Choose and Review - “Categories” Game

Write categories related to the monthly theme on word cards that can be posted on the chalkboard, or put them on slips to be drawn from a basket or can. If the theme were “service,” for instance, the categories might be Items Used in Service, People in the Scriptures Who Served, Ways That I Can Serve, How People Serve Me.

Begin by singing a song about your theme, in this case, service. Then go up and down the rows, asking the children to give one example of something in one of the categories. The children give examples until someone is unable to answer. Stop and sing another song or two about service. Using a different category, begin with the child who couldn’t answer before, and continue to give examples until they are stumped again. Sing songs about the theme between categories. If one category seems to go on for too long, don’t be afraid to cut it off by saying something like “Wow, you really know a lot about...let’s stop and sing...” Then you can move on to the next category.

This month, it might be fun to play this game with the restoration theme, always assuming that I can actually finish teaching and reviewing “Praise to the Man.” The categories could be something like People Who Appeared to Joseph Smith, Books in the Book of Mormon, Places Joseph Smith Lived, Things Lost in the Apostasy, Ways I Am Blessed by Our Church, People in the Early Church, Offices in the Priesthood.

This idea comes directly from the sharing time ideas in the August 2003 issue of the Friend magazine. Those folks were so clever! I adapted to remove the group competition and so that I could cut it off, if necessary, to be able to do more singing.