This game was sent in by Michael Wilson. It sounds like a great game to try out for teaching a memory verse!
Before the lesson, write up
the verse, substituting an underscore for each letter. Thus 'For
God so
loved the world...' becomes '_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _ _...'. The class breaks up into groups of 2 to 5 ( I have
them
seated in a horseshoe shape, which is more open and less
school-like)
depending upon friendships and so on. The group with a person
whose
birthday is nearest to the Sunday goes first. I put the first
letter of
the first word up (say 'F _ _'), and the small group has to
guess the
word. If they succeed (I count them down if they take too long)
then
they get 100 points, otherwise I put on another letter (FO_) and
pass to
the next group in the circle. At the end of the passage the
group with
the most points wins. Noisy groups loose 50 points, where
neccessary. In
play this works very well for me. To guess the next word the
children
will read the passage from the beginning in order to get the
sense.
Sometimes to my amusement someone will get carried away with the
excitement and yell out the word out of turn, giving another
group a
free guess. Passages with longer words (I use the Good News
Bible so
longer words are not always available) are better, ofcourse, and
it also
gives me a chance to focus on the meaing of important words that
are
unfamiliar to the class; reconcile, for example.
