Intentionally Gamifying Your Lessons

Sure kids love games. But we shouldn't have games in kidmin that don't have a purpose. Listen to 10 intentional lesson-teaching games you can incorporate. 

Love the intentionality? Make sure to check out Intentional Children's Ministry. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Gather round, Kidmen leaders, and be encouraged and equipped as you build the kingdom. Now here's your host, Amber Pike. Welcome back to the Kidmen Huddle. If you are a regular listener, you know that I wasn't here last week because I got all this crud, and trust me, you did not want to listen to me. If you are just popping in, hey, I was sick last week. Now you know. But ministry goes on even when we're sick, right? I know I am probably not alone in going and working when you don't feel a thousand percent because children's ministry matters. And we're talking a little controversial of a topic today. Games and Kid Moon. How do you feel about it? I have very strong opinions about how games should be done in children's ministry, especially at lesson time. I think, you know, VBS and camp, there are times when you can just cut loose and be silly. But I look at lesson time as a really important hour. You have one hour to minister to a boy or girl. You have possibly one hour in their entire life that they are going to hear about Jesus. So why would you waste that hour with tag or dodgeball that has no purpose other than kids like games? Kids are kids. Absolutely. Kids do love games. Kids do learn through fun. Totally agree. But I think we can better use our time. And I have a very fun children's ministry lesson time. We have fun. There's games. There's activities. There are multiple learning stuff. You know, all of that. My kids have a relationship with me. We spend time talking and we know each other, but I'm not wasting my time. So I'm just going to start off offending you slash challenging you If you are doing games just because kids like games, rethink your lessons, please. You can have very intentional games that are still going to be fun, but they're actually going to be helping you teach the lesson. And I'm going to give you 10 examples today of different games that I've done, a lot of them recently. Use your time intentionally, including game time. I think games are a great way to introduce the lesson It can help you reinforce the lesson. It can help you review the lesson or even apply what you've been talking about. You can do better than just, we need to get our wiggles out. Let's play a game. I promise you, you can think through how can I make a game work in my lesson context to where I'm not wasting any minutes. So recently we've been talking a lot on the attributes of God. And just my Sunday school lessons and stuff. So I wanted to turn it into a game. And we're talking about attributes of God. Okay, I want to help them digest this information. How can I turn this into a game? So I made a paper printout of attributes of God. And you're probably going to hear me cough throughout this podcast. Sorry, friends. I had a printout of attributes of God, some that yes, were attributes, some that no, were not. I put a sign on the wall. Yes. No. No. And I got the super cool Dollar Tree pointer fingers. Amazon has them too, but Dollar Tree is the cheapest thing from the teacher supplies section. It's that big stick with a little plastic hand and the finger is pointing. It's a little pointer stick. So the kids would, I would pull a slip of paper. Now I have non-readers, a majority of non-readers. So I would read them the word. I would pull the paper and read them the word. If I had a bunch of readers, they would pull it out of a bucket. And it would be a word and they would have to go and run to the wall and point to, yes, that's an attribute of God. No, it's not an attribute of God. Do they have fun? Yes. Were they using their body? Yes. Was it game-like? Yes. But was it purposeful? Absolutely. There are so many things that you can do with yes, no in your lesson that is going to introduce, reinforce, kind of see if they're grasping it. All of that. So in this, yes, no was running to the wall with a fun little pointer finger. Did we need the pointer finger? No. We could have made it a race and we could have faced off and they could have ran and whoever touched the right one first would have won. Know your kids. With a bunch of littles, that wouldn't work well for me. So we just did a, all right, tell me which one it is. And the pointer fingers just made it extra because why not? Number two, beanbag toss. Great for reviewing. You could do this with your end of the lesson review questions. How were you guys listening? So it could be prize incentivized. If you get it right, you get a piece of candy. It could be you are kind of like this. Maybe you're setting up your lesson with the characters you're going to be in your story. Did this person... Do you think this person followed God, yes or no? And they toss it into a bucket. It's game, you can make it a game, but it can be intentional. So I've done this with a couple of things. It's really great in those we have a yes answer or a no