Family Meeting

What is it?

This outstanding article does it far more justice than I ever could. Required reading if you don't already have a sense of the concept

Our Family Journey

The big list! Hopefully this list will encourage you with lots of ideas. Sometimes we focused on learning activites, other times just fun. My biggest takeaways are it is difficult to predict how everyone's energy will be. Consistently having family meeting helps and sometimes its magical, other times its not. 1) Make a plan. 2) Adjust the plan.

  1. We started just after New Year's 2019. I sadly didn't take notes of the first one :( I can't encourage you enough to jot down notes - the memories become epic
  2. I knew we were onto something and wanted to establish a routine. I decided we would rotate leaders, a la F3. I set our purpose as "to plan, dream, reflect and have fun". We started with a theme, lesson, activity, discuss weekly schedule and song
  3. Eli lead. We built an electromagnet. It caught on fire!
  4. Activity was name 10 cats. Order them largest to smallest. Which ones have spots? Trying to teach about basic categorization
  5. Activity: Charades. Epic!
  6. Learn: Mom/Dad's phone numbers. Practiced Fire drill. The big guys left their little bro (3 at the time) during one of the drills. This is why we practice :)
  7. Theme: Man in the Arena
  8. I shared my faith journey
  9. Activity: Dream workshop (didn't actually do it). I don't recall exactly why but there's a good lesson - when the leader doesn't have good energy, just cancel. Not sure if I learned it here or later but it's a good lesson.
  10. Game: Gorilla beats the man, man beats the gun, gun beats the gorilla
  11. Theme: Honesty. We talked about my failing business ideas, our financial situation and the 75hard challenge. Activities: Counting in Roman Numerals, Long Jump. Not having a day job leads to Dad having lots of time to plan
  12. Challenges: Name as many Presidents as you can. I don't have the actual written down but I think it was 10 or so. Games: Minute to win it. Stack as many pennies as you can as tall as you can in a minute.
  13. Inspirational videos began: Running and readingGame: Pictionary
  14. Really finding my Dad game now. I created a google slide preso (thank you internet for free digital storage!). Theme: Routines, specifically tooth brushing. Song: You'll be Back. New concept: Big Moments in Sports - we rewatched epic moments from sports history, starting with the Cavs miracle title down 3-1.
  15. Checked in on Roman Numerals and phone number memory. Big moment in sports: Super Bowl XLII
  16. Cheesey Dad mode. Prepping for a new school year, let's Launch! Big moment in sports: Usain Bolt 9.58
  17. My last slide show. A riveting presentation on eyes. We did a vision test which was a real hit and watched Clemson down Bama
  18. 4 things to do with money: Give, Save, Spend, Invest. Mostly remember this one for the song selection at the end.
  19. Started watching classic TV shows: American Gladiators, then homemade obstacle course for time: This is often referred to as the greatest family meeting of all time (yet!)
  20. A review - how is family meeting going, what's the best one? American Gladiators/obstacle course. Worst? Brushing teeth one. Big moment in sports: Zlatan
  21. Classic TV shows: Price is Right Then we played our own version with stuff around the house:
  22. Theme: Never stop learning. How to do a perfect pushup. Practice emergency drills. Hold your breath challenge
  23. The improv one. Probably got carried away here. Chicken or Egg was a runaway favoriteAccepting Circle Alien, Tiger, Cow, Chicken or Egg
  24. 2011 year in review. We pulled up Apple Photos and went through the whole year. Pretty stinkin fun
  25. Classic shows: Family Matters. Name all the characters Who’s the funniest character? What was the lesson from the show? Which character did you relate to the most? Why? What do you think will happen next?
  26. Activity: Build a family tree up to great grandparents. Did this while my parents were in town. Great to involve them in family meeting and we had anyone who knew the relative tell a story about them. I heard several stories for first time.
  27. All about legs. Learned the major muscles and bones that make up the legs. Fun video of what strong legs can do. Song: ZZ Top ... Legs
  28. NATO Phonetic Alphabet. They got 23/26 right after just one round of practice.
  29. I really thought this was going to be awesome, but it fell flat. Index cards, numbered 1 to 20 Shuffled -> sort them in order 7,9,2,4,1,3,11,14,20,16,19,13,10,5,8,6,18,15,17,12 -> sort them in order in fewest number of moves Shuffled -> 60 seconds to sort them with one hand. Starting with 1, how many consecutive can you get?