Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Book of Mormon Treasure Hunt
When I saw this amazing treasure map and accompanying reading charts for the Book of Mormon, I decided I wanted to try it. Last year’s stake challenge to read the Book of Mormon within the year, marking all the names of Christ, motivated Amy to read it from Jan 1 - April 7th, Adam before his baptism, and Natalie and me by the end of the year... and I want to keep them going.
Though it was a bit of work, I’m willing to do that to help get my kids into the scriptures, and to keep it exciting.
Swab The Deck: we raced around the chairs, sweeping a balloon as we went.
I painted my own treasure map where our little ships will move from section to section in the Book of Mormon. It is not a race, but I wanted to help the kids feel progress as they move on the map. I hope it will also help them make it through the tougher reading sections.
Here we are lined up and ready to start. (I couldn’t leave out Tyler and Mark.) I found a ship I liked online, printed and cut out pics of our faces, pasted them onto the ships, and laminated them. Then I stuck them on the map with painter’s tape, which hopefully won’t rip off the paint. So far, so good.
To help them not just hurry through the scriptures, I made each of them a scripture journal where they can write down the “treasures” they find as they read. I used Natalie’s old, empty school notebooks, pasted black cardstock on front and a trimmed down placemat from Oriental Trading. I also pasted a mini Book of Mormon over the skull and crossbones since I’m not a fan of that. I taped down all the edges, and wrote the title with glitter glue.
I also prepared a set of 10 scrolls for each child. When they complete a section in the Book of Mormon, they get a scroll, which has a word game (a “clue”) to discover a principle taught in that section of the Book of Mormon. HERE is my summary of these, and HERE are all of the challenges, reformatted to fit 2 per page, and modified to work for my family rather than a Primary. I tied up each scroll with scraps of ribbon, and put each into a bag for each child (so they’ll be easy to find).
At the bottom of each scroll is a secret message, written in invisible ink, which gives them a challenge to apply that principle right away. (The principle from 1st Nephi is sacrifice, so they are challenged to sacrifice for someone else that week.) I bought a set of invisible ink pens from Amazon that had UV lights on the end. One of them didn’t work, so I returned them, but I liked how fine the pen was. The next kind I tried was a felt-tip pen, which was a lot thicker. I also bought a UV flashlight for them to use to reveal their challenge. Pretty fun stuff!
After completing each invisible ink challenge, they report back to me to receive a gem or two. Each gem is labeled with a letter, which in the end will spell the greatest treasure we receive from Heavenly Father:
The summary also tells which gems to give when. When I reward the gem, I also give them their next reading chart. They will also move their ship to the next section on the map.
I used supplies I had on hand. I painted the map using acrylic paints on brown packing paper that came with some items I ordered online. (It soaked up a lot of paint!) I sketched an idea of what I wanted, pulled up a bunch of treasure maps I liked on my computer screen, then just made it up as I went. I mixed up paints to get the various colors, which most of the time worked (the water was challenging). I started with a light brown background, added a dark blue border, and blue sea water outside that.
Then I added various shades of green, and landmark features I wanted in each section. I’m no artist (I wished for two of my mission companions’ talents), but love that this type of map lends itself to kid-like art anyway. Most of the landmarks had something to do with the events in that part of the Book of Mormon:
Map Details
mountains in 1st Nephi plus tents and a Tree of Life, a wilderness in 2nd Nephi, a forest in Enos,
“waters” in Mosiah, fields in Alma 1-31 complete with sheep for Ammon and a spot for buried weapons (next pic),
cities in Alma 32-63 (and a Title of Liberty)... for Helaman, I painted “rockies” since it was a rocky time.
a volcano, lightning cloud, mountains, rocks and a temple, and Christ appearing in 3 Nephi (I wanted that to be a focal point of the map), “war lands” next to a hill in Mormon, and a cove for Ether with Jaredite boats and 16 stones.
