Saturday, December 18, 2010

How to Play Bible Concentration - A Super Duper Bible Review Game

Remember the television game show "Concentration"? There was a large board segmented by a grid of about 20 numbers. The contestants had to pick 2 numbers to try and make a match. If they were successful, those 2 numbers were swept away and a portion of a hidden rebus puzzle was revealed. The contestant had a few seconds to make a guess as to what the puzzle said. The first person to guess the hidden message correctly, won the game.

This game has always intrigued me and it will delight your kids as well if you add it to your Bible review time. This will take a little preparation, but will be loads of fun in the end.

Here's what you do:

Find a picture that you want to be revealed. This could be a rebus puzzle of a Bible verse you would like your children to know (check out Karen Eppler's rebus Bible verses at ccwonline.org) or you could choose a colorful picture of a Bible story that the children have to guess such as Moses receiving the 10 Commandments from God or Paul on the road to Damascus. (If you Google: Bible coloring pages, you will come up with oodles of possibilities of pictures!)

If it's possible, I suggest you enlarge the picture if you can, otherwise just print it out and place it on a board or a table. Now cover it with an even number of Post-It papers so that the entire picture is covered. If you are hiding a picture that is 8.5 x 11, you will probably end up using about 12 or so Post-Its. Number these 1 through 12, or more if you used more papers.

The last thing you need to prepare are some Bible review questions you want to ask your children. Make sure you have at least the same amount of questions as you do numbers on your board. It would also be a good idea to have a few extra questions in case a child does not answer one correctly.

You are now ready to play "Bible Concentration". Divide your class into 2 teams. Have a child from the first team answer a Bible review question. If he answers correctly, he gets the chance to pick one of the numbers that is hiding the picture. You, the teacher, will take the Post-It off and then give the child 15 seconds to make a guess as to what the picture says or what it portrays. Go back and forth between the 2 teams until one team has guessed the picture.

A couple of points:
1. Instead of having the child just pick one number to reveal, you could allow them to pick 2 numbers to make the game go a little faster.
2. Have some fun with the kids by pretending you're a game show host. You could even wear your "official" game show host jacket and hold a pretend (or real) microphone. Your kids will love it!

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