Kids just love playing this game.
I’ve been asked, quite a few times over the years, if there are any design plans for carptball tables. I came across one a while back and it’s what we used to build our table at our church.
Download: Carpetball Table Design [57.2kb, PDF]
I’m sorry, but the Chuck Norris jokes out there just crack me up and kids love ’em… especially preteen and middle school boys!
Many thanks to the thread Ben LaBarre put on Facebook!
Supplies needed:
The object is to race against a competitor trying to get a couple of M&M’s from one table to another while suctioning it to the end of a straw the whole way. No using hands! If an M&M is dropped, the participant has to start over.
This was difficult for some kids and easy for others. We thought it would be more challenging for younger children, but they did better than some older ones did.
source YouTube
Supplies needed:
Choose the number of participants to go head-to-head. Have each participant hold one bowl full of cotton balls and a spoon. Grab a volunteer to hold the participant’s second bowl (which is empty) right above their head (still). When the game starts, each participant will transfer, using the spoon, the cotton balls to the bowl on top of their head. They cannot look and see, they must keep their head straight (they can look down with their eyes to the bowl with the cotton balls in it). This head-to-head battle can be either timed, stopped when one participant doesn’t have any cotton balls left, or when both participants’ cotton balls are gone. The winner is whoever has the most cotton balls in the bowl on top of their head!
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I got this idea from funninja.org (they have many more games on the site).
The only supply you need is a handful of stocking pantyhose. I bought thigh high sheer (so it would be as long as possible and nearly invisible) stockings.
You can do two people against each other or you can do more. Fun Ninja did a four person battle.
Tie the end of the stockings together in a secure square knot. Then have the participants place the stockings over their head (as best as you can). The last one with the stocking still on their face, wins!
The best part of this game is seeing students’s faces plastered inside of a stocking!!
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This game was made popular on Minute to Win It.
You’ll need some cookies and some willing participants. We played this game in our children’s ministry and instead of just having a head-to-head battle against two people, we had all the students come up and try to do it. We split them up boys and girls (because the energy level is drastically different with boys on the stage versus girls on the stage).
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You’ll need a bunch of ping-pong balls. The more you have the better, but if you’ve only got three per player, then you’ll have to have some students fetching the ping-pong balls and returning them to the participant.
You’ll also need 18 plastic cups. In our case we used red Solo cups and we taped them to a piece of cardboard so they wouldn’t move or tip over. This made the game go faster and more smoothly than if we didn’t secure them in place.
Have two people pitted against each other. The first player to get three-in-a-row (a tic-tac-toe) wins. The participants must bounce the ping-pong ball into the cups (they can’t lob them in, as you’ll see at the beginning of the video). It was fun to have the other students who were watching help keep the ping-pong balls from going all over the place.
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The front of several cereal boxes (as many as you want participants to be competing at one time). If you want 2 contestants, then just 2 cereal box fronts. If you want several participants playing this game, then cut out as many as you can.
Make sure that you cut them in equal pieces.
Hand the pieces to the players in a pile or have them turn them turned over at the beginning.
First person to complete their puzzle, wins!
source YouTube
Dale Carnegie offers a “graduate course” in human relations in his famous book:
After one of our debriefs with our students at Youth Alpha, I shared a story from Carnegie’s book. I wanted to give them an example of what it looks like to be a good listener in the small group discussions they are leading and the effect that has on those being listened to.
Excerpt from:
“I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given by a New York book publisher. I had never talked with a botanist before, and I found him fascinating. I literally sat on the edge of my chair and listened while he spoke of exotic plants and experiments in developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and even told me astonishing facts about the humble potato). I had a small indoor garden of my own–and he was good enough to tell me how to solve some of my problems.
“As I said, we were at a dinner party. There must have been a dozen other guests, but I violated all the canons of courtesy, ignored everyone else, and talked for hours to the botanist.
“Midnight came. I said good night to everyone and departed. The botanist then turned to our host and paid me several flattering compliments. I was ‘most stimulating.’ I was this and I was that, and he ended by saying I was a ‘most interesting conversationalist.’
“An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at all. I couldn’t have said anything if I had wanted changing the subject, for I didn’t know any more about botany than I knew about the anatomy of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested. And he felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay anyone…
“…I told him that I had been immensely entertained and instructed–and I had. I told him I wished I had his knowledge–and I did. I told him that I should love to wander the fields with him–and I have. I told him I must see him again–and I did.
“And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him to talk” (p. 81).
Carnegie concludes the chapter:
“If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.
“So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems” (p. 88).
source Amazon
Photo credit: Karlis Dambrans on Unsplash
Photo credit: Joshua Ness on Unsplash
I recently wrote an email to our High School Youth leaders who are currently “assisting” our students in running Youth Alpha. I sensed that because the adults don’t have a “defined” role that we might struggle with our function. And function is how we often try to define ourselves.
Here is what I wrote:
I don’t know if this is a thing or not, but just in case it is I felt compelled to say this to all of you:
YOU. ARE. NECESSARY.
A pervasive lie among the prince of darkness is to convince all humans, redeemed Christian humans especially, that you are useless if you are not doing a function and thus unnecessary.
