🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

SPIDER PEN GAME 🕸️🕷️🙃❤️📝 Youth Night games with Alexa TenederoJoahana Marie Navarro ArceoPatrick Jaime ArceoMarco Angelo S. CastroDwayne EdriellePaul Cedrick ArceoTrisha Zarate EscalonaNikka Lumboy...

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

Need youth group games? We have 50 of them, and they are all no prep youth group games! Perfect for groups as little as 3 and as big as 100. Check out these 50 no prep youth group games that are not dodgeball!

Youth group Lock-Ins are an incredibly fun way to connect with the kids in your youth ministry. But 12 hours is a long time to fill with interesting activities. So we've pulled together our list of the greatest Youth Lock-In Games of all time to help you make your next All-Niter the best time ever!

Here's a free youth group lesson on choices. Students are often blinded by what molds and shapes the decisions they make. This lesson helps peel back the "why", "how" and "what" behind their choices.

Despite the storm brewing in the sky that night, we had a GREAT turnout for our May Relief Society meeting! The theme was "Rock, Paper, Scriptures." We focused on ways to come closer to the Savior and "hold to the rod." Carrie opened up the evening with some personal experiences and a wonderful video emphasizing the importance of daily scripture study in our lives. We then split into three classes and got to take part in some great discussions. ROCK Teryl told us about her grandfather and the house he built one rock at a time. It was a three year process but the results were a house with a strong foundation and walls that would stand through the years. Even after the house was vandalized, it still maintained its structure and has been fixed up and still stands today. She tied this in with our own lifelong efforts to build upon the rock of our Redeemer. Helaman 5:12 states: And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. PAPER  Brianne led a great discussion on journaling and how it blesses our lives-- and the lives of our posterity! We talked about different kinds of journals we can keep: scrapbooks online journals (someone suggested we all try out www.ldsjournal.com !) good old fashioned pen and paper journals family journals scripture journals gratitude journals blogs Not only can we benefit from looking back at past journal entries, but our future children and grandchildren may be able to gain something from them as well. If you think about it, the scriptures themselves are record keeping and "journaling" of ancient prophets. So, in a way, our personal journals we keep can be like our own "scripture" we are writing for our future children and grandchildren to learn and grow from. SCRIPTURES (Holding to the rod): Kimberly lassoed us up and took us on a little obstacle course to drive home her point. Her instructions to us were only this: "Hold on to the rope and follow me." So the group was all walking along clumped together in the loop of the rope. We thought getting up the narrow stairway to the stage was difficult... ...but that seemed like nothing when we realized we hand to climb under a small table!!! Kimberly just kept repeating "Just hold on to the rope and follow me." Most groups went through the whole thing trying to stay inside the loop of the rope. This last group made the realization as they were trying to cram under the table that Kimberly never said they had to stay in the loop. They just had to hold onto the rope! They realized that it would be much easier if they untied the loop and just each held onto it in a straight line.  This was a great object lesson that brought us closer together as sisters (literally). We discussed the point of this exercise and applied it to our own journeys in life. Sometimes we get too caught up in doing things a certain way or a way we think it should be done or even the way that MOST people do it. But, that isn't always the most effective way. Ultimately, our instruction is to "hold to the rope and follow me"-- or hold to the rod and follow Him. We need to try to get rid of those distractions or unimportant things that sometimes make it so much more difficult than it needs to be! We shared different things we personally do to bring ourselves closer to Christ and our Heavenly Father-- different ways we have found to do things that work well for US personally. Whether it was methods of scripture study or ways to get rid of distractions in life. After these awesome messages we joined back together to close our meeting. Carrie invited each of us to take a rock from the table in the back of the room and write on it something that was a "spiritual rock" in our lives. Either a favorite scripture or quote. We can display these rocks somewhere as a reminder of having that strong foundation in our lives. And... of course we enjoyed some tasty refreshments together! We had fruits and veggies and dips. Our new friend Ann even brought some delicious Pilipino dishes for us to try! A tasty sesame noodle dish and some potstickers. We always have a great time getting together as sisters and visiting together. And tonight was no different. 

