Introduction
Use this activity to introduce a topic and divide the youth into small groups or teams at the same time.
Game Description
Youth will break into groups with the each youth forming one of the letters of a keyword.
Game Materials
None
Game Preparation
Think about a keyword somehow related to the topic of discussion for your youth Bible Study or discussion. There will be one group member for each letter in the keyword, so if you want groups of 5 youth then you will need to come up with a word that contains 5 letters.
Game Play
Here is a sample dialogue
- “Everyone please stand up. “
- “I am going to give you a special word for the day. The word is _______. On the count of three, everyone shout the word back to me! 1 2 3 Ok, now say it twice as loud. Great! Three times louder! What is the Word? Great!”
- “Next, when I give you the signal I want everyone to split into groups, with each youth using his or her body to form ONE letter of the word. As an example, everyone make a letter ‘A’ Great well done. If you don’t have enough youth to form all the letters, you might have to be a little more creative to spell the word with your bodies.”
- “Does everyone understand? Do you know what you need to do? Are you ready? Go! Spell out the word with your bodies. And, DON’T be the last group to form the word. “
Variations
You can choose to have a fun forfeit for the group that is last or you can also make them go first when you have the follow-up youth discussion or activity. You can also call out different words of different lengths so that the youth are forced to keep forming and reforming groups to spell out different words until you call out a last word to get the youth into the final groups of the desired number.
Take it to the Next Level
Once you have them in groups of the desired number of youth, you can play games, have discussions, etc. This is a great way to introduce a topic because you have implanted the keyword into the thoughts of the youth. It also creates some energy and makes the awkward task of breaking up the youth into groups so much easier.
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