LDS Activity Idea - Hollywood Squares

We played this game at our stake Relief Society commemoration and it was a blast! You can easily use this idea for any church activity including stake, ward, young women and men, priesthood, or primary.

Preparation
You will need 12 participants: 9 squares, 2 contestants, and 1 host while everyone else is the audience. If you'd like you can pick a theme for the game, we used a Relief Society theme of course, but you could use anything, such as prophets, church history, pioneers, temples, Book of Mormon, church doctrine, etc. Or you could just go with your basic overall church knowledge and have questions about any LDS topic.

For the people who are playing your nine squares you could have them dress up as LDS church characters such as prophets, Relief Society presidents, Book of Mormon Characters, etc. Our nine R.S. presidents were dressed up and they did a fabulous job because they had the entire stake roaring with some of the acting they did.

Make signs for each of your squares (make sure they're large enough for the audience to see) even if you're just using their real names, this way the two contestants will know who to pick during the game.

Put together a list of questions (with answers) to use during the game. You can give a copy of the list to your nine squares ahead of time and then have them choose to give a correct or wrong answer. You will need at least 20 questions per round. One round of play could take anywhere from 15-45 minutes (depending on the length of the answers given by each square), so if you want to play more rounds make sure you have enough questions for each round. For ready made questions see these resources:

• 30 Question Relief Society Quiz (Printable)
• 30 Question Relief Society Quiz (Online)
• 15 Question Relief Society Quiz
• Quizzes/Tests

Make nine signs (large enough for the audience to see) of an X on one side and an O on the other. A piece of cardstock attached to a stick works great. This PDF file has some ready made signs you can use:

• Black X O and 2 Other Colors

The seating arrangement for the 9 squares should be three rows of three. You will need to setup their chairs in a way that everyone can see them. Our stake did the following: Bottom row on the gym floor, second row of chairs were placed on a plywood base that was placed on top of steel legged tables, third row on the gym stage. You could also just use chairs on the floor, but move each row slightly over to the right or left so that you can see each square. Our stake also added yellow lights (the kind in tubes) around each square, but that's a lot of work and I think it took them several hours to get it to work right.

For your two contestants you could have them dress up to go with your theme, or just have them be themselves. Our R.S. had them play "Patty Perfect" (one of the sisters) and "Peter Priesthood" (who was a member of our Stake Presidency and the only brother there.) Before beginning the host read a brief description about each one:

• "Patty Perfect" and "Peter Priesthood" (page four of this article which is hilarious by the way, so even if you aren't going to use it I'm sure you'll enjoy a good laugh by reading it.

) You will need a place for the two contestants and host, preferably on an angle half facing the squares and half facing the audience this way the contestants can see the squares (and vice versa) and the audience can see everyone. Our group used a podium with microphone for the host and placed small tables and chairs to each side for the contestants.

Directions
To play the game have your host introduce each square and the two contestants. Next have them explain the rules so everyone knows how the game goes. Assign X's to one contestant and O's to the other. Choose one of the two contestants to go first. They start by picking a square, the host reads a questions TO THE SQUARE who must then answer the question (they can give brief, humorous remarks to go with it if you want). The contestant who picked the square THEN states whether they believe the answer given by the square is TRUE or FALSE. If they choose correctly the square they picked raises their sign to be the X or O of the contestant. If they chose WRONG the square does NOT raise their sign, the other contestant must pick that square on their turn and answer correctly before receiving their X or O. (For a quick round you can play so that the other contestant receives the square if their opponent chose incorrectly except for winning squares.)

The first contestant to create a Tic-Tac-Toe (three x's or o's in a diagonal, horizontal, or vertical row) wins. If there is a tie (no tic-tac-toe) you can play a round of "Sudden Death" where each contestant picks a square who answers a question. The first contestant to wrongly choose a square's answer loses, although both contestants must be given a chance to go, so if BOTH choose wrong then another round of "Sudden Death" is played.

Submitted by: Debbie Coleman