🌎 Read This Post In: English | Español 🇪🇸 | Português 🇧🇷 Disclaimer: These ideas aren't all my own. Most are from past fun activities I have been to, all of which have been team efforts. I hope all my current and former leaders know how much I appreciate everything they planned for us. So... A year of activity ideas!! Pin your favorites. 📌 👉Want these in a PDF? Check this out in the shop. INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES 1. Cook for the missionaries Choose a target dish for the youth to learn to make. Bring supplies and tell missionaries dinner's on y'all for that night. Instruct them on making, serving + setting up the meal. Add time limits for suspense! 2. Photography night A photographer in the ward shared her tips on posing, selfies, lighting, group pictures, cameras, and more. It ended with a big photo shoot for practice. 3. Paint night One of our young women was close with her art teacher, so we brought the supplies and the expert showed us how to use them. So much fun that we've done this several times. You don't need anyone good at painting to lead the activity, though -- Pinterest and YouTube have so many tutorials as well! 4. Outdoor survival night We split into teams in the church parking lot and had to "fight to survive" through three stations: making a lean-to with a tree, rope, and tarp, building a fire without matches, and using a compass to find hidden treasure, and enjoyed s'mores. 5. Cake decorating night A sister in the ward is a professional caterer + baker and she showed us all the different icing and frosting mixing and piping techniques! It was sweet. 😉😋 6. Traveling Etiquette Dinner We went to three houses with different lessons and food at each one. First, we had appetizers and a lesson about dinner behavior, then we drove to the next house where we had dinner and talked about place settings. Finally, we went to the last house and talked about dating while having dessert. 7. International Foods Night Our youth group is so diverse and we have a lot of amazing girls that have joined us from different countries around the world. We set this up to let them teach us about their culture...and yes, to have lots of amazing food. It doesn't get better than that! 8. Friendship Bracelet Night We all wished we knew how to make friendship bracelets but felt intimidated by complicated techniques. So we learned to make them soooo easily, with cereal boxes!! All credit goes to this blog from Pinterest, we enjoyed using her tutorial. 9. Iron Chef Competition This was so fun it became a ward tradition. Gather mystery ingredients. Missionaries make great judges. The teams have an hour to make a master meal with what they have, learning resourcefulness and cooking from the older kids along the way. 10. DIY flip flops Relief Society tablecloth flat lay 🤣🤩 Cheap, useful, and cute. We bought $1 flip flops for each Young Woman, and decorated them with fabric ties, as per here. The goal was for everyone to have a pair of inexpensive flip flops they didn't have to worry about getting dirty at girls camp. 11. Tie dye night Everyone brought a white shirt and we folded and dyed them. Pretty easy and quick, try the tutorial here. We bought tie-dye colors but I've seen food coloring used before, from Pinterest ofc. 12. Band night Our bishop got each of the members of his band to teach a different "clinic" based on each instrument - voice, piano, guitar, drums, etc. The youth signed up for which instrument they wanted to do in advance. Instruments were borrowed. We all learned the different parts to one song and had a performance in the gym. 13. Time capsules night I've made printables for cute individual time capsules! What would also be so cute is a group time capsule - each class could make one with group photos of them, positive things they write about each other, their favorite church things, etc. 14. The Game of Latter-Day Saint Life We brought a Game of Life board and played, pausing for devotionals from different people at each spot (college or work first? marriage? kids? home ownership? money?) You can also make a custom Latter-Day Saint themed game board or a life sized game of LIFE. 15. Babysitting skills night A bunch of primary kids were invited. We were given a babysitting lesson before, and then put our knowledge into action as we played with the children. 16. Make-up Know How In a group of young women and their leaders, people qualified to teach makeup techniques it won't be scarce. This was fun for the younger yw who were just getting into makeup and for the older yw who could show off their talents. 17. Bread Making We learned how to make our own bread. We each had index cards to write the recipe on, but we did it step by step as the leaders demonstrated the process with us. Bread making can be intimidating, but thankfully Pinterest exists! Here's an idea to get you started. 