The Bean Game

We have reached the point where the General Conference packets don't hold Matthew or Brandon's attention for long, or in Brandon's case coloring ties just doesn't even appeal to him! Last conference we tried something new, and it worked suprisingly well. We call it the Bean Game. I prepared a bowl full of often heard words in Conference talks: gospel, Jesus Christ, love, Heavenly Father, scriptures.... you get the idea. Each person was given two cups. One full of beans and one empty. Before each talk each person could pick out one or two words from the bowl. During that talk they would get one bean for each word they heard, each time. At the end of the talk everyone puts their words back in the bowl and scrambles to get new words. At the end of each session they count their beans and can redeem them for something in "mom's store" or keep accumulating them.


Also, at the end of each talk we ask the question," What word should it have been?" and then write down. Meaning..... what word would have given you the most beans in that talk. This was not originally part of the game, it happened after the fact last fall. We were talking during one of the songs and one of the boys said, " If I had the word children I would have gotten a ton of beans!" We realized that through this game they were actually listening (and getting frustrated they didn't have a word that would give them loads and loads of beans!)





In October I had Pez, candy bars, ....actually, all the things in my store were candy. This time I am going to add some wiffle balls, or tennis balls; items from the dollar store; coupons for an extra helping of dessert, an extra chapter read of the book we are reading, that kind of thing. With Conference and Easter together I can't handle candy overload.





I realize that most things have to be tweeked for your own children or circumstances, but I posted this in hopes it might be a springboard for some of you, like us, who are getting out of the coloring phase with some of our kids!