Behavior Award Games are some of our favorite "tricks" for keeping control in our children's church ministry. We gleaned this idea from Ed Dunlop's books, which we highly recommend and are glad to make available through the website.
Rather than simply handing out a quiet prize at the end of children's church, we liven things up by choosing the three best behaved children to play the behavior award game. In order to qualify, the children must...
Not go to the restroom during children's church.
After we play the review game, we select three winners: one boy, one girl, and one child of either gender. These three get to play a fun behavior award game, during which they will have the opportunity to win one or more prizes while having a great time. The entire children's church gets pretty pumped up at this exciting time (what a great way to end the day!), and everyone desires to win the opportunity to play. The result: great behavior during children's church!
An example of one such game is "Mad Dash." We lay out several small prizes (from a dozen to twenty or so, depending upon the prizes and how prosperous our treasure chest currently is) on a table across the room. These prizes are items such as school supplies, candy and snacks, hair gadgets, trinkets from Oriental Trading, and other inexpensive type treasures. We give each participant a paper bag and line them up about 20 feet away from the table with their bags opened up next to them. When we holler, "Go!" they get to race to the table and grab one prize. They race back to their bags to drop the prize in, and they continue back and forth grabbing one prize at a time. This goes on until there are no prizes left. Each one of them ends up with a small bag full of four or five prizes. The children's church kids cheer them on, and it's very exciting!
I am not going to give specific instructions for the remaining behavior award games that we use because they are copyrighted in Ed Dunlop's books. However, we do encourage you to purchase any and all of his books! They are some of THE most helpful resources for children's church workers!
However,
here
is a list of behavior award games that we came up with ourselves or that are not in Bro. Dunlop's books.