answer, a true or a false. Similarly, drawing something out of the bucket. So they are going to pick something up out of the bucket. This is going to be something papery, most likely. It's going to have a word or a phrase. And then they need to go and put it in the right thing. Is that true or is that false? Is that right? Is that wrong? I think I most recently did this with Names of God. So they had a big bucket with crinkle paper in to make it a little extra fun. And it had different names of God and not names of God, like Bob. And the kids would dig through and they would find the piece of paper and then they would go and they would have to put it in the yes, the true or no, the false bucket. All right, how do I make it extra gamey? Well, if I have a large enough class, it's going to be a race. So I'm going to have two separate sets, completely identical, and they're going to have to dig through and they're going to have to put it in the right bucket. So it's whoever gets done first with the most correct answer. Then it's a game and they can be the winning team gets to pick the candy first. Or maybe you're picking representatives of the boys and the girls and they're going to face off and do it. You can make it into a game, but it's also full body. It's active. We're walking. We're doing. We're digging. We're searching. Just that searching aspect can be extra fun. I like to do these kind of things because I'm small church where every kid gets a turn. You might not be in that same scenario. So this is when it's going to be an upfront game. where you're gonna have some volunteers doing it. They're gonna be digging, and that's when your audience participation, they're gonna help holler out the answer. Okay, the thing was, Bob, do you guys think that's the name of God? Help your teammates. Just like you guys, you know what you're doing with this and VBS and stuff like that. You know how to turn it into a group game when there's just a couple people upfront doing it. But digging something out of the bucket then makes it a game. Another game that I use all the time is Four Corners. Now, not just the music pick corner Four Corners, but I make it part of my lesson so much so that at my last church, I actually used my silhouette machine and I put the vinyl numbers in each corner. That's how often we were using Four Corners in our lesson. This one is a great trivia introduction or maybe kind of a theme introduction. So I did one on favorites, like favorite things. And so it would be, okay, what is your favorite candy bar? Is it corner number one, Snickers? Corner number two, Twix bars? Corner number three, Milky Ways? Corner number four, Reese's cups? And they would have to go to it. There's no right or wrong. But then my last question is gonna be the lead in to the lesson. So let's say we're talking on Joseph. And I'm using this favorites thing game to get this concept of how Joseph was the favorite. So then I would do, who is your favorite friend in, or your favorite person in your house? Is it your mom, your dad, your brother, or your dog? And they would go pick that, and we would then springboard off of that. Hey, Joseph, or Israel, Jacob, had 12 kids. Do you think he had a favorite? Yes. No. Maybe. It was Joseph. I've heard this story. And then you introduce to the lesson this way. So Four Corners, so easy. You can do it with trivia. You can kind of do it with your theme. It's a full body game. It gets them up. It gets them moving. It's fun. It's giggly, especially if you throw in a little silly question like that. Numbered Signs. are wonderful. The next game, that's really like a prop. That's not a game, the numbered signs. But how you use the numbered signs, I actually have a laminated set because me and my laminator, am I right? So we did this recently, actually just on Sunday. We were talking about our lesson was on Adam and Eve. God created Adam and Eve made in the image of God. So that was our lesson, but we were doing a recap of the days of creation. And have you ever just kind of looked at your kids and And then you looked at your lesson, your lesson that you've prepared, and you're like, this isn't going to cut it. No, they need to move, right? Because sometimes we, or me, maybe I need to take the we out and just say me. Sometimes I don't have enough movement in the lesson as I need. I tend to be more lecture-based by default. So I have to really think about how am I getting them moving? How am I making it interactive? I love doing that, but I'm just so excited to teach that I just kind of want to talk. I'm a talker. So I'm looking at it and I'm like, we need to move our bodies. So I took some chairs and spread them around the room and I took my numbers. I did not have my laminated numbers with me, shamefully to say, because I kind of work out of my home office now. I don't work at church anymore. So I have to take the things I need with me and I forget the things that I need that were just always there when I had a church office. If you are not staff with an office, you get what I'm saying. So I just wrote on a piece of paper. I wrote the numbers on paper and I would name an animal or a