Face Off! (a.k.a. Red Rover)

This is one of those simple ideas that comes while trying to sleep at night. I was grateful for the idea, but sleep would be nice too. :) This can be used to review old songs or teach a new song.

Have the teachers come stand in a line at the front of the primary, facing the children. Have them sing either one line or the whole song. The primary children then sing the same thing. Have the pianist, secretary, or other adult be the "judge". Whichever group sings the best gets to pick one person from the other team to come join "their side". (however, there's obviously no running-the chosen person is automatically on the team when they are chosen). You can make it more challenging by saying, "you can bring someone with you to the new team if you tell me what the last line in the song is, or tell me what comes after __, etc." I"m sure there are a billion ways to use this game.

The purpose is to have fun while singing any given song as many times as possible while learning the words and tune.

i know the words, do U-NO them?

Our ward knows Scripture Power but mumbles their way through the 2nd verse so i decided to spend most of our time working on that song. I decided to play UNO. I saw the idea somewhere several months ago but couldn't remember where i saw it so i just came up with my own version. This works GREAT for learning (or refreshing) a verse or new song. Basically, the idea is you sing whatever phrase is on the poster color that matches the card played. I laminated the colored squares on the poster so that i could easily interchange song phrases without ripping the poster. In senior primary, i gave each row (whether there was a teacher on that row or not) 7 cards. We played just like the game. Each row took a turn placing a card on the board. If red was played, we sang the phrase on red. If a green was played, we sang the phrase on the green. I had them sing fast, slow, just boys, just girls, etc. just to shake it up. When the "specialty" cards were played, this is what we did: DRAW TWO: the class that played this card chooses 2 classes to sing that phrase with the matching color. SKIP: Sing the phrase skipping every other word (this was HARD!!) WILD: the class that plays this card gets to pick what color to sing and also chooses a "sing like A..." card to determine how we sing it. (eyes closes, holding tongue, etc) DRAW FOUR: Choose the color and begin singing the song (from any point in the song) and when you cut off in the middle of the song, the next class has to sing the following 4 words. REVERSE: Sing the line previous to the one that matches the color played OR start singing and cut them off and the next class sings the previous phrase from where you cut them off.

I prepared several word strips for different songs so that we could switch up the songs we were working on. You can just use words but i used pictures since i already had the pics for junior primary.

For junior primary, i had taped colored squares of paper under each chair. They found their papers and we did diff. activities for each color. Ex. those with blue papers sing the words on the blue line, while those with red papers hum. Or those with yellow papers sing words on yellow line while those with green papers clap. I tried to involve all the children so they wouldn't get bored. We have a VERY young junior primary and keeping their attention is difficult. You could even have them swap colors with their neighbor. We also sang songs like head shoulders knees and toes and they could only use their hand that was holding the paper to touch the diff. body parts. Anyway, there's so much you could do with this for junior primary!

I was impressed with how quickly they learned the 2nd verse of scripture power using this method. And they seemed to have fun. I will use this method again to teach other less known verses. Although, next time i'll probably "stack the deck" better for senior primary and put all the specialty cards in the stacks i give each row. It made it more fun to have those cards played yet we never seemed to have enough of them played. Anyway, have fun!!!

Minute to Win It!

I saw this idea here a few months ago and couldn't wait to use it the next time we had a 5th sunday. (on the 5th sunday, we spend the whole time for singing time. I love it-it gives me a chance to sing a lot of songs and i have time to play games and be silly too). The idea is, if the child completes the task in the allotted time (30 sec.), they get to choose a song from my prepared list. If they don't finish, i get to choose the song we sing. Anyway, I chose 7 games to play.

Here they are: Back Flip-place 2 pencils on the back of your hand and flip them off and catch them. Add 2 at a time, up to 12 pencils.

Over Bite-pick up paper lunch bags (or grocery bags) using only their mouth. (cut the bags to varying heights to make it more challenging).

Drop Off-drop 20 clothespins into a jar.

Chocolate Unicorn-stack 3-4 ding dongs on your forehead while standing and leaning back. (this is very tricky and especially hard for junior primary-their foreheads aren't big enough). Don't Blow It-Using one hand, remove all tissues one at a time from a box of tissues. Separation Anxiety-the player separates a pile of starbursts into multiple cups of coordinating colors. (use at least 2 bags of starbursts).

Stack Attack-stack 15 cups into a perfect triangle. Then get the cups back into a single stack.

I didn't use stack attack or back flip for jr. primary and for separation anxiety, i had Jr. primary put 5 candies of each color into the correct cup. This website lists more minute to win it games if you want more ideas. It was so much fun and the kids loved it. What surprised me was how many children were familiar with the game show and knew most of the games. Next time you have a full sunday for singing time, consider minute to win it-it was lots of fun and we got to sing lots of songs! The kids were all trying their best to sing well so that they'd be picked for the next game. You can use 2 children at a time or even a whole class. Be sure to tell them to be quiet during the games to give the contestant concentration. Have fun!!