Scripture Mastery – Five in a Row!

[example of student work]

Today for a scripture mastery game, we played FIVE IN A ROW! I had gotten the idea from the scripture mastery ideas booklet I’d been given when first a teacher. The booklet is entitled Scripture Mastery: A Guide for Teachers and was prepared by the Church Educational System and published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

(I work very hard to use published manuals/books that come through CES rather than from a bookstore, etc.)

The Five in a Row game can be found on page 63 of that publication. But in reading the instructions, I couldn’t quite follow along what they intended. So I made up my own form of Five in a Row. I’m actually working up a more complete version of what I played today, but until then, if you would like to use the score sheet I created, feel free to visit the Seminary Class Notes group. The score sheet will be found under the Files section.

THE GAME.
Here is how I played it. I selected five scripture mastery verses I wanted to target. I passed out the score sheets to each student.

For the first round of five scriptures, (without telling the students which scriptures were targeted) I simply gave a key word. If they found the scripture before I called out the actual reference, they got to color in a 25 point square. I then called out a key word for the next scripture. If they had found it by the time I called it out, they got to color in the next 25 point square. We did this for all five scripture mastery verses.

For the second round of the same five scriptures (same, because I was really trying to dial in familiarity with each set of five), I used clues or situations, instead of key words. This time each correct find was worth 50 points. We did this for all five scriptures.

The third, fourth and fifth rounds were the same. The third round had slightly more difficult clues, with each scripture found earning 100 points. The fourth round clues were more challenging and each correctly found verse earned 125 points. The fifth and final round was the most challenging (earning 150 points), with the hardest situations/clues given.

Now that we were done with the game, we stopped to see if there were any Five in a Rows in any direction. If so, the students could circle and double those particular points.

The kids seemed to love this. And every time we play this, I will choose a different set of five scriptures to really drill well. The students will be able to use their same score sheet a variety of times before it fills up. I want the students be able to think of these scriptures in a large variety of settings and hope this game approach serves them well!

Warmly,

Seminary Mom
****
For more scripture mastery game ideas and a free monthly Seminary Class Notes newsletter, simply click here.Free resources for the LDS seminary teacher.