SURVIVOR Primary Activity - Stay close to the Holy Ghost by following My Gospel Standards!

President Nelson recently said: 

In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant  influence of the Holy Ghost.

 In an effort to play off the word "survive" and since my family is obsessed with the show survivor, I wanted to make and activity with challenges and word puzzles and tons of FUN! Here is what I came up with....

You can save this as an image on your phone from this blog and use a text editor to fill in the place, date and time :) We do electronic invites via text and GroupMe in our ward!

After printing, it took me about 30 minutes to prep. I rolled the challenges into scrolls and tried them with burlap string. I cut out the puzzles and tied the name tags. Only other prep is gathering the pens, cups, cottons balls and spoons :)

To start the activity, I would read the welcome letter and explain that each round has 1 challenge and 1 puzzle. Whoever wins the challenge gets to do the puzzle.

I tried really hard to tie the challenge to the gospel standard it related to. For example: 

• I will follow Heavenly Father's plan for me = challenge is a maze
• I will choose the right = challenge using only your right hand 
• I will dress modestly (from head to toe) = longest handstand 

This reward challenge can be used however you want! During the game or at the end....

I made these so if you fold down the top and then start rolling from the bottom you can tie it and still see what number challenge it is. 

HOW THE ACTIVITY WENT FOR ME:

I did a trial run for this activity with my daughter and a few of her friends - and we had a TOTAL blast. 

When they got to the activity,  I had all the girls fill out their name tag/tribe necklace (everyone is part of the Nephite Tribe) There are white circles where I used a hole punch and then used burlap string that I got at the dollar store to make it into a necklace by taping the back. 

After reading the Welcome Scroll, we started on the challenges. The first challenge is going through a maze. I tried tying each challenge to the Gospel Standard as well as I could :)

The tribe member that wins the challenge, gets to solve the puzzle. I was worried the same person would keep winning all the challenges but it was actually pretty even!

After solving the puzzle, have the tribe member read the Gospel Standard to the group. Then tape it together and if possible, post it where everyone can see it. If we were at a church, I would post it on the chalkboard.

Making a tower of 5 cups.... this ended up being a favorite challenge! I recommend NOT doing what I did and assuming I had solo cups in my basement... I had to use cups from my cupboard and that changed the game a bit. SOLO cups or a cup like it would have been much better. 

We ended with a Reward Challenge where everyone got a treat!

 

 

My files for this activity are available HERE

Awesomest list of ideas for Activity Days!! Activity Day Ideas Galore!

I recently added a new link on my blog to a list I plan on continually adding to (you should see a link above) ! If you are new to the calling, hopefully this can get you off to an awesome start! Please comment below any ideas I can add to this list :)

Also check out my free "Invatexts" HERE :)

Holy Ghost Helps You - Learning and Living the Gospel

In the Faith in God Book under Learning and Living the Gospel, there is the following requirement:

Mark these verses about the Holy Ghost in your scriptures: John 14:16–17, 2 Nephi 32:5, and Moroni 10:5. Discuss ways the Holy Ghost helps you.

Since I’m pretty sure chocolate= happiness and the Holy Ghost is supposed to lead us to happiness, then an activity where the “Holy Ghost” helps us make brownies seems perfect :). Also I haven’t tried a recipe from Our Best Bites that I didn't love, so this should be a real treat!

Start the activity by passing out a recipe card with some blanks in it. The participants will get to fill this out as they try to listen to the “Holy Ghost”. This recipe card represents how we get a lot of direction in our lives through scriptures, church, prayer and so forth. This recipe card is an awesome start to knowing what to do, but we are going to need the help of the Holy Ghost to fill in the blanks. 

Next, you'll want to have the "Holy Ghost Help You Cards" ready. Since there are 9 ingredient to the brownies, there are nine of these cards. This will give 9 participants an opportunity to pretend to a prophet and then pretend to be the Holy Ghost. The cards is a strip of paper folded in 3 so you can't see the ingredient when you pick it up, you just see the front side that looks like this: 

When you flip it over, the participant is to read an exert about the Holy Ghost from LDS.org. They can pretend like they are a prophet and say it loudly for everyone to hear. 

