How to make scripture mastery fun! And a recipe...

Exactly two girls regularly show up to seminary. They are intelligent, bright, sweet, sometimes sassy students and we have a wonderful time talking about the Book of Mormon together. However, only two students with the possibility of a few more popping in occasionally made teaching scripture mastery a challenge at the beginning. I grew up in Utah and had release time seminary; there were thirty kids in my seminary class. We played games that involved lots of people to help us memorize our scriptures.
I want to share a few things we have been doing, with a small group, that the girls really enjoy. I hope they help anyone who needs ideas, as well!
1. Scripture Chase--even if it's just the two of them, they are really competitive and love scripture chasing. Often, we end up having my husband, the students' mom, or my sweet newly-called assistant teacher participate, as well. I call out references, the subject line of the scripture from the SM bookmark, or start reading the verse. Once they've identified it, they race to open their own books and whoever can read the entire passage first gets the point.
2. Memory Game--this is really helpful to learn references and scripture topics and can be played with 2 players and up. I write the references on small cards and then portions of each passage on other cards, turn them all upside down on the table, and we go around flipping them over trying to make matches. If they're not familiar with the scripture and don't know if it is a match, I have them look up the reference and check. This is a great way for them to start learning where the scriptures are and what each SM reference is about.

3. Scrambled in an Envelope--I love this one. Once we've worked on a verse on the board (erasing words one at a time to memorize), I'll play this game to help push us over to a more memorized position on that scripture. I write out the scripture, and then cut out each word, and then put all the words mixed up inside an envelope. I make two envelopes. This morning, we had two teams: my husband and Sianneh worked on one envelope while my assistant teacher Munah and Siawale worked on the other one. They race against each other to see who can put the words in the correct order first, without using their scriptures. Once a team has completed assembling the scripture, the other team takes their scriptures and checks their work. This is highly effective; everyone had the scripture memorized by the end of the activity.

4. Treats--I don't ever say, "And whoever gets the most points, wins....a PRIZE!!" I feel like they wouldn't buy into the incentive to play and also don't consider a treat a prize. However, I am pleasantly surprised that simply getting points and winning really satisfies them. They are good sports and like to play games. So, treats make it sort of fun and special without being a reward. This morning, I made these adorable rice crispy treats that look like gold plates. I didn't have any left by the end of class; they loved them. (Which made me very happy because last week I made pumpkin spice bars and they didn't touch them, not even to try the taste! I think they were put off by the fact that I would put pumpkin in something meant to eat. That's fine, I ate them all myself.)

Do you want to make these cute treats?? They are super simple. I made the classic Rice Krispy Treats recipe. For those of you who aren't familiar:

3 TB butter, melted slowly in a large saucepan

Add a bag of big marshmallows, about 40 marshmallows

Once all the marshmallows are melted, stir in 6 cups of rice crispy cereal.

Spread it out in a greased 9x13 dish, allow it to cool completely before cutting. 

Once the treats are cooled, I made a chocolate icing:

1 TB cocoa powder

(almost) 1 TB water

1/2 TB oil

1/2 TB corn syrup

1/2 Cup powdered sugar

I cooked and stirred that mixture on the stovetop until my icing was smooth. I sort of add more or less water depending on the consistency I want. 

I let the icing cool, then spooned it into the corner of a small plastic sandwich baggie. The icing shouldn't be runny; if it is, put your bag in the fridge to let it cool down more. Then, I cut the tip of the corner off the bag, and squeezed the frosting out in three lines on one side of each rice crispy rectangle. Making a bit of a dot of frosting on the top before taking it over the edge of the treat made the frosting stick better, giving it an anchor. Also, the dot kind of made it look more like the binding rings for the gold plates. 

And, Voila! You have the cutest treats in the world. Stick them in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap, overnight. And then let them sit for about at least hour before you serve to your class.  Have fun!!