Wednesday, April 20

Life-Size Game - Pretty, Pretty, Princess

We planned a life-size game night. This was a lot of fun and much easier than I at first anticipated. We played a version of "Pretty Pretty Princess." Here's what we did.


What You Need
  1. For each YW - 1 ring, 2 earrings, 1 bracelet, 1 necklace, 1 crown (inexpensive plastic party-type stuff)
  2. One Mirror - hand mirror or mirror on an easel - any mirror
  3. Carpet squares (get from local carpet store - donated or small cost)
  4. Masking Tape
  5. Magic Markers
  6. One giant spinner or dice - we just made a spinner from poster board we had at home. I printed out a spinner arrow on card stock and attached with a brad and washer.
Before the Activity
  1. We invited a sister in our ward to speak to the YW on the topic of divine nature and told her about the game we were playing so she understood it was princess oriented. She brought her 3-year-old daughter and both were dressed like princesses - it was awesome!
  2. We purchased enough crowns, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings for each YW. We bought these online at orientaltrading.com and they were very inexpensive. You could also find them at a local party store if you have one in your area. Just cheap plastic jewelry and crowns.
  3. We went to a local carpet store and picked up a lot of carpet squares/samples (we called around first and explained that we needed them for a church youth group and asked if they had any they could donate - they charged a small fee of about .30c/each). To figure out how many squares you need take the number of YW you have and multiply by 2 or 3 (depending on how large your group is and how spread out you want the spaces).
  4. Make a giant spinner or dice - something they can use to determine the number of squares they will move on their turn.
Set Up That Night
  1. The class presidency came early to set up. They put the carpet squares in a giant circle around the gym.
  2. In the middle of the circle they set up a small table with a tablecloth on it. On top we placed all of the jewelry, the crowns and the mirror.
  3. We wrote on masking tape with markers the instructions for each square (some YW wrote the instructions and some taped them on each square). The instructions will be: You get a necklace - You get an earring - You get a bracelet - You get a ring - You get your crown - Take an item of your choice - Put an item back... Make one or two sets of each of these (depending on how many carpet blocks you have - you might even need three sets). Then on the blank square (if any) we let the class presidency make up things for the YW to do. They wrote things like "Do a princess wave" "Sing your favorite Primary song" etc. Make sure every carpet square has instructions on it.
The Activity
  1. Speaker first (she was awesome) and then we explained the rules. We wrote each YW's name on a piece of paper to keep track of what order they would spin and take their turn.
  2. Each YW took their turn spinning and going around the squares doing whatever it said. They could NOT get their crown until they had all of the other jewelry.
  3. Once they had all of their jewelry - ring, bracelet, two earrings and necklace (they don't get more than one of anything except 2 earrings) - they had to land on a crown square.
  4. Once they landed on the crown square they got to go to the middle to get their crown.
  5. When they put the crown on their head, they looked in the mirror and said, "I'm a pretty, pretty princess!"
  6. We played until all YW received their crown.

2 comments:

Michelle Ashton said...

I can't wait to get some good ideas from here. I was just put in last week as the 1st couns. in our ward. Right now we are practicing for the dance festival. So until the first part of June I won't have any activities to post about since we are practicing every wednesday until then. I can't wait to use this blog. Thanks Whit!

Whit said...

You should definitely post about your dance festival, Michelle! Let us know how it works, etc. We've never done one here.