New Year Primary Activity

A couple months ago, I did a New Year primary activity with the girls from church. I wanted it to just be a fun activity for the girls to experience a lot of fun tricks and challenges. I decided to call it our Primary Activities Initiation, but you could do it any time of the year and call it something else. I gave them each a checklist of things to do for their initiation, and gave them exciting names. They were so confused when I passed out the checklists, and it was awesome! Haha! You can download the checklist and worksheet at the bottom of this post. I’ll explain what each of the checklist items are, so you can do this activity yourself.

Predict the Future

This whole activity came about because I wanted the girls to write down some fun predictions of what their lives would be like in the year 2050. I wrote a letter to myself in 5th grade of what I would be doing in 2020, and it’s pretty hilarious for me to read now. I showed them my letter, which was all about how I was going to be a rich and famous actress with “about two kids” and gave them this worksheet to fill out. This was a little difficult for the younger ones, but they figured it out. After we finished, we sealed them in envelopes with their names that said “Do not open until 2050.” They took them home, and will hopefully have some fun with them in 20 years. The last line is to sign their name on.

After doing the letters I split the group of 14 in half (you only need to do this if the group is large). The person helping me managed the “walk the tightrope” and the “through the looking glass” because those ones took the longest. I managed the next five activities, then we switched groups, and came back together at the end to do the Primary Activity Girl’s call together.

Walk the tightrope

For this one, you need a rope or thick string and a pair of binoculars. A jump-rope works great! Lay the rope in a straight line across the floor. Have each child walk across the rope, like she’s walking on a tightrope, while holding the binoculars to their eyes the wrong direction (looking through the large end). It makes it feel like you are super high up, and it’s hard to walk across without stepping off the rope.

Go through the looking glass

For this, you’ll need a small mirror (preferably with a stand), paper, and a pen. Draw the shape below on a piece of paper.

Put a different piece of paper on a table, and angle the mirror so you can see yourself drawing on it through the mirror. Use the piece of paper with the shape drawn on it to cover the child’s hand, and they have to draw the shape while only looking at the mirror. It’s super hard to draw when everything is reversed in the mirror!

Lose control of your arms

This was such a fun one to do, and the girls were amazed. You can find a doorway to use both arms or just a wall for one arm. Stand next to the wall with your arms at your sides. Lift and push your arm(s) up against the wall as if you are trying to fly but can’t get the through the wall. Keep pushing against the wall for 30 seconds. Step away from the wall and relax your arms. They will begin to float on their own. Here’s a YouTube video to show you what I mean.

Break a leg

This is another one that you need a wall for. With your arms at your sides, lean with your shoulder and foot against a wall. Try to lift the other foot without your shoulder coming off of the wall, and you’ll find that you can’t. Here’s a video that I cued up at the 23 second mark.

Make invisible string

For this one, have each of the girls line up. One by one, have them make a fist, point their two index fingers out, and separate them. Then tell them to pretend you’re wrapping an invisible string around their fingers and they will slowly come back together. This worked on most of the girls, but some of them didn’t budge. Here’s a video to show you how it’s done.

Make a glass wall

I couldn’t find a video for this one. It’s just something I was taught by a friend in elementary school, so hopefully I can explain it right. If it doesn’t work, maybe you can replace this one with something else. All you do is press both of your hands together with the fingers lined up. Then, with the tips of your fingers and the base of palms still touching the entire time, you bend your fingers at the joint that meets your hand quickly over and over again. If done correctly, it will start to feel like you have a window between them.

Numb your fingers

This one is also sometimes called “dead finger,” but I thought “numb” sounded a little less gruesome. You put your hand up to someone, like you’re giving them a high five. Line up your fingers and then use your other hand to rub the fingers that are together up and down. It will make you feel like you have a numb finger. Here’s the video for this one.

Learn the Primary Activity Girl’s call

After we finished the other activities, I gathered everyone back together to learn the Primary Activity Girl’s call. This is just a fun, slightly annoying noise I learned to make as a girl scout. You can use any noise you like, but I like that this one is made using the word “girl.” Basically, you put your hand in a loose fist, put your lips through the end of your fist that has your thumb and pointer finger, and say the word “girl.” You have to really enunciate it for the funny sound to come through. Here’s a video. He puts his pinky up for some reason, but you don’t need to do that.

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After that, I had them hold up their completed checklists, and enthusiastically said, “Welcome to 2022 primary activities!” The girls were so pumped and excited! It was great!

Click here to download the checklist and worksheet. I uploaded them as Word documents so you can edit them as you like.

Click here to check out my other Primary Activity Days Ideas!