Lip Sync Battle

This activity is inspired by the new game show on Spike. Essentially everyone dresses up and does a lip sync performance to a song of their choice. Send around a sign-up sheet beforehand to get people thinking about it and to get an idea of how many people are interested in performing. Let people sign up to perform solo or (even more fun) in groups. It is a good idea to preview the song choices beforehand to make sure they are appropriate for the activity. Inform each group they are in charge of bringing their own music to play as well as bringing any costumes they may want to wear for the performance.

The night of the activity each person/group that signed up then gets to come on stage and perform one at a time. Have one person be in charge of the music to help things run a little more smoothly. Invite everyone to come and watch even if they aren't performing. After everyone has performed, send around a ballot sheet to let people vote for their favorites. You can award the best group a homemade trophy or a fun treat. This one is sure to be a good time!

Inner Tube Water Polo & Jaws

This activity is a fun twist on a regular game of Water Polo. You can find the basic rules and information on how to play the game here. Look over the rules and feel free to make some adaptions for the group of people you are playing with. In this version of water polo, every person playing uses an inner tube to float around the pool while they play. This eliminates the need for treading water, which (for anyone who can't tread water like me) allows more people to actually be able to play. After the game is over, you can watch Jaws while everyone continues to float on their tubes and dangle their feet in the murky waters below.

Where's Waldo

This is a fun one for a big group. It's like a live version of Where's Waldo. Pick a public place to play such as a mall or a park. Make sure it's a place where quite a few other people are and that is okay with games (Temple Square is not a good choice). Select a few well known people from the ward to dress up. One person can dress up as Waldo (see picture below), but everyone else should pick something else. The point is not to stand out. They should want to be disguised enough that people won't know it's them from a first glance, but still be recognizable at some point. Some options might be construction workers, security guards, workers from a store at that location, mothers/fathers with children, etc. Those are things you might normally see at a mall or park, but that person wouldn't normally dress like that. Have these dressed up people keep it a secret of how they are dressed and show up at the place before everyone else arrives. Hand them each a different set of stickers and have them casually fit into the scene for the next 30 minutes to an hour while you play. Note: They don't have to stay in one place and can move about and act as they think their character would act.

Split everyone else up into small groups of just a few people. They shouldn't know beforehand how the people are dressed up. Provide the groups with names of people they should be looking for and a sheet of paper to collect stickers. Send everyone off and set a time limit of 30 minutes to an hour depending on how big your area is, how many people are playing and how much time you have. As each group finds one of the dressed up people, they collect a sticker from them as proof they found them. The first team to collect all of the stickers, or the team with the most stickers when the time runs out wins.

Slip N Slide Kickball

This is a fun twist on a regular game of kickball. For this game you need 4 small swimming pools (kid sized, plastic or inflatable) and 4 slip 'n slides (I've heard visqueen works too). Each pool is filled with water and placed at each base. Place the one at home a little off to the side so it doesn't interfere with kicking. Then each slip 'n slide is set up between bases on the running path. As each player kicks the ball, they run and slide down to the base/pool. All the regular kickball rules apply.

Glow In The Dark Party

We used this idea for a small FHE activity but you could change it up to fit your needs. Since we had a small group we used the Relief Society room, but you could separate the games out and put them each in different rooms. We used a lot of glow sticks that we bought at the local dollar store. We gave out some for people to wear and also used some in our games.

For the first game we connected the glow sticks to make different sized circles which we taped onto the white board. We had some that were shaped like a bulls-eye and then some outlying ones. Each spot was worth a certain amount of points. We used Nerf guns with suction darts to shoot at the white board. Wherever the dart stuck is how many points they got.

For the second game we played glow in the dark bowling. We partially filled up some two liter bottles with water and stuck glow sticks inside of them. Then we used a large bouncy ball to bowl the pins over.

For treats we served glow in the dark drinks. I simply mixed lemonade, Sprite, and 2 crushed up Super Complex B vitamins and it really did glow under our black light. Something about the B vitamins makes it glow.

