MAY: Family Reunion Ideas

REUNION ACTIVITES AND GAMES

1. Penny Dig.  Place on a tarp some coins and sawdust. Have the family race to find the money.  Later you can use the money to purchase some used or garage sale items that are brought by family members.
2. Life-size Clue
3. Fishing pond
4. Pictionary
5. Place money, candy or prizes in a small swimming pool filled with shredded paper, straw or sawdust.  Let the children hunt for the items.
6. Play volleyball, baseball, or kickball.  You could play kickball or baseball with swimming pools as the bases.  You can also use a tennis ball and tennis racket and play like baseball.
7. Have a cupcake walk.
8. Start in a circle with a ball of yarn.  The first person tells their name and a fact about them.  They hold on to the end of the yarn and throw the ball to another player.  Then next person stated their name and fact then repairs the first persons name and fact.  The second person throws the yarn to another player.  Continue repeating each persons name and fact by following the string.
9. Relay races - sack races or running races according to their age (3-4, 5-6, 30,-35). Give nickel, dime or candy prizes.
10. Tug of War
11. Play balloon toss. Use water balloons and old towels.  Two people hold the ends of a towel.  Toss the balloon to two other players. See which team can keep their balloon from popping.  You can also play this game using a volleyball net and score it like volleyball.
12. Play Descriptive Initials.  Sit in a circle.  You must introduce the player sitting next to you by using their initials to describe that person.  (ex. "On my right is John Smith who is Just Smart.")
13. Allow about five minutes for each family or person to make up a rhyme about themselves.  When they are called upon they must stand and recite the poem.  (ex. My name is Jill Stone.  I love to play chess.  But don't give me a moan if I wear an ugly dress.)
14. Play "Who wants to be a Millionaire".  Use questions about ancestors and family members.  Use 100,000 Grand bars as the prizes.
15. Set up your own miniature golf course in the church or park.
16. Have an outline of a body drawn on a piece of papers taped to the wall.  Have each person mark a place were they have a scar on the paper body.  Then have the players tell the story about how they got that scar.
17. Balloon Volleyball - age level 6 and up.  Tie string between two posts, five feet high.  Choose up sides.  Let the children bat a balloon back and forth over the string.  Points are lost if the balloon touches the ground or goes below string.
18. Silhouettes - pin a number of large sheets of paper to a wall and arrange a light to project a shadow.  As people come, trace their profile.  Number each paper and have the people guess who is who.
19. Lovers Leap - Divide into partners.  Form a circle within a circle with one of the partners in opposite circles.  At a signal from the host, the circles begin circling in opposite directions.  The host calls out one of five different positions.  The  partners rush from wherever they are now located to find each other and get into the position called.  The last couple is out.  Five positions are: 1. Monkey on the back - one jumps on the others back like a piggy back.  2. Chicken in the coop - both partners on all fours with one on top of the other.  3. Sailor - one partner kneels with one knee up, the other one sit on the knee and salutes.  4.  Bridge - one person lays flat on the ground, the other one arches over like a bridge.  5. Lovers Leap - one jumps into the arms of the other.  Note: The caller can call more than one position at a time.
20. Thimble Game 
    One person fills a thimble with water (can use a squirt bottle or bottled water cap). He chooses a category (colors, flavors of ice cream, holidays ,farm animals ,zoo animals, shapes, numbers-between 1&25, etc.) aloud. Then he silently makes a choice from that category (blue, chocolate, Christmas, pig, elephant, square, seven, etc.). He then gives each member of the group a chance to guess what he is thinking. The "lucky" winner gets the water in his face.   The person who gets the water in their face is now in the middle. Try this with gospel categories: Modern day prophets, Books of the Old Testament, Articles of Faith, tribes of Israel, etc.
21. I’ve never….. (circle game)
    Recruit Players.  Gather a group of at least five people
    Get Chairs/Seats. Gather enough chairs or seats for the amount of players minus one. For example, if you have ten players you will have nine seats.
    Make a Circle. Make a circle or an enclosure with the chairs. Leave enough room for some shuffling or some running around inside the circle.
    Pick. Pick one person to be the first to go.
    Begin. Have that person stand in the middle of the circle and have the rest of the players sit in the seats.
    Make a Statement. The person in the middle will now say "I've never" and will then say something that he/she has never done. (Example:  I’ve never been fishing)
    Switch Chairs. Everyone who HAS done what the person in the middle has not done must get up and find a new seat. The person in the middle will also take a seat. One person will be left without a seat, and that person will now say what they have never done.