18. Hairstyle night Learn to do Dutch, and French braids and have each girl bring her own brushes and hair ties so everything is sanitary. You can also go over curling and straightening hair, products everyone swears by, dos and don'ts, etc! 19. Modesty night We cut out paper dolls and made modest outfits for them with scrapbook paper. We discussed standing out from the world and being a light as we cut, pasted, and taped. A modest fashion show could also be fun! 20. Song night We've done this to prep for musical numbers, or to learn to sing a song. A way to make this more fun is to get a ukulele involved. Chances are that several of the youth know how to play (this has always been true for us at a given church activity) and gets them involved and everyone having fun. PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES 21. Sledding If you have the weather and location, enjoy some fun in the snow and then some hot chocolate back at the church building. 22. Youth Pool Party This one is a classic, along with a BBQ! 💦 The leaders bring the most essential items (burgers, buns, plates, paper utensils) the young women bring the kind of essential items (salads, desserts, appetizers) and the young men bring the items that won't be too unfortunate for us to miss (sodas, chips, condiments etc) and it always works out. 🍔 23. Yoga Night We did this one outside + got some low impact exercise + fresh air. Dual yoga is also fun! 24. Cultural Dance Night A dance teacher from the ward taught us traditional dances from different world cultures. 25. Nutrition Night We learned how to make healthy green smoothies. You could also expand this to healthy meal ideas. 26. Color run We got everyone white shirts that said "let your colors shine." Then we sprinted around the church parking lot while the leaders tried to make us as colorful as possible. 🎨 27. Outdoor/backyard games night We played kickball + Spud, but other outdoor games are, of course, fair game. Ideas include Mother May I, What Time Is It, Missionary Tag, Blob Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard👻, Werewolf/Mafia, Sardines, or whatever y'all enjoy. 28. Glow In The Dark Volleyball This is what it looked like during the activity! 👇 For the first fifteen minutes, everyone got glowsticks + put them together as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. We put glow in the dark paint on our volleyball and really enjoyed this fun twist on a classic game. 🏐 See the glow in the dark dessert table below! 29. Church gym sports When nonmembers ask why we all have gyms, this is one of the reasons. Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, soccer, and more are all easy to plan + play inside in those cold winter months. 30. Self defense skills night One of the young women does karate + invited a member of her dojo to give everyone tips on basic moves to defend themselves and stay safe if attacked. 31. Nerf Wars The young men thought this would be fun. Tie in doctrinally to "avoiding the fiery darts of the adversary" or the "Samuel the Lamanite" story. 32. Life Sized Games Our ward has played life size Hungry Hungry Hippos and Battleship.The latter was when we did life size Battleship. We split into teams, put up a blanket in the middle, and everyone lay in different areas on the gym floor. While lying down, we would throw a light ball at each other over the barrier and if someone was hit, they were out. I found so many other cute life sized game ideas on Pinterest y'all could try, including Foosball, Clue, Guess Who, Connect 4, Operation, Angry Birds, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Jenga, Pac Man, Scrabble, Tic Tac Toe and Kerplunk. Woah, 15 weeks of creative combined youth activities. 😉 33. Group bike route In my old ward, there were SO many of us (easily 30+) and I still laugh out loud thinking about this one bewildered man walking his dog who saw this procession of dozens of women and girls zooming by on their bikes, and was like "who is this?" Having enough bikes for everyone can definitely be a challenge, but if you can round up a lot of extras or consult with parents first before planning, you could make it work! SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES 34. Watch Face2Face Addresses We always do this whenever they come out because our time zone has them dropping at 10 pm on a school night. You can even do this with old ones they've made. Give one of these a try. 35. Scripture canvas bags These are great for when your youth need to have + transport their heavy, irl scriptures--and y'all need a cute and crafty activity idea! We created ours with fabric markers + canvas bags. 36. General conference prep night We made trail mix to enjoy with our families and DIY notebooks -- dollar tree journals, with cut out pictures of the general authorities that we taped to the pages and used as tabs. 37. General conference review night I'm planning to blog about some fun games to do for this. For now, try a themed Kahoot or General Conference race! 38. Teach the Theme activity Every year we get a new one and every year I put together a package to help you make teaching it to your youth a fun and memorable experience! I ended up having to take the 2020 one down 😢 but I'll be back with another one when the creating-resources-for-the-theme-in-4-months frenzy returns. 