Good Samaritan Christmas Activity - Serving Others

In the Faith In God Book, this is one of the activities:

Read and discuss the parable of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:30–37). Plan and complete a service project that helps a family member or neighbor. After completing the project, discuss how it helped your faith grow stronger.

30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.  31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.  33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, 34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. 36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? 37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

This actually makes for a really great skit.You'll need a few young, aspiring actresses and the following (this is what we used, but you can be creative and use whatever comes to mind!):

1. Traveler - Suitcase and fake money

2. Thieves - Black hat and sunglasses. I had a blow-up bat that we used to "wound" the traveler. 

3. Priest - A necklace with a cross on it. I made ours out of foam and yarn but paper would work just fine too. 

4. Levite - Kitchen towel as head cover and material to tie down

5. Good Samaritan - Kitchen towel as head cover and material to tie down 

6. Innkeeper - just any work badge with "Innkeeper" written on a piece of paper and taped over. 

Other props: Bandage, bottle labelled "Oil and Wine", and two road signs made out of green construction paper.. one for Jericho and the other for Jerusalem. 

The skit doesn't take much time... maybe about 15 minutes. After the skit, you can spend the rest of the time brainstorming on a way that we can listen to Jesus and "do thou likewise" for the next activity days. Or if time permits, you can use the rest of the time actually doing the service... like maybe delivering cookies, making a craft or filling out Christmas cards for members in the ward. You can have the girls bake cookies and bring them to the activity but not let them know what you'll be doing with them until after the skit!

Christmas Cards

Thanksgiving Minute To Win It

Minute to Win It - Thanksgiving style! Hopefully this is a fun way to celebrate Thanksgiving and get the girls to think about what we can be thankful for! This does take some prep work... paper cutting and taping. However, if you don't want to play all 6 games, you can choose which ones of these you want to do.... maybe based on the materials you already have without having to go to a store!





1. Coco Dunk - Place the “Candy Wrappers” on the Treasures and/or the Reese’s. Allow each participant to choose 6 pieces of candy. Since the candy is labeled, they get to choose what they are thankful for. The participant must place the spoon in their mouth and then once the timer has started, they pick the candy up with their spoon. The person who can “dump” the most candy in a cup and then remove it from the cup within a minute, wins.

 


2. Suck It Up - Allow each participant to choose about 10 pieces of paper (each with something to be thankful for). Have pieces of paper and a straw on one table and then a cup about 10 feet away on another table.  Using the straw, the participant must suck the paper from the first table to their cup. The person who can get the most papers in the cup in a minute, wins.

3. Hit It - Line the participants and elastic bands up about 10 feet away from empty water bottles. The person to hit the most bottles and knock them down in one minute wins!

4. Trunk Junk - Tape the elastic band or belt onto the Kleenex box onto the opposite side of the opening. Fold the trunk junk papers into accordions, and place into box. These papers have things that perhaps we wouldn't be so grateful for... and would want to "get them out of our trunk". Participant ties the box around their waist, with the back to their back and jumps to get the paper out of the box. The person to get the most out in a minute, wins.

5. Hot Balloon - Each participant must keep 2 balloons in the air for an entire minute. Perhaps you can ask each participant to choose two things that they are grateful for, and each balloon represents one of them.

6. Oreo Face - The first person to get an Oreo from their forehead to their mouth without using any hands in a minute, wins. My "thanksgiving" tie-in here is simple... I'm just grateful for yummy Oreo's!!

There's points awarded for each activity (written on the activity card) and once everyone has had a turn with each activity, you can award the first, second and third place champion!

I tried picking games where the items would be commonly found in any home. Hopefully the only things that would need to be specially purchased are the Treasures, Reese's and Oreo's (although those are also commonly found in my home!)

Activity Days Faith In God "Witches Brew" Covenant Path

Since the program changed in 2020, I updated this activity to be "stay on the covenant path" since there's no Faith In God award anymore! Just a couple things were tweaked but this still makes an awesome activity!!

This "Faith In God Treasure Hunt" was so popular, that I wanted to so something similar for Halloween: Faith In God Witches Brew.

