Activity Guides
Activities for your family to help your kids develop grow and develop wisdom.
What’s the Big Idea?
How many stories did you and your kids take in this last week? This month? This year so far? If you count every TV show, every movie, every book, every article, every video game, it adds up.
Now think about this: Every story comes with a point, a perspective on life, a way in which it attempts to reflect the teller’s idea of what is true or meaningful or even just interesting. In short, almost every story comes packed with at least one big idea about something.
The question that motivates this month’s activity is, how are we…
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Love Jar
One of the most familiar Bible passages about love is found 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This month’s activity is designed to get your family noticing examples of that kind of love in how you treat and respond to each other.
Try This
When your family is together, bring out an empty jar (or other container) and explain that for the next week or so, this is going to be the “love jar.”
Hand out to each member of your family a piece of paper with 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 printed out on it and then have someone read it out…
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Family Year in Review
Wherever you plug into entertainment or news or web culture, you’ve likely witnessed the parade of “best of” and “top 10” lists for the previous year—and previous decade. We’re suggesting an activity this month that takes advantage of that human impulse to collect and catalog for the purpose of helping your family gain wisdom from a little reflection of the past year.
Try This:
Plan to have a year-in-review session for an hour or two sometime when your family can all be together—or you could break it up into a year-in-review week of 10-15 segments at a meal time…
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Mean Christmas
The big idea behind this activity is to shock and surprise your children by ruining Christmas. Okay, that’s not the final goal. What we want to do is to help our kids break out of the glut of artificial emotion tied to the Christmas season and get a better understanding of how the gift of Jesus was a gift of grace—something none of us deserved.
Part of what we’re up to with students, especially, is to subvert their expectations to get them to look at truth from new angles. By the time they reach the teens, students can begin to…
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Moment Soakers
We’re totally stealing the idea for this month’s family activity from Daniel Smith of the music group Danielson. They will shortly be releasing a new song in conjunction with Weathervane Music called “Moment Soakers.”
The song describes a game Daniel’s large and musical family plays called “Enjoy the Now.” Here’s how the song starts:
Everyday, twice a day, mornings and evenings, my family and I play a game we made from Grandpa’s theories, against the was and will be, so enjoy the now…
Try This:
According to the Daniel, the game works like this:
“You set a timer for 60 seconds and state as many things you’re enjoying right now as possible. And if you say anything in the future or the past, you lose.”
It’s a very simple concept and perfect for Thanksgiving month. The point, of course, is for families to encourage each other to stop living in regret or anxiety about the past or constantly polling the future for new and instant gratification. Focus on the moment and pull all of the joy out of it that you can.
We love the idea of that. It echoes off of the walls of Scripture from one of Solomon’s conclusions in Ecclesiastes 5: “Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.”
. . . to Paul’s instruction in Philippians 4 about what to do with our minds in this very moment to hold on to the peace of God: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
. . . to his reminder to Timothy to remind all of us wealthy folk: “Command those who are rich in this present world . . . to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”
We can give our kids a great gift by teaching them to recognize all the good gifts in the moment and to like them.
Give the game a try. You’ll get better the more you play.
Have a happy Thanksgiving month.
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Media Log
We all know there are downsides to mindless eating. When we stop thinking about what we put in our mouths, we tend to eat the easiest, quickest, and tastiest foods. Unfortunately, those foods also tend to be the least nutritious, most fattening, and even destructive to our health.
As parents, we see part of our role as making sure our kids eat moderately healthy when they’re small and begin to take responsibility for choosing some healthy foods for themselves as they get older.
Sometimes we pay less attention to our diet of media than even to what we eat. When we consume media mindlessly, we likewise tend to watch, listen to, read, and play the easiest, quickest, and tastiest media possible. Without self-control, the result can become a steady diet of shallow, irrelevant, and even destructive media.
As with food, part of our job as parents is to begin to help our kids to develop an appetite for meatier, healthier, and more challenging media—without overdoing even the best media choices. Yes, we see our role as protecting our kids from “bad” media, but can we also help them to grow wise is choosing from among the seemingly “values neutral” or even positive media options?
One way nutritionists help people begin to understand their food diet is by having them keep a food log, a record of everything they eat for a set period of time. Often, participants are surprised to discover exactly what and how much food they’re taking in without ever really thinking about it.
We’re suggesting a family activity this month designed to work in much the same way, except with media consumption.
Try This:
Explain to your family that you have an assignment for all of you, including the parents. You’re all going to keep a media log for one full week.
Talk about the fact that we take in a lot of media every week, often without even thinking about it. And just as we have to learn to pay attention to what food we put in our bodies, it’s a good idea to understand what and why we’re putting media content in our minds.
