Tuesday, April 17, 2012

General Conference

Gage has between mad at me since October because we didn't watch General Conference.
Before you start thinking I am raising angels, you should know he was mad because not watching conference meant that we didn't have our conference store.
For a few years now I have had the kids keep tally sheets of words they hear during conference. Then they get to choose prizes from the store based on the number of tally marks.
I start them with 10-15 really obvious words and they can add as many (gospel related) words as they would like. (Yes, they have tried adding words like ”the”.)
As they are getting older they are starting to recognize that each talk has a theme and if they find that word early they rack up the points. ”Man, mom. He sure says Temples a lot.” ”Really, sweetie? Isn't that curious?”
I buy prizes in advance, mostly from the dollar store. I have noticed over the years that snack foods and novelty drinks and toys sell for a lot more than yoyos and bubbles.
I have added in older and child specific things like nail polish, too.
I have wondered how long I could motivate them to watch with this little game, but this April we were fortunate to have my cousin with us. She is 26 and was so excited to play along that she even took her tally page when she went to watch one session with a friend! Score! Well worth my $20 investment!