Book of Mormon Camp

Throughout the school year, we do a homeschool co-op with about 20 other families (80 kids or so) on Friday. The kids love it and have made some awesome friends over the past 4 years. But then summer comes and we see these friends much less often, so this year I decided to host a Book of Mormon Camp with a few of these families. We have 5 families and a total of about 30 kids ranging from 15 down to 2. We split the Book of Mormon into 10 sections and each mom is coming up with the activities for 2 sections and we (the moms) get to just visit the rest of the time. We've been doing 2 sections each Thursday and have 2 weeks left to go.

The first week, Krista set up a tent at the far back of the yard and as we talked about Nephi's journey, the kids trooped out there carrying blankets, bags of wheat, water bottles, and other provisions. It was cooking hot that day, which was perfect for a desert trek, but also led perfectly into murmuring from some of the kids. :) We journeyed back to the house and she had the kids act out getting the plates, then we went back to the tent. When she said we were going back for the girls, several of the 8-11 year old boys cheered. They were really cheering because they got to go back into the cooler house for a bit, but it was pretty funny since this same group covers their eyes for a kiss on a movie. (And I'm happy for them to stay at that stage for a good while longer.)

After all the trips out to the tent and in the heat, the kids came back in for my part. I started with Nephi and the broken bow. We made "wooden" bows out of pretzel rods and peel apart licorice and arrows from mini pretzels and marshmallows. Then they headed back outside to the burn pile of sticks with a couple rolls of duct tape to make tools. It was fun to see what they came up with using sticks, rocks, and duct tape. We had some pretty dangerous looking tools, including several pickaxes that were even sharpened by a pocket knife one of the boys had with him. Next we came in and made juice boxes into boats and floated them across the wading pool "ocean" while getting plenty wet in the process.

Week 2 started with Jacob and Melania did an awesome job teaching the parable of the olive tree using celery as the good olive tree and asparagus for the branches of the wild tree. The kids enjoyed cutting off the bad leaves to be burned and sticking in the asparagus with toothpicks. She had the celery standing in a bowl of sour cream and when it was time to "dung around" and fertilize the tree, she had the kids sprinkle in and stir in ranch powder to make dip. Then they got to eat it all. They also made prayer rocks for Enos.

Next up was Mosiah, and Tami used the playhouse in the backyard as King Benjamen's tower and later the kids built towers. The younger ones used playdough and popsicle sticks and the older ones used a fort kit made out of PVC pipe. It was probably over 30 feet tall.

Last week, we did Alma. Patty first had the kids become missionaries and put on missionary nametags as they talked about Alma the Younger. Then she let the kids become Lamanites or Nephites and they had a tug of war, then the Lamanites "marked" themselves with a red L painted on their foreheads. Next they became Anti-Nephi-Lehi's and colored swords which they then took out and buried in the backyard. It was kind of funny to watch how difficult it was for the kids to give up their weapons. Even though it was just a piece of paper that they had colored, some of them really didn't want to bury them and a few even snuck back later to try to dig them up again to find theirs. All in all, it led to some great teaching moments and was lots of fun.

Melania took the kids outside and they made a title of liberty and talked more about the stripling warriors and the battles between the Lamanites and Nephites. I don't really know much about her activities because I was inside visiting with the other moms, but I know the kids thought it was fun and loved the candy she gave out when they could answer questions.

Next week we will do Helaman and 3rd/4th Nephi, the the last week I get to teach Ether and Krista will do Moroni. So if you have any great ideas for Ether, please send them my way. So far, I am planning to build towers with spaghetti and marshmallows for the tower of Babel. And then to paint rocks with glow in the dark paint for in the boats. Beyond that, I'm still piecing it together, so I need a couple more activities.

It has been a great experience for the kids and I hope it will help them remember these stories even better. Plus they get a full day of friends and I get time to visit and just hang out. Krista has been coming over in the morning and her son has been teaching Bubble Science to the kids while we hang out. They have had some pretty impressive bubble creations! Then we go to lunch in the park for an hour and come back for the 2 hours of Book of Mormon camp. Usually after that, friends stay and play for another hour or so and then it's time to clean up for dad to come home. The kids have been great about helping get and keep the house ready for all their friends to come over and cleaning up again afterward.