Mormon Clue

I found this idea from Mormon Share. You can find the original link and instructions here. Basically this is a life size game of Clue. Everything you need is included in the link. We started out with an Italian dinner to set up the scene. After most people had finished eating we announced that our Bishop was missing. We had someone dress up like a detective and walk in and announce each of the suspects (who had been eating dinner among the group). As each one was announced they left and walked to their designated room with their clues. From there each table was a group and they went to each suspect to figure out the clues and ultimately who did it, with what, and where. We had the suspects dress up like their character for the game while everyone else just wore a Halloween costume. It was a huge hit and everyone had a lot of fun!

Blindfolded Lightning

This game works great for a Family Home Evening activity. The original form of this game has many names (Lightning, Knockout, Gotcha, Killer, Elimination, Poison, Crash, Fireball, Dynamite, Putout, Bumpout, Speed, Hurricane, Tornado, Ultimate, Scrum, Chicago Shootout, Bump, etc.) All you need for this activity is two basketballs and some blindfolds. Simple enough, right? You can check out the all-knowing Wikipedia for instructions on how to play the basic form of the game here. For the blindfolded version everyone needs a partner. You can make it boy/girl or just let people choose a partner. One player is blindfolded and the other is left to be their guide. The game is then played just like the regular game with the front two people in line shooting baskets and handing off the basketball once a basket is made. The guide needs to protect their partner from any rebounding basketballs and also help guide them in making a shot by scooting them closer/farther back, angling them, telling them how hard to shoot it, etc. When one round is over and a winner is claimed, switch positions so the guide gets to be the blindfolded player and vice versa.

Valentine's Party

In my opinion, Valentine's Day is one of the hardest holidays to plan an activity for, especially with a bunch of young single adults. You don't want anything too awkward, but you still want everyone to have fun. This year we started off with a get to know you Bingo while we waited for everyone to get there. It helped get people interacting for the few minutes we played and it was fun to get to know something new about other people in the ward. The boards had 25 squares with things such as "doesn't like chocolate" or "doesn't have a Facebook account." Then each person had to try to get all of their squares signed off by a person who they were true for. It was fun and quick and got people moving and talking.

After that we moved into our main game, Truth or Dare (PG rated). We split everybody up into 5 groups and went each group sent one person up to spin our wheel. We downloaded an iPad app as our spinner that let us customize our wheel. We had 3 categories on our wheel: Truth, Dare, and Team Challenge. Each category had a box filled papers for possible truths or dares and the group would then pick out which one they were going to do. We had about 3 people from each group answer for a truth and it was worth 1 point. We used questions such as:

• When did you get your first kiss?
• Tell your worst date story.
• What is your favorite love song and why?
• Have you ever snuck out of your house? Tell the story.
• Describe your dream proposal.

Dares were either worth 1 point or, for more difficult or embarrassing ones, we called them Double Dares and they were worth 2 points. The people participating in each dare varied from 2 people to the whole group depending on what was asked. We used dares like:

• Rub noses with someone on your team.
• Serenade someone with a love song.
• Make up a rap about someone on your team.
• Give us your best hula dance.
• Eat a ketchup packet

The Team Challenge was completed at the end of each round (each group had taken a turn) and worth 3 points. Some of the challenges we did were:

• Who can eat a pudding cup the fastest without using their hands
• Fluffy Bunny challenge
• Who can stand barefoot in the snow the longest
• Role play the best pick-up line
• Guys putting makeup on the girls.

Everyone had a lot of fun with only a few awkward moments in there. Overall it was a success.

Tubing at Camp Tracy

Recently our ward rented out Camp Tracy up Millcreek Canyon in Salt Lake. The rental comes with access to the lodge (which is big) and the tubing hill. We had people bring soup in crockpots for dinner that we served with rolls and butter. Those who didn't want to tube stayed inside and played games in the lodge. The lodge is very big and nice! It has a nice big kitchen, bathrooms with plumbing, tables and chairs, and a fireplace that you need to bring your own wood for. The tubing hill is close to the lodge and is lit up at night. Only tubes are allowed on the hill so we also brought up an air compressor to fill everyone's tubes up. The tubing hill is pretty long and steep so you go pretty fast. You hike up the side of the mountain to the top of the hill and then it runs through the trees and out to the clearing at the bottom. They give out vouchers so it's free to drive up during the day, or if you go at night the guard station closes at 6:00 pm and then it's free anyway. It cost $50/hour to rent out both the tubing hill and the lodge which is really cheap. Camp Tracy is owned by the Boy Scouts of America so you can find their contact information on their website.