Book of Mormon Read-a-Thon

    My stake did this last spring with our Laurels and Priests.  They loved it and so did I and I have been meaning to share this with everyone since then, but had misplaced my schedule.  I found it last night in my tax folder!!  Ha ha!  Anyhow, now I can share what we did so maybe you can do this with your youth.  I know another group did it with the New Testament this past fall and invited youth from any church to come join for the reading, food, and company.  (You will want to make sure you have plenty of snacks and good meals planned because it is a long day and a half!) 
   
    Our set up was a couch at one end of the gym with a couple of the singled comfy chairs most of the Churches have in their foyers.  Those would be for the readers.  You will have at least 2 microphones set up at this end also.  Then we had more of the chairs and couches set around in a big circle, plus large bean bag chairs or any other kind of reclining chair people had available that would be comfortable for hours on end.  Behind that toward the opposite end of the gym was where the snacks and drinks were set up, plus we had mini-trampolines, pogo sticks, jump ropes, tennis balls and a few things like this the kids could go do and still listen as they did, if they were getting tired. 

   So the basic idea is that you start reading Friday evening after school and go until about 11:00 pm, the kids go sleep at host houses (or their own if you live in a super small stake boundary area), and then meet back at 7:00 am to start reading again.  The host families were responsible for getting the youth to and from their homes.  Someone is always reading, even when breakfast, lunch, and dinner is served.  You read one full page at a time, then pass the microphone on to the next person.  The 2 single chairs up front are the reader and the next in line.  The ones on the couch move up in line and anyone else who wants to take their place takes the first empty seat whenever a page is finished.  We did invite guest readers so the youth didn't have to read out loud the whole time but limited them to 1-2 per hour.  They would stay for that hour and then could go home.

The schedule went like this:

Friday
5:00- Arrive and start (guest readers)                                Pages Title-25
6:00- (Guest readers)                                                         Pages 26-50
6:30- Dinner
7:00- (Guest readers)                                                         Pages 51-75
8:00- (Guest readers)                                                         Pages 76-100
9:00- (Guest readers)                                                         Pages 101-125
10:00- (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 126-150
11:00- Leave for night.

Saturday- (Eat breakfast at host homes)
7:00- Arrive (Guest readers)                                             Pages 151-175
8:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 176-200
8:30- Mid Morning Snack
9:00- (Guest readers)                                                        Pages 201-225
10:00-  (Guest readers)                                                     Pages 226-250
11:00- (Guest readers)                                                      Pages 251-275
12:00-  Lunch                                                                   Pages 276-300
1:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 301-325
2:00- (Guest readers)                                                        Pages 326-350
3:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 351-375
4:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 376-400
5:00-  Dinner                                                                     Pages 401-425
6:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 426-450
7:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 451-475
8:00-  (Guest readers)                                                       Pages 476-500
9:00- Guest readers)                                                         Pages 501-525
10:00-  (Guest readers)                                                    Pages 526-531

The End!

Collapse in Exhaustion (after cleaning up!)

 

This really was fun and an awesome spiritual experience for all who participated.

~Stacy~

Family Feud

   We played "Family Feud" last month at church for our youth's joint activity.  It was a blast.  They had so much fun and even the few kids who said they wouldn't play had joined in by the second round and were very active!  I put together this power point for it and it turned out awesome.  You are welcome to use the one I have made or change it to fit your needs.  The basis of the design was hyperlinking between the question slide, the answer slide when the "family member" selects a correct answer showing the points awarded, and finally to the full answer slide.  There are about 12 slides at the end that are all church based questions.  They are not in the same "we survey 100 people" style.  Instead, you can use them as a bonus or speed round and award them so many points for each correct answer.

  What we did was break them up into 4 families, or enough to make about 4-5 people on a team.  We had two games going on at once, one at either end of the gym.  We had both computers connected to a projector, projecting on a white board.  We also had a caulkboard at each end to keep score.  You could use an additional white board for this purpose if you have access to that instead or would prefer it!  To start each question, the first person, or next person in line for each team would listen to the question out loud and the first one to shout their name would get to answer first.  If they answer correct, their team gets to answer the questions until they either answer them all correctly or get three strikes.  If they answer incorrectly, the question is then turned over to the other team for their first member, or next in line to answer.  If he/she got it incorrect, we would continue going down the line until one team had guessed a correct answer.  Once that part was established and the team was answering questions, if they ever got to three strikes, the question would be turned over to the other team who fot to discuss the question and have the person who's turn it was say the answer.  If they choose a correct answer, they steal all of the points from the other team.  If not, we would just move onto the next question and the first team would keep all of the points they had earned.

  We played about 2 rounds with regular point values, then had a round with double points, then a final round with triple points.  Whoever won after the 4th round moved on to the winners bracket and so forth.  I don't know if this is totally the correct way to play it, but it worked for us.  The kids were totally talking smack to each other and everyone got really involved.  It was a lot of fun for everyone.

  I'll give a couple of instructions for changing things.  First, if you want to put what youth group it is, that is the first slide and you should be able to just type without messing anything up.  The second to last slide has the "High Councilor in Your Stake".  This could really be any leader group you want for your area, just change the question accordingly on each slide.  The important part though is on the second through the second to last slide of that group, I just put "Name" on all of the spots.  Make sure not to undo the underline or you have undone the hyperlink.  Just put your curser right at the beginning of the 'N' and type the name you want and then delete the 'Name'.  The last slide is also not as importand but just try not to move any of them or they will be off from the question slide.  I have made it so when you go from page to page they are all in the same spot.  The last thing to be careful of, make sure your curser is right over the box or the underlined answer or it will start taking you to random slides and the kids will be able to see the other answers.  The first slide in each group has and "End" box on the bottom right which will take you to the last page with all the answers and point values!  If you have any questions or want to give feed back, please leave a comment!  I would love to hear from you!

https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?Bsrc=SkyMail&Bpub=SDX.SkyDrive&resid=6784ACB8E0ECD580!126&cid=6784acb8e0ecd580&app=PowerPoint

~Stacy~