Gum Recitation

by Susan

Introduce a short or medium length verse. Have the children study the verse on their own for a short time. Have several people around the room with a bag of bubble gum to hear each child recite the verse with the reference. After they have recited the verse to one person, they get a piece of bubble gum. They then chew the gum a little and move to another person and recite the verse again. They get another piece of gum from that person to add to the first. The goal is to see how many pieces of gum you can get in your mouth and still clearly recite the verse. Have paper towels handy! (Our top children's number is 31, the top youth number is 44!)
We do this every year. It's fame precedes itself. The new children on the first night ask when we are going to play it. The only drawback is for the children who wear braces. They have the option to be one of the people who listens and hands out gum, or recite and keep the gum for later.