Yesterday we had a huge Primary Activity. This year they have changed the guidelines and we are no longer required to do Primary activities each quarter and instead are to help with Ward activities. I understand that they are trying to spread the burden and not give too much work to Presidencies, but activities are one of my favorite things about Primary. We have now been assigned to help with the 24th of July picnic, and completely plan and organize the Trunk or Treat (the week after the Primary Program no less) but we still wanted to do something with just Primary. We decided to still have our ice cream party/program practice the day before the program and we also wanted to do one big activity based on the theme for the year. I Know the Scriptures are True.
What we came up with was Feast on the Words of Christ. I will walk you through the basic concept, but I have to tell you that the pictures are not going to do this thing justice. We finished setting up 10 minutes before our start time and people were already arriving (who ever heard of early Mormons?) so I didn't even get to finish taking pictures of everything set up, and during the activity we were way too busy to grab a camera. So you will have to trust me that it was way cooler than it looks.
To start, the kids came in and found a place at the banquet table. At their place they found a lunch bag and a menu. The menu was all scriptures. We explained that those scriptures were what they were going to be eating. Stay with me, it will make sense in a minute.
Main Dish- Matthew 14:17-21 (Miracle of the Loaves and the fishes)
Activity: Fishing game for loaves and fishes. This one was Alyssa's favorite. Can you believe neither of my kids picked one of my stations as their fave? :( Maybe Chloe liked mine best, I didn't ask her.
Food: Smucker's Uncrustable sandwich (loaves) and Swedish fish (fishes)
No pictures of the game OR the sandwiches...ugh!
Activity: The kids literally went aboard the ark (so cute Heather!) and played a matching game so that they could get pairs of each animal on board.
Food: Animal Crackers
The backs of two of those little heads belong to me.
Here are the loaves and fishes from the last station next to the animal crackers.
Activity: The kids went through Lehi's dream. I wish I could have gotten more pictures or gone through it myself but I was stationed elsewhere. It looked really cool and was Alex's favorite station. They followed the iron rod over and under stuff and through the whole dream and ended at the tree of life and received...
Food: Apple slices
Activity: We actually did this station last, all of us together. It was supposed to be the Garden of Eden Olympics outdoors, but since we are still waiting for Spring we had to play indoors. We eliminated a few of the relays and other games that didn't adapt well to being inside and ended up just bowling, with a real coconut and playing pass the forbidden fruit, which was just a variation of hot potato, with fruit.
Food: Carrots and Ranch Dressing
Dessert- 1 Samuel 17:49-50 (David and Goliath)
Activity: Shooting marshmallows from a slingshot at Goliath's head on a marshmallow target. The slingshot was tricky for most kids so a lot of them just threw them.
Food: Chocolate rocks
Alyssa made the signs for my stations. She went outside to study rocks, for inspiration.
Dessert- 1 Nephi: 2-4 (Lehi leaves Jerusalem)
Activity: We kind of acted this one out. They started in Lehi's home in Jerusalem and we talked about giving everything up to follow Lehi into the wilderness. Each child got a piece of gold or a jewel and we talked about what our favorite thing is and whether or not we would leave it behind. Chloe chose Doritos. Ha, ha... so predictable, but she did choose to give them up. A few kids said no but the rest put their gold in the treasure box and we journeyed to our tent. There we talked about one thing we should have brought with us that would make our lives easier. I asked them what one thing we should go back for and was happy when almost every kid agreed...OUR SCRIPTURES. Then we played a game where they had to try to get the plates from me (I was Laban).
Food: Chocolate gold coins
Our house in Jerusalem
Our home in the wilderness
Another of Alyssa's signs. For this one, I told Alyssa she didn't color the tree trunk and was informed that it was a birch tree and they have white bark and are actually quite useful in canoe making. I googled it, she's right. Where did this kid come from?
My friend Andra actually got an action shot of my first group.
Beverage- John 2: 7-9 (Christ turns water to wine)
Activity: They watched a movie at this station. We thought about stomping grapes to make wine, but thought it might not go over so well. Kidding!
Food: Hawaiian punch singles to turn their water to punch. I hope that wasn't blasphemous....if so just know that the food ideas were mine, so blame me. I dumped the hardest station on LeShel because I had no idea what to do for an activity on this one.
These are the songs for the program this year and we are actually using Jenny Phillips' version of Praise to the Man so we thought this would help them prepare for the program.
