Scripture Hero Camp

Last year during our Cubapalooza event, I spent a lot of time talking to some of the other parents and leaders. We agreed that in our area, the cub scouts do a great job providing outdoor, practical, and hands-on activities for the boys, but they're weak on the spiritual and scriptural end of things. Our Activity Days program was the reverse - strong in spiritual aspects, but weaker on the outdoor adventure side.  "Wouldn't it be great," we mused, "if there was a way to create a hybrid activity and have both the boys and the girls attend together."

When the church announced it's official separation from the scouting program, we saw our opening and started planning a two-day Scripture Hero Camp. The basic idea behind the camp was pairing scripture stories with hands-on, related activities. Ideally, the activities would be meaningful and fun, but also provide an opportunity to bring the scripture stories to life.

It was a massive undertaking, with almost 40 kids and 32 adults participating. Despite my best efforts searching the internet and Pinterest, I couldn't find anything similar to what we envisioned, so most of what we ended up doing we had to create and plan on our own.

While certainly not without flaws, Scripture Hero Camp ended up a smashing success! We rented a nearby Youth Camp for two full days. Camp started at 9 am both mornings. We divided the 40 kids roughly by age into five groups of eight. We kept the groups mixed genders, and I loved how that worked out. The groups rotated through seven different stations. Each station lasted 55 minutes (with an additional 5 minute passing period between stations), but in future years I'd suggest making stations only 40-45 minutes. Since we had 7 stations and 5 groups, station leaders had two "free" hours during the day. I think they appreciated having some down time.

Each group also had two assigned walking leaders (we tried to be very deliberate about making sure we had two-deep leadership at all times). Station leaders were in charge of preparing to tell the story of their assigned Scripture Hero and planning, preparing, and presenting the related activity. I did learn that a surprising subset of adults don't read emails, so I highly recommend talking in person to each station leader well ahead of time to make sure everyone's on the same page.

Our chosen scripture theme for camp came from Psalm 28:7 - "The Lord is my strength and my shield." As station leaders prepared their scripture stories, we asked them to please keep the scripture theme in mind and help the kids see how the story and the lessons therein might apply to their own lives. How was the Lord a strength or a shield in the story of their scripture hero? Why was this story included in the scriptures? What does it teach us about Jesus?

My rockstar friend, Ali, designed shirts for our event. We wanted something that the kids and adults would be excited to wear after the camp, so we intentionally left off any dates or references to the specific camp. I'm thrilled to report that I see camp kids wearing their shirts all the time! I know I love wearing my shirt as well. The kids and adults all had the same logo, just different colors.

We started each day with a short opening ceremony where we discussed the rules, guidelines, and plans for the day, had an opening song (I tried to pick upbeat scripture related songs. Admittedly, not all were from the LDS songbooks), and had an opening prayer. On the first day, I asked each group to come up with a group name and a group cheer to be ready to share at lunch time. Before lunch, we met again for a brief gathering and prayer on the food. We ended each day with a closing ceremony where we again had each group give their cheer, reviewed the day and any upcoming activities, and had a closing song and prayer. 

Our Friday stations included: 

Samuel the Lamanite (the schedule says Nephi, but that's due to a communications error). In this station, the kids learned about the story of Samuel the Lamanite and then made bows and arrows out of PVC pipe, and decorated them with duck tape. Leslie, the leader of this station (and our incredibly supportive primary president), deserves a special shout out because she prepped all the bows ahead of time. With everything already cut, the kids were able to build their bows fairly quickly and had time to practice shooting.

Leslie even made a wall out of cardboard boxes with a picture of Samuel on the top!

Adam and Eve: This was a cooking station. After learning about Adam and Eve, the kids made fruit salsa. They got to cut up all the fruit and mix it together with the dressing. The station leaders pre-prepared cinnamon chips to go along with the salsa. The kids really liked this station, but the activity didn't take very long, so most groups ended up playing games with their extra time.

Theater: This was one of my favorite stations. In this station, we had a list of scripture stories for the kids to act out (some ideas included: Ammon, Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Daniel in the Lion's den, Abish, Peter's escape from prison, Helaman and the Stripling Warriors, Alma the Younger, the healing of Jairus' daughter, the Good Samaritan, etc). Each group was given two scripture story options on which to vote. Once they chose their story, they had that hour to prepare and practice a skit of their story. For the younger kids, the story options were more scripted. The older kid groups had more open-ended story options. The station leader provided a variety of prop options. Each group had a chance to perform their skit for their friends and parents Friday night at the campfire (more about that later).

Alma: In this station, the kids learned the story of Alma the Elder and how he had to flee from the wrath of King Noah. Since Alma had to wander in the wilderness, the kids learned about shelter building. They split into smaller groups and had the chance to set up tents. The older kid groups, who finished that task more quickly, also had a chance to try their hands at setting up more primitive shelters in the woods.

