 years I've been out of Young Womens. I've tried student ward Relief Society, singles ward Relief Society and family ward Relief Society and all of them leave me feeling like I'm not part of the group for one reason or another. In Primary I belong, I get kids and kids think I'm awesome!

But Primary is often off in a corner, nowhere near Relief Society and we're forgotten about. When there are super cute handouts from Relief Society, we don't get them. When there's an activity that Relief Society is planned, we're the last to hear about it. Often just a couple days before the event. When they have treats in Relief Society they somehow happen to never make it down to the Primary sisters. (Which we would appreciate, especially when we have Primary Presidents who don't want teachers giving out any food to the kids-even if passed by the parents) We feel like we're not really part of the ward, we're the last to hear about almost EVERYTHING!

Now before you say "Well you don't know what it's like to have a calling and make sure things get announced in another auxillary..." or something similar. I do! When I was in a singles ward I didn't have a male co-chair and we had people leave after sunday school and not get things announced in Relief Society or Priesthood so I announced in both of our Sunday School classes and Relief Society and Priesthood. And for the Fall Festival that I just helped coordinate I laid everything out for each auxiliary (including Young Womens, Young Mens, Elders Quorum, High Priests and Relief Society) with one of the leaders. I gave them an announcement sheet and a signup sheet. And checked back with them after church and managed to plan and teach a primary class and fulfill my Ward Missionary calling. I'm not saying it's easy, it's not, but it's possible. And don't our sisters deserve support? Especially when they're not always dealing with the easiest kids? I know I wasn't an easy kid, and neither were my brothers and I'd like to hope that Relief Society supported them.

So sisters in Relief Society, I'm giving you a challenge. Will you invite your Relief Society Presidency to include sisters serving in Primary? AND will you make sure to pass along things announced and given out to the sisters you visiting teach that serve in Primary?

Last Minute Father's Day Gift Ideas

I went all out for Mother's day, at least with my primary class. For one reason or another most of my class don't really get to do much for their moms for Mother's day and that's where I enter! We did 3 super easy crafts/gifts to moms.

My favorite one is the one I used last year too. You can never go wrong with a goodie bag of chocolate. I got a pack of like 50 clear cellophane bags from Hobby Lobby for less than 2 dollars, and spent a small fortune on Hershey kisses but it was worth it! But just like last year I forgot to buy hugs, which is totally okay because no one really cared.

via Little LDS Ideas
*I linked to her page with Mother's Day ideas
so just scroll down a post or two

My dad travels A LOT for work, I mean like 9 months out of the year. So we tend to accumulate a lot of hotel soap, and to please my mother I decided to help her get rid of some. I used another idea from Little LDS Ideas and this one was the kids favorite for some reason. (I think it might be due to the double sided tape I had them use) Since the soap was small I had them tape two together and then tape the tag to the top. This one doesn't have a pdf to use, so I just put it in a word document and printed 6 to a page.

via Little LDS Ideas
*I linked to her page with Mother's Day ideas
so just scroll down a post or two

And then because I wanted the kids to do a craft we made our mom's a napkin ring. This one didn't turn out so well, but the kids in my class have a VERY short attention span. There's no template, so I just googled flower coloring sheet and picked one. 

via Moms and Munchkins

I started planning for Father's day around the same time I was planning a Carnival Birthday party for the twin's second birthday, and at that point I was already ready to just mail it in and maybe it's just me but I don't feel like dads appreciate all the work I would do. 

The night before the party I entered a Target about 20 minutes before they closed and while I was booking it across the store I saw these coupons to give to dad. It's just a little pad of paper that has a magnet on the back to stick on the fridge, you can fill in on the coupon what it is good for. I would post a picture but I can't find mine (read: I'm too lazy to go upstairs and look for it) and I can't find it on their website. But I digress, the kids are going to give their dad's five coupons and decorate an envelope. And if you don't want to go buy the coupons, just have the kids design them or find a cute one on pinterest like this one from Disney Family. 

But I couldn't resist a craft, and since the last one didn't go so well with my primary class, I'm doing this one for them. I'm using this tutorial from Creative Family Moments. This one does require some planning, I took the pictures a couple weeks ago without really remembering what they were supposed to be doing, so mine don't look as cool. but once I'm done with them I'll post a picture for y'all to see! 

via Creative Family Moments

If you're looking for a REALLY simple one, then make a tie! It was a big hit with my brothers and I growing up. Just find a template online, I used this one from Activity Village (which is based in the UK, love them even more!), and just pasted it into word so I could print two to a page. I cut them in half, let them color up a storm and then cut them out. This one doesn't have a flap to fold over to hold the string, there's a dotted line at the bottom of the "knot" but don't fold it there, so I just left an inch above the "knot" when I cut and folded that over. Before you glue it down, we used tape so it would hold faster, put yarn or string underneath so they can wear it around their neck. The cub scouts that I work with loved it! Each member of our bishopric will be getting their very own handmade tie from Pack 203 this Sunday!

What are some of your favorite ideas for Father's Day or even Mother's Day?