Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Preparing For Christmas – Youth Work Session Idea

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Preparing for Christmas youth work session ideaIt’s less than 10 weeks until Christmas, something that seems to have come around way too quickly. It’s therefore worth making plans for any special programming or events you want to run during the holiday season, particularly if you haven’t started already.

Instead of being the sole person deciding on what activities you do at Christmas, why not involve your young people – this can help your young people in making informed decisions, encourages youth participation and helps them gain important life skills.

To help get you started, here are a few suggestions on how you can get your young people involved:

1. Fundraising

Christmas is a great time to organize a youth group fundraiser, so here a few ideas for how to do this:

Involve your young people in deciding what type of fundraiser to organize, how to plan it, when and where to do it, its promotion, etc.

2. Partying

Organize a Christmas party, but one that’s planned by the young people themselves. You could put them in charge of:

Make sure they’re also included in the less fun parts too, like the cleaning up after!

3. Volunteering

Christmas can be a miserable time for many people, whether that’s due to poverty, loneliness or some other factor. Encourage your young people to get involved in the local community and to make a positive change in the lives of others – they’ll find that they’re the ones who benefit the most.

4. Planning

Once Christmas is over, it’ll soon be the New Year. Depending on how far out you’ve already planned, the weeks leading up to Christmas could be a great opportunity to discuss with your young people what issues they’re currently facing.

The answers you receive can then help guide your programming for the forthcoming year, ensuring that the topics you cover will have a true resonance with your youth.

Question: How do you involve your youth when preparing for Christmas? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays From Youth Workin’ It

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Say what?!  A post from Youth Workin’ It on Sunday? I can tell you’re intrigued… read on my friends, read on.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year- a time to spend with family and friends and catching up on your favorite youth work blog… ok maybe I snuck that one in.  I’ll be relaxing by flipping between reading fiction and youth work books.  Don’t judge my bookish nerdiness too much, we’ve got to keep our edge so we can keep bringing you great new content in 2012!!

To countdown to the end of the year we will be posting the top 12 Youth Workin’ It posts from December 19-December 31st. Our blog went live in September, but providing new content six days a week means we still have a lot of great stuff to share from the last few months.

Remember classics like ‘You gave your teens what?!‘ and ‘How to run a Krispy Kreme fundraiser‘ – did they make the top 12?! You’ll just have to check back over the next two weeks to find out.  We think a short break is a good idea for many reasons and we got our inspiration for this from Jon Acuff.

I came across two Christmas-themed blog posts that I thought I’d share – I really enjoyed them, even if I don’t subscribe to some of the views shared.  Whether you’re a parent or a youth worker, a celebrator of Christmas or not, there is a lot of good stuff about the hope, joy, magic and giving that can be associated with the holiday season to share with your youth.

Jen Hatmaker’s post ‘A Christmas Conundrum’ is written in a fun, quirky way that highlights some of the excess that can be associated with the holidays and other holiday thoughts from one Christian’s perspective. The other from Cozi, focuses on The Truth about Santa, his existence and how to keep the magical feelings alive that he can inspire in children and adults alike.

We here at Youth Workin’ It hope you enjoy your holiday season – Christmas Day, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, New Years Day… Tuesday. However you celebrate – whether it’s with Chinese food, a Kinara, Church or a family meal – enjoy it!  (I would like to start a petition that scraps the traditional Christmas dinner in favor of Chinese food for all – Stephen would not agree to this, he loves roast dinners!)

See you in January with new posts, games, youth work Q & A’s and much more!

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Holiday Scavenger Hunt List

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Holiday scavenger hunt listFor this week’s youth work session plan idea, we’re providing a free holiday scavenger hunt list. This includes clues and ideas based on faith and cultural traditions for Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and other non-religious Christmas items.

Last week we gave you some free Christian scavenger hunt clues to use at Christmas, while the week before we gave you free Christmas scavenger hunt clues based on the 12 Days of Christmas. As part of our mission is to equip youth workers and organizations worldwide, we therefore wanted to provide some resources for young people who don’t necessarily celebrate Christmas.

Here’s how to organize a holiday photo scavenger hunt:

Resources

Instructions

Go to a mall, town center shopping area or high street.

Divide the youth up into teams and send one or two adult youth workers or volunteers with each group. If your youth are old enough they could go by themselves, but we used it as a good time for building relationships with the youth.

Give each team a list of the Holiday scavenger hunt clues. Encourage creativity and humor! (n.b. you may want to look at different holiday traditions in youth work sessions prior to this holiday scavenger hunt – that way, the youth will know what the answers are).

Remind them of any group agreements you have about behavior in public, or come up with a few on the spot. You may also want to establish ground rules about buying things for the photos. Decide ahead of time if groups are allowed to purchase items for the pictures. Consider giving them $5 each for incidentals if buying is OK, so that all teams have a level playing field.

Give them their time limit and meeting location and send them off.

Winners

The team with the most points at the end wins!

If you’re going to display the photos anywhere – including on Facebook or your youth group’s website, make sure their parents sign a photo release form.

If you liked this idea, check out all of our other scavenger hunt ideas. We’ve also published a book called 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas that, as the name suggests, has dozens more of these types of activities, complete with lists of items for each hunt. Get your copy here.

Question: What clues would you include on a holiday scavenger hunt list with your youth? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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Christian Scavenger Hunt Clues For Christmas

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Christian scavenger hunt cluesLast week we gave you the 12 Days of Christmas scavenger hunt clues. This week we have a set of free Christian scavenger hunt clues for Christmas, as many of the clues come straight from the Bible.

You can use the same rules as for the previous scavenger hunt:

Resources

  • Cameras
  • Christian scavenger hunt clues
  • Projector & screen (if you want to show the pictures after the hunt)
  • Prizes for the winners (optional)
  • 1 copy of the scorecard per team (this is for you to score them – don’t give the scorecards to the youth)
  • They might need a Bible with them – this will help improve their Bible knowledge and is a fun activity to help do that!

Instructions

Go to a mall, town center shopping area or high street.

Divide the youth up into teams and send one or two adult youth workers or volunteers with each group. If your youth are old enough they could go by themselves, but we used it as a good time for building relationships with the youth.

Give each team a list of the Christian scavenger hunt clues. Encourage creativity and humor! For example, if the answer is ‘Bethlehem’ they could create a photo that has a girl named Beth (who doesn’t know an Elizabeth?!) laying next to a ham – ‘Beth-lay-ham.’

Remind them of any group agreements you have about behavior in public, or come up with a few on the spot. You may also want to establish ground rules about buying things for the photos. Decide ahead of time if groups are allowed to purchase items for the pictures. Consider giving them $5 each for incidentals if buying is OK, so that all teams have a level playing field.

Give them their time limit and meeting location and send them off.

Winners

The team with the most points at the end wins!

Don’t forget to get photo release forms completed if you want to display any of the photos elsewhere (like on your youth group website).

Next week we’ll have one more photo scavenger hunt – this one will be a holiday scavenger hunt list that includes Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

If you liked this idea, we have a separate site that has many different ideas for Christmas scavenger hunts. We’ve also published a book that has dozens more of these fun activities, so get your copy of 52 Scavenger Hunt ideas now.

Question: What else would you give as Christian scavenger hunt clues when organizing it at Christmas? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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The Bethlehemian Rhapsody

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This video’s been doing the rounds over the last couple of days so you may have seen it already, but it’s Saturday, we need some silliness and this was too perfect to not show here too.

So……enjoy the Bethlehemian Rhapsody:

 

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