    
    

    **ELASTIC BAND GAME (sewing instuctions):

    Buy 1.5 yds. of lycra (swimsuit material)

    Match the salvage edges together (the sides that sometimes have little holes in them...just the parts that are more finished than the others)

    Now you have a rectangle.

    Mark the halfway point of the fold with a pin and mark the halfway point on your salvages (it should be about 27").

    Using your ruler and your cutter, put your ruler along the pins and cut it.

    Using a zigzag stitch or a serger, sew the salvages together. 

    Take the two pieces and sew one side of the salvages together. 

    Lay it out (to make sure it's not twisted) and then pin and sew the other salvages together.

    
    

Reunion ideas to help increase knowledge of your family's history

1. Bring a world map and have all the family members that have served a mission put a sticker on where they served.
2. Dress up like an ancestor and tell a story from their life.
3. Visit an ancestors grave and tell a short life history of that person.
4. Have small pictures of ancestors and let each person make a family tree picture.
5. Make up a song about your family to a familiar tune.
6. Present a skit or a play about an ancestor.
7. Have a family slide show or make a video and then show it 5 or 10 years later.
8. Have some people share a childhood memory.
9. Tell some short stories about family members and play a game to guess to whom the story belongs.
10. Bring a typed story about your life with copies to exchange.
11. Bring family group sheets and histories to exchange.
12. Get current addresses/emails of all family members.
13. Have each family bring a history from the past year and compile it into one binder.
14. Scrapbook display.
15. Display a big paper genealogy tree.
16. Take pictures of your reunion, nominate a historian each year to make a scrapbook.  Be sure to bring the scrapbooks each year to see how people have changed.
17. Have someone write a short history of an ancestors life.  Use songs as well as script as you tell the story.  Example: (Sing "Lullaby baby" when you talk about their birth, a baptism song when telling about how they were baptized in a river.
18. Have a few people tell a memory they have of an ancestor you are honoring.
19. Go to a place that has meaning in your family history. (A city or place your family lived in or helped establish.)
20. Have family members write their personal testimony and seal it in an envelope.
21. Sing together using a guitar or harmonica.
22. Tie a quilt and raffle it to make money for next years reunion.  The quilt could be plain, or have family pictures on it. You could have a signature quilt where all people in attendance sign their name and put a favorite scripture or thought.
23. Square dancing or line dancing.
24. Make a craft (example - a rag doll like grandma played with).
25. Bring items to auction to earn money.  They could be unwanted items or new boutique like items.
26. Have aprons and collect family signatures on them.  You could also have a tablecloth that family members sign and date or have lots of colors of paint and everyone can hand stamp on the tablecloth.  Use the table cloth for many years and continue collecting signatures each year.
27. Have a special t-shirt for each person or have each family assigned to wear different colored shirts.
28. Have a family talent show.
29. Bury a time capsule and make a map so that you can dig it up in ten years or so.
30. Have a taffy pull.
31. Have name tags.
32. Have a testimony meeting.
33. Send invitations early.
34. Make a Coloring Book for children of family members (past/present) with Digital Pictures 

How to By Pam Gaulin, eHow Contributor.   You can save money on coloring books when you make your own with digital pictures. The coloring books can be made from your own digital pictures or from pictures you find online. The digital pictures can be turned into simple line drawings, similar to a page in a coloring book, by digitally removing the color from the photo you can easily turn a picture into a coloring page.

