Our class presidency (we only have one for all of our YW) decided to have a back to school activity where we have two teams compete in the following:

LABEL MAP

We will have blank maps printed out (one for each team) and the two teams will have to compete to see who gets all fifty states labeled correctly first.

CEREAL EATING

We will have bowls of cereal for each YW. Each YW will be blindfolded and have to eat it that way. This represents how sleepy they are in the morning when school starts.

OBSTACLE COURSE (Relay)

We will have two obstacle courses set up with chairs that the YW have to navigate around (one from each team at a time). They will be wearing a backpack with books in it and carry their jacket and purse and have to keep a pen/pencil behind their ear as they go through it and back and give the stuff to the next person in line.

RELAY

We will have two notebooks, pencil sharpeners and pencils sitting on a table. There will be a garbage can at a distance from the table. One person from each team will run down, sit at the table, sharpen their pencil, write their name and the date at the top of the page, tear out the page, crumple the page and make a basket with the paper. Then run back and tag the next person in line.

TIE BREAKER

If we need a tie breaker we will do the shoe game. In this game everybody puts their shoes in a big pile in the middle. The shoes are mixed up and then the teams must race to get all their shoes back on their team first.

PRIZES

We will have notebooks and pens for each player on the winning team.

Before the games, we will have a speaker talk about the importance of education. This can be an activity with an emphasis on the KNOWLEDGE value or an emphasis on For the Strength of Youth, EDUCATION or both. :)

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Egg Relay Game Party Supplies

This week we played life-sized Battleship in mutual. This is what we did:

1. We prepared questions for the game. You can download ours here or do your own! We used For the Strength of Youth, but you could do this as a conference review, scripture mastery, etc.
2. We filled some socks with flour and put rubber bands around the openings to keep them closed.
3. We set up a volleyball net out on the field by our church. We covered the net with sheets so that you couldn't see from one side to the other.
4. We had the youth divide into two even teams.
5. We had the youth lay down on their side of the net and pretend to be battleships (they were told they couldn't move around at all).
6. We had leaders be judges to see who raised their hand first and to make sure the youth didn't move around, etc.
7. We had one leader assigned to read the questions.

Game Play:

1. For the Strength of Youth books were distributed to all youth (open-book game).
2. A question was read and anybody could raise their hand to answer. The first hand in the air got to answer.
3. The first team to guess the correct answer got to toss a flour sock over the net in hopes of "sinking a battleship."
4. If you were hit, you were sunk and had to sit out for the remainder of the game. You could still raise your hand with answers and help your team.
5. The first team to sink all of the other team's ships won the game. We let our winners have their refreshments first (while the losing team helped clean up) but you could do prizes!

What You Need:

1. BOARD GAMES - One board game for every 4 or so youth (make sure they are games that can be played with 4 players.
2. Bowl of commands like: everyone wearing red swap places, everyone wearing flip-flops swap places, Beehives swap places, etc.

What You Do:

1. Set up the board games on tables around the Cultural Hall. 
2. Have youth draw to see who's at what table (or just let them choose to start with). 
3. Have them begin playing the games!
4. Have a timer and every 5 minutes have everybody STOP playing. 
5. Draw a command out of a bowl and follow the instructions.
6. Enjoy!

Some of Our Favorite Games For This Activity:

1. Ticket To Ride
2. Scrabble
3. Sorry!
4. Yahtzee
5. Monopoly Junior
6. Life

Hint:

It's good to have an adult who stays at each table who is familiar with all of the rules.

This is a HUGE activity. You may want to combine with another ward or two if you have a small youth group. It is a carnival setting with two types of games: the usual carnival type, where kids win candy and little prizes, and church games. In a nutshell, you allow the kids to play the games for about half an hour. As they collect candy and prizes, they will put them in a brown paper lunch sack (with their names on it). After awhile, a leader will start quietly pulling kids out of the carnival and taking them to the R.S. room. They have to leave their bags of candy outside. After all the kids are gathered, talk about the games, and how this "game of life" is like real life.

Here's how it goes: set up a carnival in the gym with things like hoop shoot, bean bag throw, ring toss, you know... fun carnival games- and lots of them. The kids will win candy and silly prizes for playing the games. Make sure that the adults who man these booths are loud, outrageous, and will literally pull the kids to their game. They can even make wagers with the kids for candies or prizes they have won. They need to be over the top! They also should be luring the kids to their carnival games, even taking them away from the "church" games, making fun of them for being at the "church" games, etc.

Around the carnival games, set up the "church" games. These need to be basic- a table and chair with someone quiet attending the game. The person manning the table will not ask the kids to come play. They will wait for the kids to come to them. Games will be things like Seek, name that prophet, name that hymn, Celestial Pursuit, scripture chase, etc. They might even have to wait a minute for another person to come play the game with them. Do not let the kids try to coerce others to come play these games. Just wait patiently. The kids will get nothing for playing these games. Just a smile from the attendant.

When the kids are all in the R.S. room, and their candy has been taken away (they'll get it back later, which is why their names need to be on the bags), have someone give a talk about how life is like a carnival: all loud, full of fun and games, with people willing to grab them and try to get them to play - leading them away from the "church," getting them to give away what they have for more and more of what they think they want. Tell the kids that they will collect a lot of things in life (money, cars, homes, "toys") but in the end, they can't take it with them. The church is always there, waiting for them to be part of it. The church won't force you, coerce you, or give you things to make you come to it. The church is always "in the world, but not of the world," and you'll find it amidst the crazy carnival of life, quietly waiting for you to take advantage of what it offers. In the end, it's the blessings we get from our membership in the church, our testimonies, our families, and our relationship with the Savior that we take with us.

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Carnival Games

This is a play on the old Newlywed Game. It is great for a Priest/Laurel activity. We did this after the Priest/Laurel dinner. You draw names for the couples. Send the boy or girl out, then question the partner. They write their answers on a card and put it answer down on their lap. After the questions are all answered, the partner comes back in and sees if the answers match. When all the answers are given, the other partner leaves the room and the process begins again with different questions. Usually 3-5 questions per round is good. That way you can get through one round quickly and if you have enough partners, you can give everyone a chance to play.

Sample questions: Does "Billy" still sleep with a favorite stuffed toy? Does "Susie" sing like a rock star into her hairbrush while getting ready? What is "Bobby's" favorite food? What is "Katie's" favorite movie? And so on...

The winning couple gets a silly prize.

In February, we had a Laurel class activity where the Laurels invited the Priests to a "Date Night".

One of the Laurels made cute invites for the boys, and we had simple refreshments along the Valentine theme.

To open the activity, the youth played "Do You Love Your Neighbor?" and then we had a cute young-ish married couple from our stake come and talk about creative and fun ideas for dating. They handed out 13 little trinkets that represented a different idea for a date, which they would have the youth guess about, and then the speakers would explain and expand on the ideas. As they did that, they also inserted thoughts about keeping the standards and not pairing off, as well as interacted with the youth asking questions about what was difficult about trying to date. They also gave some etiquette tips, as well.

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.