Picture Concentration Matching Game: Younger, I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ

Twelve pieces of colored paper.  Twelve numbers in a grid. Six matches underneath those colored papers.

Even just looking at this display in the front of the room will excite the younger children! When you tell them the rules, immediately start singing and tapping children on the shoulder to come up and help you find the matches.  Here are the rules:

1.  When I tap you on the shoulder, come up and choose two numbers, like 3 and 7.  We will then lift up those papers to see if the pictures under them match each other.

2.  If they don’t match, you try to put the memory of the pictures on your inside chalkboard in your head, and we put the colored paper back over the pictures.

3  If they do match, we leave the paper off.

(Notice the rules are short and simple so that you can start right into the activity.)

I pull pictures from lds.org media and print off two of each.  I look for pictures that show a child making covenants, learning about the gospel, and following Jesus.  I look of pictures of Jesus Christ. Because there are 12 spots, I only need 6 pictures (with two copies each). You could even use the picture on the front of the Sharing Time Outline and make another copy.

You sing the song over and over again as the children come up and try to find the matches when you tap them on the shoulder. Often you will sing the song two or three or four times through before the children are able to match all the pictures.  That’s exactly what you want!  The children need to hear the whole song several times before they ever start to sing it.  That creates a whole unit in the brain for that song. Then, when they learn exact words or rhythms for the song, they have a place to hook it in to their memory.  Children need to hear the whole song, then learn the parts, then sing the whole song.