Things You'll Need:  Photo,-editing software, such as Photoshop, Printer with black ink, Plain white paper 

Instructions

1.  Select a digital photo to use to make the coloring page from your computer, an online photo album or the Internet. You also could scan in an image and turn it into a digital file.
2. Open the photo-editing software, such as Photoshop, locate the digital photo and open it. Rotate or adjust the photo to make it easier to see. Increase the view so you can get a closer look at the digital photo. 
3. Use the "Save As" feature to create a copy of the original. Name it something simple and easy to remember, like the name of the photo plus the word "copy."
4. Change the "Mode" from "Color" to "Grayscale"; the photo will lose its color and turn gray.
5. Adjust the brightness of the image if it appears extremely dark.
6. Go to "Filter," then "Sketch," and choose "Photocopy." Adjust the "Detail" and "Darkness" settings by moving the arrows. Try different settings until the image resembles a coloring page.
7. Go to "Image," and select "Image Size," and adjust the image so that it fits on a letter-size piece of paper. Print the image
8. Read more: How to Make a Coloring Book With Digital Pictures | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2311270_make-coloring-book-digital-pictures.html#ixzz1taFEopu5

THEMES to help plan your family reunion:

Little Cousins Reunion" Idea (see below): Invitation and Memory Book Samples






1. Little Cousin Reunions: As our children have so many places to go with family traditions around holidays and even summer reunions….we decided to try to have a party for our grandkids once a season.  These seasonal cousin parties have come to be what we call “Little Cousin Reunions”, meaning the cousins are really little.  We give the reunions silly names like, Halloween Hullabaloo, Wacky Winter Wall-Up, Wing Ding Spring Thing, and Summer Flummer. We name the food silly seasonal names and create seasonal games and activities out of stuff we have around, like cardboard boxes. We also give the activities silly seasonal names. It seems that the most popular item of the seasonal get together is the personal invitation we send to each child in the mail.  All of the silly things are listed along with pictures of the kids sometimes. I don’t know what the kids will remember about these parties….but it seems to me that the invitation creates the fun before it even begins and is the most memorable thing of the event. There is a good chance that the Grandkids may mention the Cousin Party invitations when they speak at my funeral.   When the kids are old enough, we do pioneer activities (including the making of journey bread) for the Summer Flummer.  We go to a site called FamilyFun.com (Family Fun Magazine) where they have endless ideas for games, activities, treats and meals made out of simple easy stuff from around the house.  The recipes and activities are all crafted for specific seasons and Holidays.
2. "Hour" family is great...decorate with clocks, play timed games
3. Come have a Ball...decorate with sports items, play volleyball, baseball, etc
4. Our family is "Egg-cellent" or "Egg-ceptional"...play egg toss game, hunt for plastic eggs with clues or prizes, serve omelets or chicken.  Hollow out eggs and decorate them like people, etc
5. We have Tree Mendous Roots...decorate with trees or sit under a tree for stories
6. We belong to a Beary Important Family...decorate with bears, serve cinnamon bears; make hoagies to look like a bear.
7. The (family name) Gang's Here...Sing the song "The Gang's all Here"
8. Follow in the Footsteps of our Ancestors...decorate with shoes, play shoe golf by using the opening of your shoe as the hole.
9. Our Family Recipe for Success...recipe exchange, family cookbook, tasting table
10. Three cheers for the (family name) family...decorate with cheerleading items.
11. Making "Hiss-tory"...make clay snakes, cinnamon roll snakes, decorate old ties to look like snakes
12. Happiness is having you in the Family...use smiley faces, serve watermelon
13. Our Family Tree...draw paper family trees
14. "Easel-y" the best family...Draw and color life size people
15. Get the Scoop about the (family name) clan...make homemade ice cream
16. Have a 20's, 50's, 70's party...choose a year that is of importance to a family member you are honoring. (birth year, marriage year, etc)
17. Have a state or country party...choose a place an ancestor lived or served a mission, etc.  (ex. Idaho = pass the potato game, see who can peel a potato the fastest, make potato cars with carrot wheels, gum drop lights, have a potato bar.  Mexico=Tacos, piñata)
18. Have objects as a theme...Brooms=play broom games, stick horse races, make broom people for play, sweep a can to a goal, stick-pull, broom hockey;   Ropes=jump rope, tug of war, cowboy lasso, snake cinnamon rolls in a bag.