We are not human “doings” but human beings. The act of showing up in and embodied (human) and proximate (close) form is powerful; this is your presence. Any “doing” or action that happens after that is a byproduct, a fruit of your presence. And actually, those of us who claim that Jesus Christ is our Lord, we believe that when we show up (presence) that is not us, but Jesus we are bringing to bear wherever we are, all by faith. And any doing that happens is a byproduct, a fruit of that faith (definitely not as a result of our own strength, but God’s!).
All to say, some of you might not have a function during Youth Alpha these next 9 weeks. And some of you might start to feel “useless” or unnecessary because we are not “doing” the kind of things we were before. Hey, it’s easy for me to start to feel this way. I start to feel that I don’t matter; like: what good am I really anyway for these students? That is NOT true.
Let me tell you what is true:
YOU. ARE. NECESSARY.
Your presence in the Main Street Theatre room these next 9 Wednesday nights is like a B-12 shot for these students. They couldn’t do what they are doing among their peers if they didn’t have adults who believed in them, supported them, encouraged them, funded them, assisted them, etc. You are the backbone, the pillar, the rocks they can count on to have the confidence to do what they are doing. It’s almost like we as adults are the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12:1 that surrounds those who are running the race with their eyes fixed on Jesus. We adults get to be the cheerleaders on the front lines with them encouraging their socks off as they run.
So sit in a group with your students. Encourage them. Cheer them on. Be the kind of small group participant in your students’ small group that you have always wanted them to be in your group :). Tell them that what they did was incredible!
Wouldn’t it be great for our students to feel such a sense of support from every single one of their small group leaders each and every week of Youth Alpha that they will be able to accomplish some amazing things because they could count on the encouragement that we poured into them over these few months?!
I’m not saying that this is a thing. But just in case it is a thing, know that you are vitally important to the kingdom of God during this time, our students need our full support, and your presence and words of encouragement are full of life to these students as the weeks go on!
I am so thankful for each one of you… all unique in your own way. I am thankful that these students have you in their lives. What an amazing community of people that the LORD assembled for such a time as this!!
See you tomorrow night!
Photo credit: Neil Thomas on Unsplash
No supplies or materials are needed, simply a little bit of open space for students to be flipped!
Participants lay on the ground next to each other with their feet facing opposite directions. They match up their armpits and lock arms with one another. Either the participants or a moderator can count to three as they raise their legs from horizontal to vertical. On the number “3” participants lock their legs around their opponent and try to pull them over. The one who is NOT flipped over, wins!
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A couple of days ago I finished reading John Walton’s book:
His view of Genesis 1 is that it concerns functional origins, not material origins. Walton contends that the ancient author isn’t concerned with the stuff of creation (matter), but how the matter that was already present works (functions). In other words, the ancient audience would have understood the author detailing how this “God” ordered the functioning of the un-ordered material all for the sake of humans, which are the chief recipients of this functioning creation. Walton’s view is when God says “and it was good” after each day of creation he is declaring that the order he is bringing to the un-order is now functioning correctly.
Walton uses the metaphor of a house versus a home. Making a house a home details ordering a family’s way of living inside of the house. This is what the author of Genesis is detailing–not how the house itself was built–rather how the house becomes a home. Lots of implications on this point, which Walton details at length in the book. For sure Walton believes that God created all the matter (the material). The reason he thinks that is an ancient Israelite (and their contemporaries) would absolutely think that. Of course the gods created the world… how else would it have come to be? Walton contends that modern interpretations are more interested in how the material came to be; how cosmological origins happened, when the ancients were more interested in how things worked and did they work properly.
Secondly, Walton thinks that the seven-day “pattern” is akin to a seven-day temple inauguration common among the seating of deities in their temples in the ancient near east. It would be blatantly obvious to an ancient Israelite what is happening in Genesis 1: the ordering of to-hu-va-bo-hu in order to prepare the planet/earth as a fully functioning environment for humans with this God being seated/resting in his temple (the world he ordered) on the seventh day. This is why Walton states that his particular interpretation is called the cosmic temple view of creation.
What did God do on the eighth and ninth day and every day after that? He rules in his cosmic temple… he is Lord! Walton walks through each day of creation, days 1-3 which establish the functions of time, seasons, and weather (respectively), and days 4-6 which establish the functionaries within their functions (sun, moon and stars; birds & fish, seed-bearing plants, animals and humans).
It is a fascinating interpretation of Genesis 1 and Walton has done his homework! There are lots of explanations and more research that Walton shares with the reader. If you are interested in a radical, yet faithful to the biblical text, view of creation, then you are in for a treat with this book!
You can order the book on Amazon.
If you want to watch or listen to some lectures by John Walton on this subject, check out the following:
As a teacher, I wonder if it would be worth doing a class on the various theories of origins:
It would be neat to present the theories and represent them well and then compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of each in relation to both the Bible and science. I wonder how that would go over with people and how they would respond? 🙂 I think those who wonder if there are alternatives to the current culture war between science and faith would appreciate such a class or learning environment. Those of have a stake in the culture war probably wouldn’t appreciate such a class 🙂