After our opening/gathering activity, we split the kids into four groups or districts with their "district leaders". They were split based on the language of their mission (which they already knew from the calls they'd received).
We decided on the number of groups for several reasons: the size of our primary, the amount of time we wanted to spend per station, and the size of our building (we had to have separate rooms both for each station and for each mission).
We decided to keep the activity to 2 hours and so decided on 20 minutes for each station. It gave us enough time to let the children get into the station, but not so long they were bored.
Our building has a bell that is used to signal the end of Sunday classes and we used that to let everyone know when it was time to move to the next station. It was so much easier than having someone run around to each group and let them know. I'm certain it also helped the activity run more smoothly.
Station #1 - Missionary Life Skills
In this station the kids got to work in four different areas. We asked three men in our ward to come and help, although, my youth aged daughter ended up helping in here too, so maybe it would be better to have four, one for each area. They learned how to iron a shirt (without the iron plugged in), sew on a button (with large circle cardboard buttons and yarn), tie a tie (this was their favorite and if we do it again and I can swing it, I'll try to gather enough old ties so the children can bring home the tie they learned with), and fold and pack a bag.
Station #2 - A Day in the Life of a Missionary
We asked the full-time missionaries to come and talk to the kids about what exactly they do everyday. We left it up to them how and what they wanted to share. When I peeked in, they were getting the kids to guess what they did and writing their schedule up on a chalkboard. They kids were amazed at what they did every day and having lots of fun trying to figure it out. We've had the missionaries help us out with Sharing Time a few times and they always do a really great job, the kids love them!
Station #3 - Language Training
Each group was headed up by their district leader, who is the man we asked to teach the kids about their mission, its culture, and language (in addition to being in charge of their groups Language Training Station they also led the kids around to each station). We asked them to teach the kids to say, "I am a child of God" in their missions language, talk about the culture, teach them a game or activity and share food specific to their mission (using the "mission survey" we send around a few months before the activity, we decided to have the kids learn French, Spanish, Portuguese and German and we were able to choose the adults we wanted to lead each group).
We also gave each "district leader" a copy of the schedule (there's a picture of it at the top of the post) and a list of the children that were assigned to their "district" on a clipboard I borrowed out of the library.
Station #4 - Missionaries in Action
This might've been the station the kids liked best. In one end of the gym we put up a couple of plastic Playschool type houses and the rest of the gym was taken up with cones marking out a bike course. While we tried a couple different course types throughout the activity, a simple circle ended up working best. It needs to be a fairly large circle so the smaller kids can ride their little bikes and trikes in the center, while the larger kids ride around the outside.
They split the group in two, with one practice tracting by knocking on the doors of the plastic houses (inside which were a few more wonderfully willing parents) and the rest riding around the cones until they were stopped by a "random" person walking down the "street" who asked them who they were (street contacts).
This is the station the kids are most likely to get a little rowdy, so make sure you have someone in here that can keep them on task. It was very interesting to hear their answers and surprising how few of them new the full name of our church (all the potential "investigators" asked).
If we do this again, I'm going to take a LOT more pictures everywhere and keep a video camera in this station to record all the amazing, cute, and funny answers.
If you'd like a copy of our door signs, I've uploaded them to google docs.
MISSION CONFERENCE
After every group finished visiting every station, we got all back together again and headed to the Relief Society room for our "mission conference." We asked our wonderful ward mission leader to tie everything they'd learned in preparation for their "missions" to how they can all be missionaries today. He only talked for 5-10 minutes (I can't remember exactly), but we ended just after the 2 hour mark.
While waiting for parents to show up, the kids ate cookies in the gym. I was going to ask parents to bring them, but we (the presidency) ended up bringing a couple dozen cookies each instead. It was simple and easy.
We've done several activities so far and this one is by far our favorite. I'm already thinking about what we're going to do next year. Just a sort of background percolation, but I'd love to hear about any of your favorite activities to help with my brainstorming!
If you'd like to hear more about other parts of this activity, click back to the overview page.
Leah
Thank you. We are going to do this in a few months.
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