We had a huge turnout for Memorial Day weekend. 40 kids! We have 66 kids this year in Primary but usually only get about 30 at activities so we were thrilled. It was full blown chaos the whole time but we got lots of positive feedback from parents. I also asked my own little focus group (since I own one child in Senior Primary and two in Junior) and they loved it.
This one was so fun because I wasn't nearly as bossy as I usually am. I don't mean to be bossy and I'm not about most things (I hope), but when we are planning a party I usually show up with all the ideas and then we get to work. This time I just had the bare bones outlined and everyone in the Presidency was able to run with a few stations. I work with the most fabulous and creative women and I was so excited to see the amazing work they did and how they came up with stuff I would not have thought of or had the talent to pull off. We also got lots of help from some of the 8-11 year old kids who asked for assignments so they could pass off their Faith in God requirement. They even showed up early and work, work, worked. We even had lots of Primary workers and parents show up and stay to help which never happens. I am LOVING Primary right now. I always have, but there is no stress at all right now. I am just having a blast! I love when we hit these strides.
As always when I talk church, if you have no idea what I am talking about....ask? Most my readers are either Mormon or super familiar with Mormonism but I am always happy to expound on anything that sounds foreign. Oh, and if you are not Mormon you could easily adapt this activity to all Bible stories. We used two Book of Mormon stories but you could easily plug in a few more Bible stories instead.
Alright, I am out of here, but it was good to see you all again.
9 comments:
That is awesome! You are so creative!
Can I tell you why I want you to blog? Since we don't live near you this is a great way for me to connect to you. I love seeing the "bragging". Please come back ;)
Welcome back! Really missed you. And the activity sounds absolutely fabulous. Now, you can start bragging about those wonderful children of yours---
I am so sad!!! That looks like such an amazing activity. I got your email about the activity but neglected to put it on my calendar thinking there was no way I would forget...
then yesterday afternoon it hit me.
We totally forgot. I felt so bad.
Abi was really disapointed as well.
It really looks like such a creative activity. You guys come up with the best things... and BOO about not having them anymore. I think it is a great thing for the kids.
Awesome! I bet those kids will remember that activity for a long time! and the adults too!
Im so glad you got pictures, because I didnt get to see some of the completed other staions. Love your tent, and that tree of life...awesome! It all seemed like chaos to me, but I hope they all had fun and actually got something out of it. Great idea Julie, as usual!
Hoooooooray!!!! You're back, and you came back with another amazing post! I knew I've been missing out. :) What a great idea! Btw, I love the water-to-wine! Very cute. Everything looked amazing, and I loved that useful, white barked tree (such a smarty).
I've been hoping you'd come back because I LOVE piggy-backing off your ideas. I'm feeling lost for the summer! LOL Hurry and brag again soon!!!
Glad to have you back finally. We need to get the little ones out this week to get pictures for you to brag about (and blog again);)
The Feast on the Words of Christ Event was amazing. You kept 2nd guessing yourself on what you had planned, but it turned out perfectly. My girls (all three, I hope this wasn't a problem) had tons o' fun and were wiped out for the rest of the day.
It is too bad that Primary activities (or any activities) in the church don't seem to have much importance placed on them anymore. I personally believe that all these events helped to soften my outlook as an investigator on the church and gave me a chance to fellowship and grow close with members. I wish the church leadership would reconsider their stance on activities or else they may start losing borderline inactive members and investigators. As much as it was a pain to do the brunt of the activities committees' work (since the ward usually chose inactive people to be part of the committee) in planning/carrying out activities, I think it was a good organization to have as part of each ward.
I think you guys did such an awesome job!! Emma really enjoyed it (I did too). I know from experience how much hard work goes into planning these activities for the kiddos, and really appreciate what you and the rest of the presidency did to make it special and meaningful.
Is there really no more activities committee in the ward? I had no idea. Several years ago I was the activities committee chair person in our ward, and of course had no help from my committee (all less active members or members who were almost always out of town), so Eric comprised my committee. It was soooooo much work, but always nice to get together with everyone. Hopefully that will still be possible sometimes with their system now. And I agree about the activities just for the kids. They are so nice for the kids, especially when they don't get to see each other during the week much (so many different schools here!!).
Thanks again!!
Wow. What a fun activity. You are so creative. I'm gonna have to share that with some of my friends in primary.
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