LDS Seminary Olympics

I teach early morning seminary for my ward in The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. It is one of my favorite things to do! As we are witnessing the world wide Olympics we have been celebrating our own Seminary (or Zarahemla) Olympics. I have used this as an opportunity to encourage them to accomplish some of those daily goals that we made at the beginning of the year. I divided my class of 29 into four teams and gave them a bit of time at the beginning of one lesson to select the country they would represent, this year we are studying The Book of Mormon, so they selected from one of the regions we are studying. They also got to make their own flag to represent their country...I will post photos of these soon ... they are very creative!

Each day they compete in the following "individual: events...

Moguls - Attendance ... specifically arriving on time
Cross Country Skiing - Daily Reading
Free Style Skating - Answering a Daily Challenge Question

The team gets points for each teammate's accomplishments

Because my students are not huge participators and because I want them to start discussing I have also been giving them points for asking and answering questions (Skeleton Event). This has been really successful! They have begun to get involved in class because of the Olympic competition but I really think they will keep it up even after our "closing ceremonies" because through this exercise I think/hope they have really loosened up and are actually ENJOYING the discussions we are having! Who knew?

Because of all the snow days we have had we have not had the opportunity to do all of the Scripture Mastery Games/ Olympic Games I had planned but we did one today that the youth loved. Today it was Snow Bucket Ball.

Snow Bucket Ball  - We set up four tables with a trash bucket in front of each (a few feet away). The night before I made up a set of pages and made four copies, one for each team ... each page had a phrase from each of the 25 Scripture Mastery Passages (I could have used the "key phrases" they learn to help them find the SM but I wanted them to have a bit more of a challenge) I numbered each page in the upper left hand corner (1-25) and then wrote up a master list as an answer key ... for example 1 - 1 Nephi 3:7,   2 - 2 Nephi 3:21 etc ...

After the tables were set up I placed one set of clues, face down, on each table and spread them out.

Before the game began the team selected one of their own to be a "judge" ... this person was given the master list I made up with the answers.

The game went as follows... The teams stood behind their table. One person started the game by moving to the opposite side of the table facing their team across the table (Playing order should be decided before they begin) that person then flipped over one of the pages, they then called out the number found in the left hand corner (for the judge) , then they read the clue to their team. The team was allowed to help them by using their scriptures or their SM Flash Cards. The goal was to find the correct Scripture Mastery scripture from the clue.  When they thought they knew the SM Reference they informed the "Judge" ... if they were correct they then balled up the paper, turned around facing the basket, and threw the "snowball" ... when they made the basket they could then turned around and choose another one.

They continued in this way until I yelled "SWITCH" at which time a new player would come in the front and select, guess, and throw.

I kept this going for about 8 minutes after which one team had gotten all of the clues and made all the baskets. I had the judges count up their snowballs and awarded Gold, Silver, Bronze and Adomantium (NO idea how to spell that but its from wolverine :) The team that came in last thought that was super cool!

It was a GREAT activity! They had so much fun and they got to review all their Scripture Mastery Scriptures. One of the best parts was that even those two student I have that virtually NEVER participate had something to do (One kept time and one was a judge) and felt like part of the team ... I even saw them laugh!

All in all a pretty Olympic day!!