Synopsis: Invite the girls to dress up like witches for this activity. Then when they arrive, they are given a recipe but without the ingredients. They must hunt down hidden clue cards that give them the correct ingredients, just like we must work for our Faith In God award. Once they have found all the ingredients, they can make the cookies!

So I figured that the girls could learn about how to get their Faith In God award by making "Swig" cookies (if you live in Utah, you probably know how fantastic these sugar cookies are). So the idea is that the ingredients to the "Witches Brew" come together to make the Faith In God Award, similar to how ingredients make cookies. 

 Once  the girls arrive, give them this print-out that they can fold in half, so on either side of their half sheet they have a recipe: 

On the first side, they have the "ingredients" to the Faith In God award, which hopefully

 by the end of the lesson they will be more familiar with.

Then on the other side, they have ingredients to the "Swig" cookie. But just like witches have to hunt down ingredients for their "brews", the girls must hunt down and fill out the correct recipe for the cookies. Each Faith In God requirement is assigned a different food ingredient, with a clue to tie them together. For example:

Pray Daily = You "butter" pray, every day = 1 C Butter 

Write Your Testimony = Write your testimony down so it won't spoil, that will help your lamp stay full of oil = 3/4 C Vegetable Oil. 

These clue cards can be hidden around a church building, around a back yard... anywhere. The girls, while in their witches costumes, have to go around and fill out the recipe by finding the clue cards. Once all the girls have found all the clue cards and have their "Swig" Cookie Recipe all filled out, then everyone can come together to make the cookies. While the cookies are baking, you can go over the Faith In God award requirements and ask the girls if they have any questions about getting their award. 

SnapShotPlace @ Etsy

Activity Days Thirteenth Mystery - Latter Day Saint Primary Activity - 13th Mystery - Two teams race and compete to solve a 13th Article of Faith Mystery!

After studying the thirteenth article of faith, we can make a list of things that are uplifting and virtuous. Discuss with a parent or leader how you can seek after these things.

This is a SUPER easy activity with set up in less than 20 minutes. All you should need is scissors and these printables (obviously the attendees might appreciate a treat to or two though :) and if you choose to use envelopes (but you don't need to)

PART ONE: hide the clues

PART TWO: make two teams, race to find the clues

 PART THREE: solve that the clues make the 13th Article of Faith

PART FOUR: Uplifting and Virtuous Discussion. 

In other words....

I wanted to make a Halloween activity, and thought it would be fun to solve a "13th Mystery". So once all the girls have arrived at the activity, split them into two groups: The Orange Team, and The Purple Team. In a sealed envelope, and telling them they can't share any of the clues with the other team (to add to the mystery) give them their instructions and clue tracking sheet. 

Here are the "Purple Team's" instructions:

Then you'll want to have these 13 different "clues" that make up the 13th Article of Faith hidden for both the Purple Team and Orange Team. Put them in an envelope and label the envelopes with the provided "clue labels" (black envelopes not provided... and if you don't have envelopes, you could just set the label by the clues). That way the girls can keep track of which clues they have gotten on their clue tracker (the girls can assign one of the teammates to be in charge of this). 

I think this activity would actually be pretty great in an LDS church building. I've always thought an empty building with all the lights off was kind of creepy. You can have the clues spread out in the different classrooms and kind of hidden so they really have to look (depending on how long you want this part of the activity to be). Another option is having all the clues hidden in a dark gymnasium and giving the girls flashlights. They would probably think that was pretty neat... and you can tie in later that the flashlight was a way to help us learn to be uplifting and virtuous... kind of like the scriptures. I did this activity in a backyard and it was really fun.

SO you'll want to cut these clues up on the dotted line and then assign them a clue number (I don't think it should be in order following the Article of Faith.... just random)

Then, once the girls have found all the clues, they can work on "solving the mystery" and putting the Article of Faith in order. I imagine this being done on a chalk board with tape or magnets and the girls working together to get it right. Since the "Purple and "Orange" teams will be racing each other, hopefully that will be added incentive. Once they have done that, you can give them this "answer" to place next to their completed Article of Faith: 

Once they done and have the completed Article of Faith up in front of them, now they can split up and do this worksheet on their own: 

Save this picture on your phone to send as an  electronic invitation! Put place, date and time in the blank space at the bottom using a text  editor on your phone. 

SnapShotPlace@Esty