Reaching Goals through Primary Activity Days
by Trina Boice

You can simplify the goals your Primary girls need to accomplish for the Faith in God program, while increasing the fun they have at Primary Activity Days: Help them gain their Faith in God Awards one activity at a time. Here are some suggestions for two-fold activities to meet the various requirements.

Pray Daily to Heavenly Father

· Show pictures of Joseph Smith Jr. in the Sacred Grove. Read James 1:5 and have the girls draw a picture or write down specific questions they’d like to ask Heavenly Father.

· Make those old-fashioned tin can telephones with a string attached to see if the kids can hear each other when talking. Compare talking on a phone to prayer.

Read the Scriptures Regularly

· Draw the head of a scripture character, leaving a hole in the middle for the children to put their faces in. The girls can wear their faces and act our scripture stories.

· Teach the girls how to bake bread and talk about the wise counsel, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Keep the Commandments and Live “My Gospel Standards”

· Using the items from “My Gospel Standards,” play charades or Pictionary.

· Invite “Moses” to attend your Activity Day so that the girls can interview him and learn about the Ten Commandments.

Honor Your Parents and Be Kind to Your Family

· Decorate frames with buttons, silk flowers, or other small items for the girls to keep a family photo in.

· Invite each girl’s family to share an Activity Day together and show how families can work together to reach a goal.

Pay Your Tithing and Attend Tithing Settlement

· Create special boxes with three dividers: one for tithing, one for savings, and one for spending money. Talk about the importance of each area of money management.

· If you’re lucky enough to live near a bishop’s storehouse or home storage center, take a field trip and talk about how tithes and fast offerings help the poor.

Attend Sacrament Meeting and Primary Regularly

· Help the girls prepare a “Sunday Bag” in which they will keep their scriptures, pictures of Jesus, gospel coloring books, The Friend magazine, and other things they can quietly look at during sacrament meeting to help them be reverent. At jennysmith.net, you can find a large collection of clip art and coloring pictures. · Decorate a bulletin board together in the Primary room with pictures of each child in the Primary so they really feel like they belong there.

Other Requirements

Write Your Testimony

· Create a Sacred Grove experience for the girls by taking a hike in nature. Allow them to spend some quiet time alone with their scriptures and a journal. Invite a speaker to talk about the Book of Mormon and how he or she gained a testimony of it.

· Create a “Testimony Journal” that is passed around each month so that every girl gets an opportunity to write something down. When it is full it could be presented to the bishop or Primary president.

Memorize the Articles of Faith and Explain What They Mean

· Create a carnival atmosphere where the girls visit booths representing each Article of Faith to play games and win prizes each time they pass one off.

· Have each girl choose an Article of Faith to draw a picture clue about and then see if the others can guess which article it represents. Display the pictures each time you review the Articles of Faith with the girls.

Learning and Living the Gospel

· Before general conference, help the girls learn more about the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles. You can make game cards with their photos and biographies and play “Go FISHers of Men!”

· Teach the girls how to make flannel board stories from the scriptures or Church history by gluing fabric to the back of pictures. The pictures can be given to your ward library or taken home and used for each child’s family home evening.

Serving Others

· Hold a car wash, but don’t charge any money for the service. Give patrons a pass-along card and let them know you were there to serve the community.

· Decorate lunch bags for missionaries and fill them with yummy food and snacks for them to enjoy at a zone conference.

Developing Talents

· Read or act out the parable of the talents and talk about how we can apply the lessons learned from it to developing our own talents. Encourage the girls to identify their unique talents as well as list the ones they’d like to develop.

· Spend time in a pool doing water aerobics, snorkeling, playing pool games, and learning life-saving techniques.

Preparing for Young Women

· Create a welcome packet that includes all of the Young Women materials and welcome letters from all of the other girls.

· Invite the Young Women to compete against the senior Primary in various contests such as daily scripture reading, memorizing scriptures, church attendance, etc.

By having fun while progressing on so many levels, your girls will enjoy their Primary experience and become well-rounded young women.

For more fun Activity Days ideas, check out Trina Boice’s Great Ideas For Primary Activity Days.

LDS Living Magazine