Do you remember the TV contest “Concentration”? There was a large board segmented by a grid of about 20 numbers. The contestants had to choose 2 numbers to try to make a match. If they were successful, those 2 numbers were removed and a part of a hidden puzzle was revealed. The contestant had a few seconds to guess what the riddle said. The first person to correctly guess the hidden message wins the game.
This game has always intrigued me and it will also delight your children if you add it to your Bible review time. This will take a bit of preparation, but it will be a lot of fun in the end.
This is what you do:
Find an image you want revealed. This could be a Bible verse riddle you’d like your kids to know (see Karen Eppler’s riddle Bible verses at ccwonline.org) or you can choose a colorful picture from a Bible story that kids have to guess, like Moses. receiving the 10 Commandments from God or from Paul on the road to Damascus. (If you google: Bible coloring pages, you’ll come up with tons of image possibilities!)
If possible I suggest you enlarge the image if you can, otherwise print it out and put it on a board or table. Now cover it with an even number of Post-It papers to cover the entire image. If you’re hiding an 8.5 x 11 image, you’ll probably end up using about 12 post-its. Number them from 1 to 12, or more if you used more papers.
The last thing you need to prepare are some Bible review questions you want to ask your children. Make sure you have at least as many questions as numbers on your board. It would also be a good idea to have a few extra questions in case a child doesn’t answer one correctly.
You are now ready to play “Bible Concentration”. Divide your class into 2 teams. Ask a child from the first team to answer a Bible review question. If he answers correctly, he gets a chance to choose one of the numbers that hide the picture. You, the teacher, will remove the Post-It and then give the child 15 seconds to guess what the picture says or represents. Go back and forth between the 2 teams until one team has guessed the picture.
A couple of points:
1. Instead of the child only choosing one number to reveal, you can allow them to choose 2 numbers to make the game a little faster.
2. Have fun with the kids by pretending to be a game show host. You could even wear your “official” game show host jacket and hold a dummy (or real) microphone. Your children will love it!