Hula Hoop Fun!

About this time every month, the kids are done learning a song and just want some fun. The problem is, they aren't really "done" learning the song but they really do need something exciting to keep their attention. I saw this idea awhile ago and immediately knew it was something i'd use for one such Sunday. So.... tomorrow is the day. I am going to bring a couple hula hoops and this is what i'll do:

First, I am going to have just one child (or teacher-i love using the teachers) hula hoop at a time. We'll have to watch him/her closely because when they are hula hooping, we will sing; when/if they drop the hoop, we stop singing but the pianist keeps playing. When the hula hooper starts up the hoop again, we resume singing wherever the pianist is at. This will help us practice the words and keep track of where we are at in the song. I am hoping to get a few hula hoopers who drop their hoops and start again several times so that we can stop and start our singing several times. I will have a different hula hooper for each verse of "Choose the Right".

After we've done this a few times, I am going to invite 3 children to all come hula hoop at the same time while we sing the song. The challenge will be to see if anyone can last through the whole song or through an entire verse. When everyone gets out, i'll choose 3 more children to try.

I think this will be a fun way to sing the song repeatedly. Thanks Pattie for your idea!

It's a zoo out there!

I used this idea a few months ago (and the kids loved it!) I decided to use it again tomorrow in junior primary...with a few additions.

See this cool sticks pictured above? I was volunteering at the school book fair last week and they were for sale on the table that's full of silly gadgets that gets more sales then the books...you know that table? Yup, I thought so....Anyway, since i got $10 of bucks to spend just for volunteering, i decided to donate it to primary music and i bought these. I thought they'd go perfect with The Crazy Chorister's idea of primary gone wild. Here's what i think i'll do:

We'll use our puppets/stuffed animals to choose songs, here's the ones i'm using, a few of The Crazy Chorister's ideas and a few of my own...

Lion: Leonard Lion likes to be loud but is learning to sing reverently at church. Start by singing as loudly as you can. Then gradually get softer. Next, try to sing each phrase in one big breath.

Chipmunk: (Hinges) Charlie Chipmunk loves primary teachers. Have the teachers stand up and do hinges as the children sing it. Have the teachers pretend they are very old and slow. Then have the kids stand up and do it as fast as they can.

Dog: (Popcorn Popping) Donald the dog is always running fast. He likes us to sing while playing hot potato. We'll pass around a bean bag (one for each side of the room) as fast as we can while singing and try to make it all the way around before the end of song.

Owl: Oscar Owl is not used to the light. He likes the dark. Sing with the lights off.

Parrot: (As a Child of God) Polly Parrot likes to hum while we're learning the tune of a new song..we'll hum the song until Polly lands on someone's head and then we'll sing the words, then hum again when she flies away...

Tiger- Tim the Tiger loves to sneak up on people and loves the game “hide and seek". I'll give a bean bag to someone and have a child come and find it while you sing song. (play just like hot/cold-sing loud when close, soft when far away)

Giraffe- Gerald the giraffe loves to be goofy. Tell the children that Gerald loves to play “teacher guess the song”. If the teacher can guess the song in a few notes, the chorister "gets" to wear goofy's hat (my son got it at Disneyland years ago). If they guess it wrong, the teacher "gets" to wear the hat during the song.

Elephant-Eddie the Elephant likes to poke people with his long trunk. We'll sing staccato with Eddie.

Monkey-Marvin Monkey likes to climb trees. Sometimes he climbs high, sometimes low. When he is up high, we'll sing loud, and we'll sing soft when he's low. Watch out though-he likes to be tricky! *If he lands on your head, you'll have to say the next few words in the song before he'll start climbing again...

Frog-(The Church of Jesus Christ p. 77) Freddy Frog is so excited to be in primary that he just cannot sit still. He hops right out of his seat every time he hears the word “I”. (primary stands when sing “I”)

*if you don't have the same animals, just change the animals but you can still use the same actions

So....how do my animal wands fit in with all this? Good question!!! I'm not entirely sure yet but i think i'll select 5 children to use my wands...maybe with Leo the Lion and Eddie the Elephant, or maybe even Oscar the Owl....it'll be like jeopardy-not knowing which animal has double jeopardy (or the surprise) behind it....maybe i'll use the wands with all 3 animals, that way i can use 15 children and that's always a plus when i have so many who want turns!

Anyway, i'll have the 5 kids come up and either lead the music or have a parade up and down the aisle, or have them mimic me while i lead in a rainbow pattern or staccato, etc. All while singing the song.....I have the entire time for music tomorrow...i think this will keep them interested....at least i'm hoping it will!

*You'll notice i haven't chosen all the songs yet...i'm working on that part still...

*Sr. primary will be doing musical scripture chase from my earlier post...i'll post the scriptures for that soon....

Chinese New Year

So, while perusing other chorister blogs, I read this post by "I heart primary music". I wanted to post it here in case some of my readers aren't familiar with that blog....I thought her idea was great for several reasons.

#1-it engages the children. I've noticed my senior primary LOVES to learn about things, like trivia or other tidbit information and if i can find a way to relate that to singing, then it's golden. This idea is great for that...i mean, how many children are going to know much about the Chinese New Year?

#2-i like to recognize different holidays during singing time since sharing time tends to focus more on other things. Singing time facilitates itself well to doing a fun holiday activity while at the same time being able to bring in the spirit through the song. With this activity, they can not only practice our new song, but also learn that "tidbit" information they seem to crave, all while trying to recognize the spirit through singing.

#3-It's simple!!

#4-It's new and different enough to capture their attention

#5-It's easily adaptable for junior and senior primary.