We suggest coming up with simple, spiral-bound notebooks for everyone in the family old enough to participate. Describe that you would like them to keep a simple list for each of the next seven days of every TV show, movie, video game, computer game, social network, book, magazine, and web site they spend time taking in. You’d also like them to jot down how much time they spent on that media choice.
These lists could include things like the following:
Monday:
“Community” TV show (30 minutes)
History textbook (30 minutes)
“Guitar Hero” (30 minutes)
PlanetWisdom.com (15 minutes)
Facebook (15 minutes)
“Surrogates” movie (90 minutes)
NFL Football (2 hours)
Taylor Swift CD (60 minutes)
The Bible (10 minutes)
Assure them that you understand some of these activities will be going on at the same time. Suggest that they just guess as best they can how much time they spent on each thing if they’re not sure. Consider helping keep a log for the younger members of your family so they can participate, as well. Little kids eat media, too.
Make sure everyone understands, also, that you know this will take a little time and effort. You might think about offering a reward of some kind for completing the task—maybe a family night out or individual privileges of some kind, whatever will ensure as much involvement as possible.
After the week is complete, get the family back together and ask them to look through their own notebooks. Ask some of the following kinds of questions, as you discuss together the kinds of media you all consume:
- As you look over the media you consumed for the last 7 days, does anything surprise you about your list?
- Do you usually think about what media you’re taking in or how much of it?
- What kind of media did you spend the most time consuming?
- What specific thing did you spend the most time with?
- What were your 3 favorite media “things” (shows, social networks, books, etc.) that you consumed this week?
- What media did you take in that you wish you hadn’t? Why?
- What media now feels like a waste of time for you?
- How much of the media on your list helped you in some way?
- How much of it was fun?
- How much of it was educational?
- How much of it had values that matched up with what the Bible teaches to be true?
- How much had values that were very different from what the Bible teaches to be true?
As you wrap up the conversation, be sure to emphasize that the media we consume does have an impact on what we think, feel, and believe—even if we don’t always notice that happening. You might read from Philippians 4:8, where Paul is describing part of the process of controlling our anxiety:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Suggest that if some of the media options we’re “snacking on” are leaving us not feeling very well in our hearts and minds, they might not be worth consuming. And don’t be afraid to mention how your own media consumption has helped and hurt your attempts to live like Christ over the years.
NOTE: Of course, this exercise is one way to discover what media your children are consuming and to set appropriate limits or restrictions. That kind of protection is also part of our role as parents. However, the point of this activity is to encourage the conversation about why we need to be aware of what media we’re taking in, how to notice what impact it’s having on us, and what we can do to control what we “eat.”
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Family Toasts
Giving a toast is usually something associated with a wedding or exercises in public speaking. It often involves drinking to something, but for this month’s activity with your family we’ll assume it doesn’t necessarily include alcohol. (Smart, huh?)
We recently linked to a blog that gave six tips for helping kids to become better at face-to-face communication. One suggestion was to involve kids in making toasts for special occasions or as a part of regular family dinners. What a great idea!
Not only will assigning a toast to each member of your family help them work on giving a brief prepared speech to a friendly “room,” but it’s also a way we can teach the idea of intentionally honoring each other.
Try This:
We’re suggesting that you plan on having a toast at a family meal once a week for as many weeks as you have eligible people in your household. Pick a night when you’re most likely to be all together most frequently.
Assign each person (including the adults) to give a toast in honor of another person in the family—making sure nobody gets left out. The toast should be prepared ahead of time, be five to ten minutes long, and include the following elements:
• A brief description of the family member’s history and current activities
• A few words about some of that person’s best qualities or achievements
• At least one personal story that shows that person in a positive light
• Optional: A verse, a prayer, or a blessing offered on behalf of that person
You’ll have to make an effort, probably, to get everyone to take this exercise seriously. Emphasize that it shouldn’t be too hard to do, but that it shouldn’t be made up on the spot, either. It might require a little research, asking the person to be toasted about some details of his or her life.
Also, be sure to enforce the idea that this is not a “roast.” Nothing should be presented that is unkind or potentially hurtful to the “toastee.” This is about honoring another person out loud and on purpose.
Beyond that, encourage creativity. Jokes and humor are important parts of giving speeches. Quotes from famous people or the Bible are often helpful. And it’s essential to keep this little toast to a maximum time; it’s never welcome to talk much longer than your audience is expecting.
The big idea is to help your family practice verbal communication in a safe and positive environment—while at the same time encouraging them to articulate positive things about each other right out in the open.
As always, let us know if you try this and how it turns out.
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