39. FamilySearch Workshop Everyone brought a dessert from a country of their heritage and we enjoyed treats while our Youth Family History consultant gave us pointers on how to use the Family Search indexing program. We also did our best to make it fun by incorporating the "Find My Famous Relatives" database that BYU has. I also suggest this Coco family history activity I made! 40. Spiritual Journal Jars Talk about the importance of writing down your "Spiritually Defining Memories" (recently coined term, classic concept.) We decorated mason jars with washi tape, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylics and then filled them with journal prompts + ideas. 41. Church escape room This photo is from a St. Patrick's day escape room I created for the group and let me tell you...never again!! The activity went well, and staying up so late working on it every night and going crazy making every detail perfect did not go to waste. But you don't have to become a martyr to host a good activity. Which is why I would suggest using a pre-made church themed escape room like the Hope of Israel one (we've tested and enjoyed) or this general church themed one that is sure to excite, amaze, and promote teamwork skills! 42. Primary song helps Make cute visual aids to help the kids learn their primary songs, helping your busy chorister save energy and time. Win win! 43. Cleaning the nursery We got on our gloves, turned on our Disney music, and disinfected every last nursery toy. This was pre-corona, but I have a feeling this might become more frequent when we're back at church again. 👀😂 44. Family History Campfire Everyone shared one funny/entertaining story from their family history, in the RS room with the lights off and flashlights and lanterns on sitting around this fake fire--which was so hilarious--red, orange and yellow tissue paper crumpled up in a casserole dish. 45. Missionary life skills night RMs set up a bunch of different stations with rapid fire lessons on missionary (but honestly also) life skills they wanted the youth to review/learn--ironing, shining shoes, cooking, sewing (for repairs)--and talked about their mission experiences while we did those chores. 46. Pioneer life skills night Set up different stations with different pioneer skills (making butter, hauling firewood, milling flour, grinding wheat, pulling a handcart) and honor their sacrifice and legacy. 47. Investigator Trailer Night We were put into companions and a bunch of the leaders went into different classrooms around the building, acting as the different stereotypical types of investigators when we "knocked on their doors." (Golden, nice but not interested, angry, etc). Discuss how missionary work is hard but rewarding and your converts, baptisms, results etc don't determine your success but your perseverance and positivity do. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 48. Personality Party We decorated with Disney Princess Personality Posters, and had everyone take a free MBTI test. We played games that helped us to know how to better minister to and get along with our fellow leaders + young women. Posters, handouts, activities, etc, are here! 49. Speed Friendshipping Everyone writes creative, funny, or even deep questions on slips of paper. Create concentric circles with the folding chairs, and have one circle rotate so everyone gets to "friendship" everyone. They get a time limit to go through as many questions as they can. 50. Caroling for the elderly Every year at Christmas, we sing carols at an assisted living home and enjoy hot chocolate afterwards. 51. Heart Attack This has always been received so well and is a Valentine's Day classic. Spread the love! 52. Cookies + Cards We made valentine's day cookies and cards and delivered them to our ministering sisters. 53. Friendship Dinner We did this over the span of three activity nights and it had a Valentine's Day theme. The idea was to make a dinner connecting youth with those who were old/lonely in the ward for a night of ministering and fun. First, we delivered invitations with cookies to the invited. The next week, we decorated the gym for the event. The final week was the dinner. 