Every six months in April and October our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints holds General Conference. It’s a wonderful weekend of spiritual messages that leave each of us feeling refreshed and uplifted.

General Conference consists of four two hour sessions. As you can imagine can get a little hard for the little ones to stay focused. Over the years we’ve found some effective ways to keep kids focused so that everyone can enjoy the messages being shared. There are a few things I have learned over the years on how to prepare for general conference so everyone in the family has a good experience.

Young Kids

For the younger kids, I put together General Conference Packets which include word searches, bingo templates, coloring pages, and more. These pages go in a folder which each child gets at the beginning of the conference.

Pro tip: laminate your pages and use a dry erase marker so you can reuse them next conference.

In the past, I have also cut up pictures of temples, apostles, prophets, or pass along cards and turn them into puzzles that the kids can do during the sessions.

As an incentive to help them stay reverent I have purchased reward charts and stickers. If I noticed them being particularly reverent they would earn a sticker. Each time they filled a row with stickers, they would earn a treat. This is so helpful with little ones who have short attention spans and need some extra motivation to be reverent.

Older Kids and Teens

Our older kids and teens are a better at paying attention so we ask them to take notes. This helps them focus on each speakers message.

Printables

Here are some links to printables we like to print out and include in our packets.