thing and they had to go run to the chair with the correct number of the day of creation. So the planet Jupiter and they would have to go run at number four. Or a goldfish, and they have to run to number five. And so it got them up, it got them running. It's the, ooh, I know the answer. And then, you know, the little ones follow the big one who knows the answer. But then we segue to our last question in the game was Adam and Eve. So then they go to number six. We talked about on day six, God made Adam and Eve, yada, yada, yada. We're starting the lesson. So many things that you can do with numbered signs where you're having them run to the different numbers. Get your set of numbered signs. All right, this one is more of a game game. One that I have used so many times and you need a bunch of paper wads to the point where I'm frugal. I kept a box, I had a plastic tub of paper wads because we played getting rid of sin so many times. Get your playing area, make a halfway line, half the kids on each side and dump out this whole big box of paper wads. On go, their goal, without crossing the line, is to get as many paper wads from their side onto the other side as possible. So it's a little crazy. That's the point of it. You do your countdown. Time is over. Which side has more? Okay, now's the debrief. Why did we just do this? Try as you might, you could not get rid of it on your side. It always came back, right? Huh, kind of like sin. We could try. to not sin. We could try to get rid of it on our own, but we're never going to get rid of our sin. You guys see where I'm going here? Yeah. So that's a really good sin game that talks about our need for the Savior. Similarly, which is also super fun, you can do this with either plastic solo cups, because I know you got them, or I love the sports cones. They're the ones that come on a little plastic rack, and they're just little tiny cones with an opening in the top. This one's called craters and volcanoes. So when your cup or cone is standing upright, it's a volcano. When it is flipped upside down, it is a crater. Divide your kids in half, give them cups, space them out, or cups or cones. The goal is to get all of the cups slash cones facing your direction, either a volcano or a crater. Ready, set, go. same application as the paperwad getting rid of the sin game, you're not going to get it all on your way. You cannot get it all on your way. You cannot do it all on your own. The sin keeps coming back. You cannot get rid of sin. It is only through Jesus and Jesus alone that we can have our sins forgiven. So, Even if they've heard that application before, both of those games, even if we've played those games several times, I promise you they do not care. They're going to love it. They're very fun games, very active games, especially kind of when you just need to move. If your lesson is talking about sin and salvation and our need for Jesus, which pretty much any lesson can, these are good ones to add in. All right, game number, I don't even know which number I'm on. Step This Way slash Simon Says. I know, Simon Says, going old school. To do it step this way is you're going to tell them that they are going to have to go forward, backward, right, or left. But in either of these, Simon says, or step this way, your goal is to trick the kids. And the best way to trick the kids is to make sure that they do what you say, not what you do. So if you're telling them to step forward, you step back. If Simon says to put your hands on your head, you put your hand on your shoulder. You're doing what I say, not what I do. Application. Obeying. listening to God's instructions, being doers of the word, not just here. You know, there are a million different applications for listening to God, obeying God's word, following his instructions. Pick your application. There you go. Another one that I like, I'm actually getting ready to update because I'm going to be doing a superhero night at camp is Superhero Super God. And this works really great with motions. If you're watching the YouTube version of this, you get to see me. Superhero, you know, like Superman. Arms on a chest. Or hands on your hips, all puffed out. Or you could fly, if you want to fly. Pick whatever your superhero pose is. Or Super God, and we're going to point to God. This is a trivia game. I have a screen version. But you don't have to have a screen version. You could do it just with questions. So... spoke the universe into creation. Show me with your body, is it a superhero that did that? Or a super god? And they do that. And then you throw in, you know, things that superheroes did, like can shoot Webb from his wrists and climb buildings. That's Spiderman, superhero. Very fun, kids love superheroes, but it is intentional. So maybe you're on a superhero theme or not. Maybe it's just a fun full body game with a little silliness That is a good way to talk about whatever attribute of God you're talking about that lesson. End with your question. That's going to spring into the day's lesson. I'll give you a bonus game for this one, kind of a spring off. I do a game at VBS called Pick the Pose. And I'll have three