54. Make fleece tye blankets Service projects really don't get much easier than this--buy some fleece, cut two equal pieces, and then a fringe. Tie each fringe together while you chat, and donate the finished blankets to a good cause. 55. Gratitude scavenger hunt I created a Thanksgiving themed escape room/scavenger hunt activity that is so cute and will be available in the shop when the holiday approaches. 56. Daddy-Daughter Showdown Super fun Father's Day activity with three main events: the dads stood behind a chalkboard and we had to guess whose was ours, we drew pictures of them they had to guess which one was them, and then the big finale was us having to tie their tie and them having to paint our nails. 57. Disney lip sync battle One of our favorite activities EVER. Young women versus young men -- we rehearsed separately to face off and ended up choosing the exact same song! Super fun, easy, and hilarious. 58. Taking Photos of Graves Easy service project to organize -- index graves for BillionGraves, which has an easy to use mobile app. 59. Mall Scavenger Hunt We split into teams with leaders as the captains and were dropped off at our local mall. The team to take group photos with every item on the list and make it back to the church first were the champions. 60. Making gift boxes for Samaritan's Purse In this Christmastime activity, everyone brought cute gift items from 5 Below, Dollar Tree, etc. We got our assignments from Samaritan's Purse Ministries and put together and decorated boxes for them. 61. Bulletin Board Making Putting together a bulletin board, whether organically or with a printable kit, is a lot of work. We did it together for one of our activities. You could also do it as a service project for a busy (primary, rs, etc) leader at the beginning of the year. Bonus points if you use one from the shop! _____________ Whew! We made it. But before you dash, I want to make sure you know that this is NOT the only resource I have to make your life easier as a busy Latter-Day Saint. 💛 To easily see & have all my free Latter-Day Saint resources at your fingertips, follow me on Pinterest! Again, if you want to have a list of these activities in PDF form, check out this product!

Over the past few months I've been asked to teach etiquette to young men and young women 2 different times. This has been a fun experience to reflect and write down what I know and do a little research. I'm thankful my parents and grandparents were strict with good manners when I was young. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but now that I'm older and teaching my children I can see the benefit of learning good manners. Good manners don't happen over night. It takes years of training. YM & YW need to know the basics! Most basics are not taught or enforced at home. Teach and educate them NOW and set them up for a "polite" future. These are my typed up notes of what I went over and demonstrated. We had a 4 course meal at one activity with both YM & YW and a "tea party" at another with just the YW. The 4 course meal included Soup Salad Entree Dessert The Tea Party Cookies Mini Cupcakes Small sandwiches Crackers and dip Hot Chocolate Hot Tang/Juice _________________________________ INTRO - Why do we need good manners? Why do we need good manners? Are we not all children of a King? We are all princes and princesses and are expected to behave as such. We need to act with the utmost decorum for dates, meeting future in-laws, business dinners, dances and more. Presenting yourself properly, and behaving in a dignified manner is what being royal is all about. First impressions last a lifetime whether it's over a meal or in public. Sitting in a chair Sit up straight - DON'T SLOUCH (it's not attractive) (Demonstrate how silly a forward and backward slouch looks) When sitting ESPECIALLY in a dress or skirt, KNEES SHOULD BE TOUCHING! (Your underwear may be cute, but we really don't want to see it!) Table Etiquette - Serving and being served When setting the table, knife blades should always be facing the plate. Present an average table setting or have the youth set their own place and tell them what is right and what is wrong. (2 forks, 2 spoons, 1 knife, napkin, dinner plate, salad plate, bread plate, water glass) When going to a fancier restaurant and seeing lots of silverware - just remember WORK YOUR WAY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN. Serve from the LEFT REMOVE from the RIGHT Pass food in a counterclockwise motion or to the RIGHT "It is always the RIGHT way when passing food" DO NOT BEGIN EATING UNTIL EVERYONE IS SERVED! Hold your utensil properly. (Do not act as if you are shoveling the food into your mouth.) When finished with your plate, do not push it away or place your napkin on top. Act as if your plate was the face of a clock, you would place both handles of your utensils on the number 4. If