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My family has hosted a Reformation Day Party each October 31st for the past 4 years. We did essentially the same thing each year (How to Throw a Reformation Day Celebration) and the kids loved it and looked forward to it, but honestly I was ready for a change.
In previous years, we basically read a children's story about Martin Luther and then stopped at different parts of the story to do a related activity. Last year I decided to come up with some different ideas. We focused more on the Reformation in general and not on Martin Luther specifically.This year we began the night by gathering the kids to read a different picture book about Martin Luther. Then we played Pin the Thesis on the Door like we have done in previous years because it's just such a big hit with all the kids! Then we went on to do three new activities that I came up with.
Gutenberg's Printing Press
We talked about how the invention of the printing press enabled Martin Luther's (and the other reformers') writings to be spread so much more quickly than they could have earlier in history.
Before the party I took foam letters and glued them backwards onto a piece of card stock, spelling out a secret message. The kids mimicked a printing press by using a small paint roller to coat the foam letters in paint and then then placed another piece of card stock on top of the inked letters and pressed it down with the help of a large book. You could spend time rigging something way more fancy, but we just kept it simple and I think it got the point across fine =)
I decided on using Ephesians 2:8 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith." That was all I could fit onto the page and I thought that it fit the message of Reformation Day quite well.
5 Solas Scavenger Hunt
Since I wanted this year to be more about the Reformation in general, I thought that an activity about the 5 Solas would be good. I made up a page for each kid that had the meaning of each of the Solas written on it. Then I read a clue that would lead the kids to a spot where they would find a cup filled with candy. Each piece of candy had a piece of paper taped around it. The paper had one of the Solas written on it. They then had to bring their paper back to the table and figure out which definition it went with. Then I gave them another clue which would lead them to another cup filled with candy that had a different Sola written on it. And so on and so forth until they received five pieces of candy and matched up the 5 Solas with their definitions.
To give you an idea of what our pages looked like, here is final answer key that I made along with the page with the blanks that I gave the kids. I think you can click on the image and copy/past into Word if you want to use this same sheet. If the quality isn't good when you do that, let me know and I can link the original document.
Match the Reformers
The last game was much more difficult. It would work for adults or any student who has studied church history. Because I didn't want to leave the kids out, I included a fun step at the beginning.
As part of our decoration for the evening, my husband created a power point with different fun and interesting Reformation Day tidbits. He printed out the slides and we hung them around the house for people to enjoy looking at. Some of the slides featured other reformers from that time in church history.
For this game, I printed two more sets of those particular signs and cut them up so that I ended up with a picture of the man, his name, and separate bullet point facts about him. I glued the picture and name of each man on a separate piece of paper and folded up the facts and put each fact in its own plastic cup.
The object of the game was to match the facts with the man, but in order to retrieve the facts you had to play a game of bouncing a ping pong ball in to the cup. The ping pong ball bouncing is the part we let the kids do! This sounds really confusing, but hopefully the pictures will clear it up.
We played girls vs boys and the kids really thought that was fun =)
As I am gearing up for this year's party, I'm not sure if I will use these games again, go back to our previous games, or a combination of the two! If I come up with any new ideas, I will definitely let you know!
Happy Reformation Day!
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