Open Play: One of the bits of feedback we got last year after the Cubapalooza was that the kids wanted built in time to just play. So, every day we scheduled in an open play station. We had access to a big ball field and provided a variety of play equipment like cones, kickballs, soccer balls, ropes, frisbees, and gunny sacks. Walking leaders "ran" this station for their groups, but mostly just let their kids do what they wanted. Since we live in Washington and it just happened to be the peak of blackberry season, a lot of kids spent their free time picking and eating berries. Can't say I blame them!

 

Lehi: This was an orienteering station. After learning about Lehi and his experience with the Liahona, groups had a chance to follow their own compasses and courses around camp.

Jesus: We didn't think any discussion of scripture heroes would be complete without discussing the ultimate hero, Jesus Christ. Our station leader chose to focus on the love Jesus showed for others. After talking about some examples from the scriptures, and reminding the kids that Jesus was trained as a carpenter, their activity involved making string art hearts. The kids loved getting to pound in nails and then wind their yarn. This was definitely one of their favorite stations. One of our older girls commented to me, "Everybody just wants to get to Jesus!" She was referring to the station, but I think her words had a much broader applicability.

After closing ceremonies on Friday we invited parents and families to join us for dinner. We provided paper goods and pulled pork sandwiches and asked families to bring sides (chips, fruit, salads) and dessert. After the dinner, we all made our way over to the campfire for a relatively brief program. I reviewed what the kids had done that day, each group had a chance to perform their skits (which were all AMAZING), we sang a song, and then our Bishop shared his favorite scripture story. 

I really loved being able to have the siblings and parents join us.

Saturday we were back and ready for day two! Our Saturday stations included:

David and Goliath: This is a great story for discussing the concept of the Lord being a strength and a shield! After talking about the story of David and Goliath, the kids got to practice their own sling shot skills (with marshmallows) against a life-size drawing of Goliath. The kids made their own marshmallow shooters to use against Goliath, but we also bought one semi-realistic sling off Amazon and gave each kid a chance to practice shooting large marshmallows with that sling. It's MUCH harder than it looks!

Deborah: We tried to be very intentional about including examples of women in the scriptures. In this station, the kids learned about the great leader and prophetess of the Old Testament, Deborah, then learned knife safety rules and skills. After learning the basics, they had a chance to practice their carving skills with knives (butter knives and mini-pocket knives). And if you're wondering, yes, keep lots of band-aids on hand. This was another really popular station.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: If you want to have a fire building station, of course you have to talk about these impressive young men! After learning about their story, the kids had a chance to practice building and starting their own fires. This process took a lot longer than you'd expect, but the kids loved it!

Tabitha: Tabitha was known in the New Testament for her good works, so it makes sense that her station focused on service. We partnered with a young man working on his eagle project, and it was a match made in heaven! This young man had contacted a local children's hospital and discovered they had a need for craft kits for kids. So, he provided the materials and guidance, and the kids provided the man hours for putting the kits together. All together, the kids made hundreds of beading kits and other craft kits.

 They also got to work on helping tie flannel blankets to be donated. What was even better is knowing that their efforts were going to help kids around the same age as themselves.

Nephi: This station was bow and arrows part two. Now that they'd all made their bows, they learned about the story of Nephi breaking his bow, how he was able to make a new bow, and how he had to hunt for beasts in the field. Leslie repurposed the Abinadi boxes and turned them into animals. She hid them throughout her area of the camp/forest, and the kids had a blast hunting for them and shooting them with their bows and arrows.

Esther: This was another favorite station. Partly because it was a cooking/food station and kids always love food, but mostly because Natalie, the station leader, really made the story of Queen Esther come alive. She told the story in parts and had a couple different cooking activities to correspond. First, they made apple crowns when they got to the part in the story where Esther was made queen.

Later, when Esther prepared a banquet for the king and laid bare the evil plot Haman, the kids got to make their own (trail mix) feast.

We did charge $40/kid for the camp. That covered shirts for every kid and adult volunteer, the cost to rent the camp for two days, dinner for campers and their families, plus the supplies for all the stations. We also provided drawstring backpacks for all the kids and walking leaders. Each backpack had a water bottle and a small snack for each day. I think we could have gotten away with charging around $25-$30/kid if we'd been a little tighter with the purse strings.We could obviously get rid of a lot of the extras (dinner, t-shirts, backpacks, etc.) and do it on a shoestring budget if needed.

Overall, it was such a great activity! I really hope we get a chance to do more in future years, because I have so many ideas!

A couple days after camp was over, I received this thank you note from one thoughtful camper:

That makes it all worth it!

If anyone has questions or wants more details, send me an email or comment including your email address, and I'm happy to help in any way possible.