you have to yawn....COVER YOUR MOUTH! Nothing is attractive about a HUGE gaping mouth open wide for all to see! COVER YOUR MOUTH! *Say you're on a first or important date, you may want to keep in mind, some foods are messier to eat than others. What would you rather? A clean face with something you can use utensils? Or something that is messy or you have to eat with your hands? First impressions last a lifetime. Top 10 Basic Table Manners 1. Chew with your mouth closed 2. Avoid slurping, smacking, blowing your nose or other gross noises. (If necessary, excuse yourself to take care of whatever it is you need to take care of.) 3. Hold your utensil properly, don't stab or shovel your food. 4. Don't pick your teeth at the table. 5. Remember to use your napkin at all times. 6. Wait until you're done chewing to sip or swallow a drink. (No floaties allowed!) (The exception is if you're choking - please drink if you're choking) 7. Cut no more than 3 pieces of food at a time. (The most logical answer of why, is so your food doesn't get cold!) 8. Avoid slouching and placing your elbows on the table while eating. (Although it is okay to prop your elbows on the table while conversing between courses) 9. Instead of reaching across the table for something, ask for it to be passed to you. 10. Always say 'excuse me' whenever you leave the table. _________________________ Having good manners in LIFE! BE RESPECTFUL TO EVERYONE We always need to respect the golden rule. "Treat others the way you want to be treated." Young, Old, Male & Female. Rumors and gossip is sadly part of life. But... it is YOUR CHOICE whether you want to participate in the continuous spreading of those rumors. How would you feel if those rumors were about you? Respecting others and seeing those around your with God's eyes will change your perspective and bring you joy. Make sure all of your interactions with those around you reflect positive feedback- not negative. Everyone around you are always watching. You may not realize how much you are under the microscope. Would your parents be pleased with your actions? Would your bad habits and manners affect your future children? Most importantly, how would your Father in Heaven think of your words and actions? "It's never RIGHT to do WRONG" "It's never WRONG to do RIGHT" The perfect example of how you should act and behave was our Savior Jesus Christ. Ask yourself in ANY situation, "What would Jesus do?" Smile and BE HAPPY! Everyone gravitates towards happiness. Be a MAGNET! Shine your smile and have a happy disposition. No one wants to be around others who always find bad in the world. Gratitude is the true base of happiness. PUNCTUALITY! Being punctual or "on time" is polite. Tardiness or always running late is rude. It shows your lack of preparation. Plan and prepare ahead of time. How long is the drive to the destination? How long does it take to get ready? (Always take into consideration that it takes at least 2-3 minutes to put on your shoes and get in the car before you actually start to drive.) Girls, be ready for your date when they have specified. It is extremely akward for a date to wait over 5 minutes for you. Boys, always be on time. There is nothing worse than waiting on your date to arrive. (I would know- my date showed up 1 hour late for HOMECOMING! I WAS TICKED! Not a good way to start the evening) PHONES Cell phones are an amazing tool. They keep us connected to those around us. But phones are a HUGE distraction. You may physically be in an area, but when scrolling through facebook or pinterest keeps you mentally from the conversation and the space you are literally in. Phone usage needs to be practically eliminated during dates, dinners and family activities. You can't gain the experiences everyone posts on facebook if you're always on the phone and never out making them. APPAREL You may not realize that you appearance can come across as polite or rude. Be confident and comfortable in your apparel but, don't wear things that are too tight, baggy, or show too much skin. There is a proper way to dress. And showing off your body or not even getting ready are not polite. Wearing pajamas, yoga pants, sweat pants, basketball shorts etc. are a sign of laziness and lack of preparation. Wake up 1 minute earlier and throw on some JEANS for goodness sakes! Don't be looked upon as lazy or unkept. Manners at the table and manners in life will keep you polite and positive. Remember- Practice makes Perfect _______________________________________ This was a VERY fun activity and I think a good reminder to youth and adults to always have good manners in life and at the table. When practiced and used regularly, good etiquette lasts a lifetime.

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Part 5 of 'How to start a youth ministry from scratch'.

