Mutual Activity Ideas

Looking for some good ideas for mutual activities? I wanted to share some of the Young Women activities we’ve done recently. Hopefully, it will give you some good mutual activity ideas too.

Mutual activities don’t have to cost a lot of money. In fact, they really shouldn’t! They also shouldn’t be difficult to plan, for either the kids or the leaders.

I don’t have many pictures because I didn’t ask parents if I could include their kids.  Also, I wasn’t doing any of these activities with a blog post in mind–but if you have any questions, let me know!

If you’re in a position where you need some activity ideas, try out one of these.

Family Feud Mutual Activity 

Create your own “survey” questions, or pick from this list of church-related and questions.

Family Feud Questions 

To make a game board, cut 3 sides of a square in a piece of posterboard.  Fold back the large square flap and cut into 4 strips.  Line the edges of the “hole” with duct tape and attach a small piece of tape on the end of each flap.  

This will keep the flaps closed, but the tape will pull off each time you need to reveal an answer.

Write all your answers on a long roll of paper.
Pull the paper down so you can see it through your posterboard “window.”  Write each answer where it will be covered by one of the flaps. I used a marker to make sure it would be readable from a distance.

Pull the paper down more and do the answers for the next question.  Make sure you do this in the same order that you have your questions/ answers written out!

Set the board up on a table or something where it can hang down and the answer roll can be pulled down behind it, revealing the answers when you pull back the flaps.

We had ours set up on a rolling chalkboard. Cover the rest of the roll of answers with another piece of posterboard or sheet or something so they can’t be seen beforehand.

Split the kids into two teams and play Family Feud.

Recycled Arts Mutual Activity

Collect lots of boxes, cans, bottles and containers (rinsed and dried) and separate them out into several trash bags.  Divide kids into groups of 4-6 people and give them at least 2 bags, a pair of scissors and a roll of masking tape.

You should also have other items available like more boxes, construction paper, markers, etc.

Give each team an envelope with a famous movie title in it that hopefully, most people have seen.  (We did things like Harry Potter, Elf, Wall-E, Finding Nemo.)  

Then they are supposed to use their items to create characters or a scene, or something that represents that movie.

One of our groups made Wall-E, one group made a New York City skyline, and another built a Quidditch Pitch.

Provide silly prizes and awards if you want.

Cupcake Decorating with Young Women

There are tons of easy cupckae ideas online, but this can be a great activity to ask an outside expert to come teach!

We had frosting, cupcakes, and several kinds of candies and other toppings. We learned how to make apples, snowmen, grass, different bugs and animals, and then everyone got to experiment with a few cupcakes.

This activity can also be “holiday specific.” Make Christmas themed cupcakes or spooky Halloween cupcakes. Be sure to provide paper plates for taking the cupcakes home, and clean up the tables well so they don’t stay sticky!

Chopped Youth Activity

This “mystery box” cooking competition doesn’t actually eliminate any teams….or involve any cooking.  But we had a blast!  Teams were assigned to create one dessert and one non-dessert with their items.

When asked if they had to use every item, we said it could be worth extra points (but then we actually didn’t do any points!)

We had 3 teams of 5 girls each, and they got the following food items:
Box 1–Strawberries, banana bread, 1 can beans, 1 can corn, mint patties, animal crackers, string cheese, tortilla chips
Box 2–Strawberries, banana bread, tomatoes, cream cheese, cucumber, spinach, graham crackers, chopped chocolate
Box 3–Strawberries, banana bread, chocolate pudding, coconut, refried beans, tortillas, Oreos, cheddar cheese

They all got a cutting board, 2 steak knives (I didn’t want anyone brandishing giant cleavers 🙂  2 bowls and 2 plates.

Then everyone had access to: salt, pepper, sugar, butter, olive oil, utencils, a can opener, the microwave and a blender.

Want to know what they all came up with?  I really wish I’d gotten pictures of all their creations, but I just wasn’t thinking of that at the time!

What chopped group 1 made

Box 1–They made a dip by blending then microwaving their beans and string cheese together and adding the corn.  They melted the mint patties, dipped the strawberries in it and covered them with crushed animal crackers.

What chopped group 2 made

Box 2–They cut the tops of their tomatoes, scooped them out to make a little cup and filled it with a salad of spinach, strawberries and cucumber.  

They mixed cream cheese with sugar, formed it into a ball and rolled it in chopped chocolate to serve with banana bread slices and graham cracker pieces.

What chopped group 3 made

Box 3–They made a bean and cheese burrito with spinach on the side and a chilled pie where the crust was made from banana bread crumbs, butter and coconut, and the filling was pudding with crushed Oreos mixed in.

Leaders sampled all the items and we said what we loved about each one…no actual judging.

Girls then ate their own creations.  Then it was time for clean up. We closed with a message about making our activity an analogy for life.

We can look at the different ingredients as blessings and gifts (or challenges in some cases) that we’ve been given, and God can help us combine those into something wonderful.  

Ingredients can also represent people who may not seem to “go together” but often in unexpected ways we end up better because of each other.

Teen Clothing Swap

Girls brought all kinds of clothing and accessories…jewelry, scarves, even shoes that they (or sisters or even moms) weren’t using any more and we set everything out on tables.

Girls drew numbers to determine who would get first pick.  We did a few different rounds: 1 through 8 pick one item, then go backwards, 8 through 1 pick 2 items, etc.  Then everyone got to pick 2 things, then 2 more, and then…grab whatever you want.

This way I think everyone got a few things that they really wanted.  It was fun to watch them offering suggestions to each other on what might fit or look good.

They also gave ideas on how to alter something a little so that it could fit them better.

Will you use some of these mutual activity ideas? Do you have any good ideas to add in the comments?

Don’t miss this post with even more mutual activity ideas.