We are trying to be creative

Working with youth in family history can be so much fun! For the last approximately 6 years, we have had “called” youth temple and family history consultants in our ward.  They are called for 1 year, so each year we get a new bunch of youth.  I am a Temple and Family History consultant with the assignment of training these wonderful youth.  We get together with them once a month for 30-45 minutes, after our Sunday meetings.  I want to share a couple of my ideas with you, in hopes that they help you or others working with youth.  First of all, I have learned that youth do not enjoy many lectures and PowerPoints; however, there is a place for them.  They want to be on computers in their own family search accounts.  We have adult consultants and sometimes parents who help with the training (one adult helper for every two youth).  
To get to know their ancestors, I have used activities such as “The Mystery of the Old Photograph” (an idea taken from activities for youth on thefhguide.com) on their family search tree.  We showed them how to search their fan chart. They picked an ancestor and went to their memories, found a photo, then read its title and description. We pointed out the different features of adding, tagging, and titling photos.  You can give an assignment, before class, to bring a picture they would like to add to their gallery.  We then showed them how to add a photo to their gallery, either on their phone or with the family history scanner. We taught them how to put in a title, tag their images, and write a description.  
*Ordinances Ready is a magical tool to use when working with youth.  There are eight simple lessons you can use with Ordinances ready.  

1.  Use the Ordinances Ready to select an ancestor.  
2. Explore: view the relationship and look at the person’s profile page to find any missing information. 
3. Notes - create notes (on family search) of missing family members (spouse, child, parent, etc.).  Create a note of missing data (birth, marriage, death, place, names, etc.).
4. Review - review sources and memories.
5. Hints and Search - Attach matching sources and search for additional records. 
6. Add and Attach  - Add family members and sources, if any. 
7. Follow - Add ancestor to "following" list.
8. Temple - Reserve temple ordinances and schedule an appointment.  

*I searched and searched for the source from which I found this idea, but could not find it again.  So, this is not an original idea of mine; I tweaked it to fit our needs.  
Family Search offers many wonderful activities for youth.  They love looking for famous ancestors, all about their names, and looking at maps.  One Sunday, we searched for family crests. I had a story prepared called “A Family Name – a story of Jonah Barnes,” and asked the question, what will your name say about you, and how can you create significant meaning to your name? The activity day girls love the Look-a-like, My Match, and the Keepsake family tree activities. They also loved playing “Don’t Eat Grandpa Pete.”  

In our stake one of the wards has a linger longer meal one Sunday a month that is put on by the Family History Consultants and they do a little presentation during the meal about a feature in FamilySearch or an activity involving family history.