A great Valentine's Day Activity or any time activity to have youth love and build one another up is a Heart Attack! good for Young Women, family or any group! See more at www.shescraftycrafty.com

Last summer President Russell M. Nelson and his wife Wendy gave the most amazing talks to the youth. This year in seminary we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants. When the scriptures refer to Israel, gathering, or following the prophet I like to remind the youth of the prophet's challenge that he gave to them. I played back portions of his talk. To hear it click here. Here are his challenges to the youth: Then I handed out this printout and we discussed how they were doing. I was thrilled with the answers that I got. Most of the students had taken the challenge seriously and shared their experience. Battalion Bites Candy Here's a fun treat to go with your lesson or activity. I bought these Halloween Peanut m&m's on clearance. Lucky for me the m&m colors also worked well the camouflage colors. This size of m&m is the 3.27 oz share size. I made this print out and glued it over the m&m picture. If you would like to use it right click on the picture. Copy and paste it, or save it into your pictures. Size it to fit a full sheet of paper. I glued it on rubber cement. The regular school glue stick will not hold after it dries. The process I used was cover the print out in glue, especially the edges. Then cover the m&m's in glue, especially the edges. Then put another coat of glue on the print out's edges. Center the print out on the m&m's and press around the edges. Cheap Armor of God Pins If you are like me, I am always looking for a cheap, but nice gift for my 20+ seminary students. Unfortunately Deseret Book does not offer dollar store prices. I found these pins on Oriental Trader for only $7.19 a dozen. The only problem I had with it was the cross. It just made me uncomfortable to give to LDS students. I decided to try to paint over the cross with fingernail polish. The only black polish that I had was gel, so I gave it a try. I put 2 coats of gel polish on each one. Then ended with a clear coat of gel polish over the entire middle area. & In between each coat I put it under the gel light. They came out great. You can't even tell there was ever a cross on the pin. A wonderful and cheap gift for my Seminary Youth Battalion! You could probably do the same thing with regular nail polish, I just didn't have any. Let me know if you try it. Shield of Faith Christmas Ornament I found these cute metal Shield of Faith crests on Oriental Trader for only $6.95 a dozen. I thought that they would make a nice Christmas ornament for Christmas gifts. I bought some ribbon. I tied it in a loop and glued it to the back side of the metal crest with E6000 glue. I didn't want to use a glue gun because I didn't think the glue would hold. After the glue dried I turned it over and used the same glue to add the ribbon. I placed the ribbon so that it was on both the metal and the ribbon. That way it is more secure and hangs straight. I added the picture of Christ over the cross. I got the picture off of google images. I printed it out on my computer with the smallest setting that prints 35 tiny pictures per page. Then I used a heart punch to cut out the face of Christ. I think they turned out really cute! Armor of God Gift Package For Christmas I decided to give my class all the the pin, the ornament and the m&ms into a cute little gift package. I bought some cellophane bags at Walmart. Then I used a piece of my brown cardstock and cut it to fit inside the bag. My bag was 4 inches wide, so I cut the cardstock to be just a little bit under 4 inches. I poked some holes into the cardstock and used the twist tie that came with the bags to hold the ornament. The pin I glue gunned above it to hold it in place. Luckily I kept the little plastic bags that the pin came in so that the pin could be removed easily. I put the m&ms and a little plastic army man on the other side. Once the bag was full I printed out the printout below. I cut them out, folded them in half and stapled them to the top of the bag. As you can see, I have a Christmas version and a non Christmas version. I did the math and the entire package came to about $1.60. Not bad when you have over 20 students to buy for! Click on the image below to make a Missionary Handbook Printable. Here's another printout from my Seminary Missionary Handbook idea For one of my lessons I had my class listen to one of President Russell M. Nelson's last conference talks Becoming Exemplary Latter-day Saints and write down the things that impressed them. Here is the handout that I used: Another fun Prophet idea is You-Know-A to listen to the Prophet Granola. Here are some of my other Doctrine and Covenants ideas: