Beatitude Games

A simple memory matching game is a good introduction to the Beatitudes, and it can be played with a Bible in hand to help learn them. The materials needed are a set of cards of equal size, each containing one-half of a Beatitude. Some companies manufacture and sell these cards, although they are also easy to make at home. The cards should all be laid out face down on a flat surface. During each player's turn, he or she should flip over two cards, allow all players to read them, and then turn them back over. If the two cards a player flips over match, the player gets to remove them from play and put them in front of him or her. When all cards have been removed, the player who has the most cards wins.

After being taught a lesson on the Beatitudes, a game of telephone charades is a fun way to review. Participants should divide into two single-file lines of equal length, with at least five feet between the lines. The teacher should have the players at the ends of the lines read one of the Beatitudes printed on a piece of paper. They then return to their lines, tap the next person in line on the shoulder, and have 20 seconds to act out the Beatitude without using words. Then the player who watched is the new actor, and gets 20 seconds to act out the Beatitude for the next player in line. After the players in the front of the line have seen their charade, they have to guess which Beatitude it is. Players should rotate to different spots in line and play multiple rounds, with the team scoring the most correct answers winning the game.

This variation on the game of bingo requires children to answer questions about the Beatitudes in order to cover spaces on their bingo boards. The teacher should provide each child with a bingo board, made up of a grid of squares containing the answers to a list of questions based on the Beatitudes. For example, questions could include "What will those who are merciful receive?", to which the answer is "mercy." Not all the answers should be on each board, and they should be in different locations so that no two boards are the same. The teacher should then read one of the questions and have the children look at their boards and try to figure out which of the squares may have the correct answer. Discussing their suggestions can help them to better understand the Beatitudes as they figure out the correct answer. Once the correct answer is revealed, all children with that answer on their bingo boards should cover it with a token. The first child to get a full row of tokens wins.