Next, the participant will want to turn their backs to the crowd and WHISPER in a still, small voice their ingredient. This is when everyone will try super hard to listen so they can fill out their ingredient card. Everyone should be quiet and there is no repeating or sharing answers. There will be a time for this at the end. 

Once all 9 cards have been played, everyone should have their recipe cards filled out, but I imagine some ingredients were missed or written down incorrectly. Allow the participants to come together and with the help of the leader make sure their recipe is correct. Once everyone has a correct recipe, allow everyone into the kitchen to make the brownies!

  

If everyone brought their scriptures, while the brownies are baking would be a good time to mark them with the verses and maybe share personal stories of when the Holy Ghost helped them. Also pass out this handout for them to take home and hang up :)

I used this brownie recipe for the activity:

https://ourbestbites.com/perfect-chocolate-brownies/

Perfect Chocolate Brownies
Recipe (with minimal adaptations) from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, Baked NYC and Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch Process cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch chunks
optional: 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature*
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Articles of Faith JeoPARTY! Learning and Living the Gospel & My Gospel Standards JeoPARTY

Not Jeopardy, JeoPARTY! See what I did there ;). A couple Sunday's ago I helped out in my husband's primary class and this definitely would have come in handy!! 

I made this to have 6 questions for each category (100-600). The categories are Fill in the Blank, Which Number, Name the Person,  Finish This and What's Missing? Here are some sample questions: 

Just another idea to help learn the Articles of Faith!

And since kids LOVE Jeoparty... I also made a My Gospel Standards Version - 

Happy Thoughts Activity & Craft - Scripture Search - Activity Days

So the other night my little girl came into my room not because she was scared, but because she was sad. Broke my heart and it just made me think how we could all use some reminders that there are plenty of things to be happy about!

I know that most of the time, silliness is not a problem for Activity Days! So I thought why not embrace it, let them be as silly as possible and give them a good memory? I also know that many times, these activity girls and boys go home to a not-so-happy place. I think school can be especially hard at this age, (whether its because of bad grades, not as many friends, bullying…whatever)so I thought this could be a great activity to put a smile on some faces and to dig into the scriptures. Hopefully, if they are ever in a sad spot later, they can remember this activity,that they can open their scriptures and read how heavenly father is always with us and there is hope.

For this activity, each participant will need some scriptures (I would invite them to bring their own). You'll also need a writing utensils, scissors and some glue. You'll want at least two participants but can have as many as you need. 

1. Each participant receives a “fill in the blank” scripture quote paper. Have them pair up and stand at a station. There are 8 stations. If there are more than 16 participants, have groups of three and if you don't have 16, just have some empty stations. 

2. At each station, there's a paper with "scripture search" on one side, and "being silly" on the other  (once printed, this page is folded in half so it can be double sided). Have them each pick a scripture to look up and read out loud to one another, finding the missing word and writing it on their scripture quote paper. 

3.  Once they have found and read their scriptures and filled out the missing words, have them turn the scripture search page over for the being silly part - a joke and funny action. Funny actions include "make a silly face, do a silly dance, give someone a compliment, etc. 

4. After each station, have them rotate to the next station when everyone looks done. Once all 8 scripture search stations are complete, do a happy thoughts craft with the scriptures and a other things. This can be taken home and hung up in their rooms. 

The blank canvas is two pieces of paper that will need to be glued together (they can do this part). "Happy things" for the craft include things like pets, friends, family, fireworks, camping.... anything I thought could spur a happy thought :). There are 8 of each item per page... not everyone will want everything so print accordingly. There's also a page with blank circles if they want to draw their own. 

GET FILES FOR THIS ACTIVITY HERE.