General Conference Activities for Children and Youth

Once again the Semi-Annual General Conference for our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will be held this coming weekend, Oct 4th and 5th. This is our chance to hear what the Lord would have us learn and improve on through the mouths of our living prophets. I like to gather some ideas of things to keep Aedan busy but somewhat involved in listening to the talks and music given in General Conference but I know it is a lot to ask of a two-year old. Especially when it is 8 hours in total. The idea is not to give them something so that they don't have to listen, but it is to hopefully enhance the experience, helping them pick out key points, bringing the event to their level, involving them somehow. Not to mention giving mom and dad a chance to experience more of conference too.

I've been scoping the web and found some activities for children (young and old as I think even I might enjoy being involved) and I thought maybe someone else could benefit too. Here goes, just click on the activity to link to the website. If you have any ideas/suggestions I'm all ears... These are ideas that can be used for FHE prior or after as review too. I probably wouldn't recommend many of these activities if you were going to be watching them at your local church building... Decide what is appropriate for your family and have fun and enjoy listening to General Conference!

• To start the list, here is my past post with some additional ideas and our family favorite activity, I Spy Jackie's Dad on TV game.
  

• ***updated*** I really like this General Conference packet from deseretbook.com and the Reverence Tent idea from the recent Friend issue.
  
  
• ***updated*** Another Gen. Conf packet which has something for every age. Lots of word search, crossword puzzle games.
  
  
• Conference Chase - board game where you listen for specific words during conference to advance on the board


• The Apostle Song - I found myself bobbing my head as I listened to this! A song to help you get to know the apostles better! Cute!


• Apostle Cards - a pic of each apostle with a very brief bio on the back


• General Conference Coloring Book


• Be Prepared for Conference Worksheet - for older kids/teens


• General Authority Ties - good for non-readers, coloring sheet to color the tie to match what each GA wore


• General Conference Booklet - maybe grade school appropriate, has bingo, color tie, write something learned from each talk, etc.


• General Conference Folder Journal - again for maybe grade school/preteen


• Tic Tac Toe: Before each General Conference, I make a tic-tac-toe board with the name of each member of the quorum of the twelve and the prophet and counselors in the boxes (one name in each box = 15 boxes). Then I tape a piece of candy on each square. When each person speaks my children have to listen and write down what the topic was. After that they can eat the candy on that square while they listen to the rest of the talk. (Idea from Euroca Marrott )


• Conference ABCs - List out one word that starts with each letter in the alphabet and cross them out when you hear them used. From Oct 2005 Friend


• Conference Coloring Activity - kind of like paint by numbers but it is color by words used.


• Conference Bingo - in color! but only 1 card


• Conference Bingo - many different cards and in black and white so they could color also


• General Conference Family Home Evening - all planned out for you with recipe for treat


• Conference Carousel - printout, color, assemble. From Apr 2001 Friend


• Make a Conference Basket! - cute but a little more prep time involved, making a basket full of goodies and activities for each child


• Print out past Friend magazine coloring pages


• Mini candy Bar Wrappers (from lds.about.com) - use mini candy wrappers of the Latter-day Apostles to test your children's knowledge and if they get it right (or are really close) they win the chocolate bar. There is one for each of the 15 LDS Apostles, both with and without their names (which would be on the bottom of the bar), as well as a sheet of all 15 ** Sounds like a lot of sugar to me but I suppose if you have a larger family it gets spread out thinner...


• Online Gen. Conf. quiz probably needs to be updated with new Gen. Authorities now


• A whole slew of Gen Conf games - crossword puzzles, name games, mazes, bingo, etc


• FHE Follow the Prophet or for that matter Deseret Book has many FHE ideas


• Different Apostle Cards, same idea