I painted a red X for us to travel to after completing the entire book. When they reach this, and get all of their gems, I will give them their final letter.
I love how the Book of Mormon turned out at the top of the map. I made a treasure box with dots of glitter glue for the gold. I put a dot of gold glue on each section of the map as well.
I hung the map in our library where we normally display the kids’ artwork.
Book of Mormon Treasure Hunt Party Kick-Off a.k.a. Pirate Party
I wanted to start the program off with a bang, and to get the kids excited to start reading. So I decided to have a cool pirate-themed party (minus the skull & crossbones). Talking about this totally got the kids excited for the kick-off.
We held this on January 1st - a holiday, so Jon was there and it wasn’t a busy school day.
I helped the kids dress up like pirates - Jon’s big shirts, belts, eye patches I made from scrap faux leather and elastic, cups and foil hooks (since everyone insisted on having a hook). Amy made her own peg leg, which cracked me up!
Discovery Dinner
Menu: fish and chips (I went with quick and easy fish sticks, and never got around to baking up potato slices), oranges for scurvy, which I made into Book of Mormon treasure hunting ships.
I didn’t have enough small bowls for everyone to have their own, but I thought it looked cooler dished out onto their plates since it looked like waves of water rather than a calm sea.
Pirate Games
Cannonball Blast: we tried to pop everyone else’s balloon. I didn’t inflate them enough, so most were impossible to pop!
Cannonball Attack -- Girls vs. Boys: they had 1 minute to throw as many paper cannonballs onto the other “ship” as possible. The girls creamed the boys, which resulted in a grumpy Andrew.
Walk The Plank: I really wanted a cool plank, but didn’t have time, so just let the kids try walking the line with their eye patches on.
By the time I grabbed my phone, this little pirate got distressed.
Book of Mormon Treasure Hunt Intro
The kids love fish sticks (which we don’t get often), and were ecstatic about their cool boats and “sea water”!
Treasure Hunt
To lead into the point of all this, I sent the kids on a treasure hunt throughout our house. I used pirate lingo in the notes, and attached a gold coin to each, so they’d know it was the clue.
I sent them from the laundry room to the dollhouse in the girls’ room, to Davy Jones’s... or Andrew’s locker, and to the piano where they found our antiqued Book of Mormon.
That last clue instructed them to go into the library (where Amy set up kids’ couches and chairs) for our Book of Mormon Treasure Hunt Introduction.
I handed each child their poem-invitation to start reading the Book of Mormon in a plastic bottle. It turns out, that cutting these open with scissors is a monstrous task (even for Jon), though he successfully removed all 4 letters using sure grit!
I wrote a note in invisible ink for each of them at the bottom of their letter so they could try out the UV flashlight and get excited about their next clue.
This is when they received their “Book of Mormon Treasures” journals, which have a pocket inside holding their first reading chart. I hope to remember to invite kids during Family Home Evening to share the treasures they find.
I also gave them each a cheap treasure box from Oriental Trading to hold the gems they will earn. I bought these before knowing that Grandpa Gary was making them real, really awesome treasure boxes for Christmas! They’ve had fun with the cheap ones anyway, and they are cheap (easily breakable).
And that was that. The party ended when we heard someone outside our home stuck in the snow. Jon jumped to their aid with his tough truck.
Before the kids scattered, I bore my testimony to them and shared how much I want them to read the scriptures and love them. I think it was all pretty awesome. Now to encourage the continued reading!
Treasure map
Labeled ships to move
Painter’s tape
Treasure journals
Scrolls with principles and challenges
Labeled gems
Treasure boxes to store their loot
Summary of Supplies
Update: 2/15/13. It takes a long time to make it through each section, so it really feels like an accomplishment to make it to the first scroll. The kids were each so excited to decode the first clue and receive their first gem! The map makes a great decoration in our library, and the kids like moving their ships on it. I am very pleased with how it is going.
