— “What’s in Your Name” Game for families with children that can read and write.

Start out by asking your children, “What belongs to you, but other people use it more than you do?” The answer: "Your name!"

Now, write down all participating family member’s names (first and last) on the top of individual papers. Mix them up and pass one name to each participant. If someone gets his own name, trade it with someone else. Now the fun begins.

With a set time period, challenge participants to create as many words as they can from the letters in the name at the top of their paper.

After the set time period has elapsed, have each participant read the words he was able to find.

If you wanted to, you could then talk about names and your family name and how important it is to live so that the name is always thought of “for good.”

Focus on the Ten Commandments

Would you agree with me as an adult, that the things we learned as children are remembered much better than those things that we try to remember now? I can remember phone numbers, mathematical equations, the Articles of Faith, people’s names, and dates from my childhood. But ask me to remember a phone number or a scripture I’ve tried to memorize in recent days that I’ve worked on for a week, and I would be hard pressed to do so.

For some reason I never had the occasion when I was young to commit to memory the Ten Commandments. I have tried to memorize them and their order in my adulthood but they do not stay with me. So, I am suggesting that families spend time learning (memorizing) the Ten Commandments. Bless your young children with the opportunity to really remember the Ten Commandments (And maybe even the 1st and great commandment and the 2nd that is like unto it) and then in a week or so play this game:

HOT BRICKS 
Played like Hot Potato except you pass around a toy brick (Lego or block) and the person that is holding it when the timer rings (or music is stopped) has to state one of the 10 commandments. If they can't give one, they are out.

Family Focus Game

Here's my blog for today. It's in a JPeg file for you to open in another page and print. Or just click on it. It will then give you a page where you can go into edit, then "select all", then in edit again you can command "copy". At this point you can go in to your favorite word processing program and in edit of that program you can command to "paste." At this point enlarge it to fit your page and print. This is a great game or activity for large groups including extended family. Get Grandpa and Grandma to play. Use it in Family Home Evening.