Sunday, August 7, 2011

UNO Simplified

A good friend of mine, who had recently served as the Primary chorister in her ward, had an UNO board she let me borrow.  She had made it strong and durable, I'm sure in the hopes that she would never need to make another one again.  Her Primary could have played UNO weekly for a year, and it would have stood the test of time.  Lucky me, I totally reaped the benefit of her efforts to make a long-lasting visual.

I checked out other resources (here) to find out how to make the game of UNO work in Primary... most mentioned breaking the Primary into teams, dealing out a given number of cards to each team... and so on.  My Primary is on the LARGE side (65-or-so in junior, 70+ in senior), so I am all for keeping things as simple as possible, lest control be lost to the children.  This is what I did to simplify:

I printed (and laminated... more on my favorite tool another day) the words to the song, keeping each phrase within three lines.  I added pictures for the younger children that can't read yet.
My friend's game board has two sides (wahoo!).  She had applied contact paper over both, so tape works like a charm.  I prepared for both verses of the song today, but we only got through the first verse.

I sorted my UNO cards, pulling out only the 1's, 2's, Wilds, and Skip cards (at least what I think were the Skips cards... we have a different version, called UNO H2O, so I'm not really sure what the cards mean, since I have never played it.  Ever).  And, I'll admit it, I somewhat strategically placed the cards in order in "the pile."
I would choose a helper (from our choosing sticks -- with a Primary as large as ours, I know some kids would get overlooked and NEVER be selected if I didn't use the sticks), and they would come up and draw the top card off the pile.  The Primary would then sing the phrase on the selected color, the number of times shown on the card.  The helper would remain up front to give a thumbs up (or not) if the kids did a good job singing.  (If the helper didn't think it was good enough, we would sing it AGAIN.  Imagine that.)

IF a Skip was selected, the helper would get to remove a line from the phrase on that color before we sang it.

IF a Wild was drawn, the helper got to randomly choose a WILD way of singing (from these fun action cards here), and we would sing the entire song through while in action. Trickier than it sounds, especially if you are also trying to LEAD.

I think it was a success.  Junior Primary is always a little hard to read... occasionally noisy... occasionally inattentive... but feedback from the teachers was positive, so we will continue playing another week.

Senior Primary enjoyed the game (simple as it was), and only got a little wild on the WILDCARD singing.  We will definitely play again next week, but I plan to tame the actions down.
In response to Kelli's question below, this UNO board is made on a 20x30" foam board.  Colored computer paper was cut to 7-1/2" lengths (2 sheets used per line), then glued in place.  This was done on both sides of the board (room for two verses... oh yeah), then clear contact paper covers both sides of the board, making it super easy to tape whatever words or pictures you need.  It will last for-e-ver.

13 comments:

  1. I would love to know how she made it. How big is it. I love the idea and would love to use it for this Sunday.

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  2. Could you tell me how you made your UNO cards? I love them! Thanks for the idea!!

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    1. Lori - I just used a deck of regular UNO cards for the game. The cards I have are from the UNO H2O version - which basically means they can get wet because they are plastic :-) No need for special cards, any UNO game would work.

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    2. In case Lori doesn't have UNO cards or isn't familiar with the game, make 2 cards each of a "1", "2", and "skip" on 4 colors of paper (red, yellow, green, blue). A regular deck of cards has 8 "Wilds". You can modify this for what you think would be a good number for your group. This would make a total of 32 cards.

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  3. Thank you!!! Oh, my heart aches for you with the water damage. I never realized just how much work went into singing time. This is my most favorite calling. Thanks for sharing all of your wonderful ideas.

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  4. Thank you so much for replying so quickly! I love playing UNO with my own kids, so this is a great idea! I love the look of the H2O cards... I've never seen them before. I am greatful for all your great ideas and sharing them with us. This is such a busy calling, but it's fun as well!

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  5. I would love to use the pictures that you have on your UNO poster for "The Lord Gave Me a Temple". Where can find those? I noticed that some of them are available on your flip chart, but include the words. I am just looking for the pictures.

    Kari

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    1. It's been a while since I made the flipchart. Looking over it, I used quite a few images from lds.org, some I just found online as free images, and some I had searched down from other sites (I used to turn pdf documents or images into jpegs, then crop them, so I would search through church magazines for images that would work for Singing Time... note: There are a few in the church magazines that have a notice that says "do not copy" so I didn't use any of those). I THINK I've saved most of them, and could email you the specific ones you are looking for if you would like. My email is tinasyddall@gmail.com. My photo library, however, is currently very temperamental, so I may or may not be able to access them :(

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  6. I would love to use the pictures that you have on your UNO poster for "The Lord Gave Me a Temple". Where can find those? I noticed that some of them are available on your flip chart, but include the words. I am just looking for the pictures.

    Kari

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  7. Love this simplified version of the game. It looks like the site that had the Do as I'm Doing actions is no longer active. Do you still have the actions? I'd love to have access to both the "wild" ones and the "tamer" ones. Thanks!

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    1. I updated the link to the blog where I believe I found the original ideas for the do-as-I'm-doing... hopefully that helps!

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  8. Hi Tina, I love all of your ideas! I'm not able to get any of the links to work, such as for Do As I'm Doing. Sorry to ask again, but could you send the file to me? My email is sarahg@goaslind.com.

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    1. So apparently the Do-as-I'm doing action cards are no longer available... the problem with linking to outside sources, I suppose! I have re-linked to some action cards I had made (and possibly linked somewhere else on the blog), which I believe will also do the trick, or at least give you some ideas of cards you can make to use. So sorry for the outdated links!!

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