different poses. So with this, for superheroes, if you're doing a superhero theme, pick three poses. So Superman, Batman, Hulk, you know, like a big smash. You can do this. I've done it with animals with our whatever our animal theme is, where we were flying like an eagle or we were a frog stuck on something or we're running like a cheetah. You can do it with so many different things. And the goal is to not pick the one that I'm going to pick. So I turn around and you guys pick your pose and freeze. Don't pick the one that I'm going to pick. If you this is kind of the old school one arm, two arm, none. where you hold up one arm, or you hold up two arms, or you hold no arms up, don't pick the one that I'm picking. Easy way to tie it into your theme-y tie, and then you can tie it into your lesson tie-in too. So that's a little bonus. But the last intentional game I'm going to talk about is stand up if it's true. Easy, peasy, Just like it says, stand up if the question I'm going to say is true. Or you can do it, move to a side. Move to this side if it's true. Move to that side if it's not true. I do this with Bible trivia. I do this with kind of my lesson intro. Okay, take your Christmas lesson. Where are we at in the story, in God's story? So stand up if you think Jesus was, or stand up if you think God forgot about Jesus. And that's why it took so long from the promises in the Old Testament to now. Stand up if you think Jesus was born in a hospital. Stand up if you think there might have been sheep in the barn. Whatever. Stand up, sit down. This is a great way, any of these kind of yes, no, true, false games that are a great way to take a lecture part and make it into active learning. So instead of me telling you the answer, hey, when the time was just right, God sent Jesus, I'm letting you think through. Do you think that this is true? It really is okay if they have no clue what the answer is, because this is how we're learning it. We're learning it through play, through game. So they don't have to have a base knowledge to play this. And you guys have seen little kids before that three-year-old. They don't care. They're doing what everybody else is doing. But instead of just telling them the answers, let them figure it out in this play. That's a great tool for preteens, especially. They like to kind of figure some things out. So this is letting them figure it out. It's kind of testing what they know, which is great for you as the leader to kind of periodically assess where are they at knowledge-wise, right? It's getting their bodies engaged. If their bodies are engaged in the learning, they are better listeners. If they are engaged and listening better, they are able to better retain the knowledge. You're reaching more learning smarts and learning styles. You've got active learning, all of these good, wonderful things when you've made it into a game. So that's my challenge to you. How can you make parts of your lesson a game? Are you going to stand up or sit down? Are you going to have them move? Are they going to have to toss a ball or a beanbag into something? Are you going to bounce around a beach ball and whoever has it has to name me something in the story? Are we using signs? Are we playing some really active games? There's active games that you can play. You can tie tag into a lot of lessons, but there has to be some intentionality in it. Why are you playing this game? What is the purpose of this game? There needs to be one. I am sorry. I am just, I'm not sorry, actually. I am team. Your game has to have a point. And I know there are curriculums out there that put a game in just because kids love games and there is no spiritual application to it. And I just not a fan. We can use those minutes better. Those six minutes that a game might take. And let's face it, sometimes it takes longer because then we need to go get a drink or someone got hurt or we have to explain the rules because nobody's listening twice. Those six or 10 or 12 minutes, ooh, that could make an eternal difference for a child. So I would love to hear how are you doing games? Is there different games that your kids love and you're doing all the time? I would love to hear what's a win for you, or if you have some questions about how you could turn an aspect into it, I would love for you to reach out. You can find me on social media, Amber Pike. You can go to amberpike.org, hang out with me in the family ministry community. Make sure you're listening or watching my social media this week because I've got some fun interactive stuff talking about your teaching. How are we making it interactive using tools and tips and tricks i did a reel this week about different stuff like beanbags and bandanas all these things that i'm helping use for games even signs i do thumbs up and thumbs down to the point where i made a cool little sign a little flag that they weigh back and forth just the act of having a little flag instead of their thumbs makes it a little extra fun for them So go forth, look over your lessons, and think, how can you intentionally gamify your lessons to increase learning? And remember, Kidman Leader, what you do matters.