That being said, here's what i plan to do:

For senior primary: we'll play that famous Chinese game, Rock, paper, scissors. We'll do it one of 3 ways. Or a mix of all 3. I'll probably play it by ear and do it depending on how reverently they respond....

First option: i'll have one child play against me, like "I heart primary music" suggests. If I win, we review "As a Child of God", it they win, they pick a coin that has a song title on the back.

Second option: (this one uses all the primary children at the same time and therefore may be less reverent so make sure you state explicit expectations of their conduct for playing it this way) Anyway, I'll have each primary child turn to their neighbor (and have the teachers make sure they all have partners) and play rock, paper, scissors. Before we start i'll tell them the rules, "no shouting when you win, hands stay down, stay in your seats, we do it together, etc". Then i'll count to 3 and say "rock, paper, scissors" so we're all doing it at the same time and it's not chaotic. Then i'll say, "if you won with paper, raise your hand", or "if you won with scissors, raise your hand". If there's exactly 8 winners for whatever i called out (8 is a lucky number for chinese), then i'll call on one of the 8 to pick their favorite song for us to sing, (or pick a coin with a song on it). If there's not 8, then we'll review "As a Child of God". (This might be tricky to get exactly 8 so be prepared to be flexible and if there's never 8 but you really want to give them the chance to pick the song, you can do like "The Price is Right" game show and say, 8 or less but not more)

*A tie voids that partnership from having a winner. No "do overs".

Third option: I have a dragon beanie baby (since it's the year of the dragon) and we'll pass it around while singing. (if senior primary can handle it, sometimes they get too out of control with this kind of thing...) Whoever ends up with it at the end of our song will be the one to play "rock, paper, scissors" with me next.

For Junior primary: My daughter made 4 dragons (as shown) Here is the link for the chinese dragon craft.

We'll play rock, paper, scissors as listed above (most likely option #1 or #3), and I'll choose 4 children at a time to have a chinese dragon parade while we sing each song. I like using 4 children so that several children get the opportunity to participate (we have a large primary) yet it's not too many to get out of hand. They'll go up and down the aisles...walking, not running. I don't want to detract from reverent songs so we'll probably sing songs like, "Wise/Foolish Man", "Fun to Do", "Book of Mormon Stories", "I hope they call me on a mission", etc.

When/if I win "rock, paper, scissors"-we'll review "As a Child of God", and i'll have them hold the dragons up front standing by me and practice waving them to the melody.

Anyway, thank you "I heart primary music" for sharing your ideas! You have certainly helped me!

Fill in the Blank

Today i just wanted to review "Search, Ponder and Pray". Our primary only sort of knows the song. I wrote the words on the board and left several blanks. We sang it through once and i told them to pay attention to words that would go in the blanks. Then, I had 4-5 children come and write in the right words. We sang it again and i had 4-5 children come up to either erase and correct a word (there were a few mistakes from the 1st round) or fill in a blank. Then we sang the song again. What i liked about this is 1)the simplicity, 2)it involved several children and 3)they learned the song great!

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!!!

Pass the Buck

Have 4-5 children come up to the front. Give them a dollar bill to pass back and forth between them. The entire primary sings the song, watching you carefully for cut off. When you cut them off, whoever is left holding the dollar bill sings the next word. (or phrase) You can do it like the singing bee game and put the dashes on the chalkboard representing how many words they have to sing. I let them use their class for help if they want. Simple, fun. Good way to review and sing a song repeatedly.

Headband Hero

This activity is a great way to review a song. I saw it here and just changed it a bit. I bought a few headbands at the dollar store and printed out some key words from the song we're working on. I attached a paper clip to each word so that it would be easy to attach it to the headband. (you could use adhesive velcro too) Invite a child to wear the headband "nephite" style. Then attach a word to the headband without showing them what the word is. Then the primary sings the song and while singing, we omit the word that is on the headband. After we finish singing the song, the child wearing the headband has to guess what word is on his forehead. To make it more challenging, use several children at a time. This is a little trickier for the chorister but i found it helpful to arrange the children according to the order their word came up in the song and then I would just touch them on the shoulders when their word was coming so they would know when to listen for their word (or their omitted word actually). Make sense? We had fun with it-i hope you will too!

Stop and Go!

This is another simple way to involve the primary children and make singing time fun. I like to have different things to do while singing so that we can sing a song multiple times without the children getting bored of the song. I think i read this idea on the internet somewhere but i'm not sure where (so sorry!) Anyway, make a stoplight with colored cellophane in between. Give a child a flashlight. When they shine it through green, the primary sings normal; red, stop singing (and hum if you want), and for yellow, choose before hand what yellow will mean. For example, yellow could mean stand and sing, or twirl while singing, or sing slooowwllyy (of course this will be hard for the pianist to see so you'll have to tell her when it's yellow), or snap fingers or anything you choose! It'd be fun to turn some of the lights off in the primary room while you use this stoplight. That'll definitely catch their attention! You could even test their "watching" abilities and assign a different action to each color. Red=snap and sing; green=sing fast while clapping; yellow=stand and sing. If you do this, for reference purposes, you might want to write a code on the chalkboard indicating what each color means. I'm sure there are hundreds of ways to use this stoplight. If you find a method that works in your primary, i'd love to hear it! (don't you love how the stoplight is upside down? sorry about that, i wasn't thinking)

Latter-day Prophets

This sunday's "focus" song is short, and I don't think it will take the entire time. (which i love by the way because the more songs we can sing each week the better!) Anyway, since the theme is centered around prophets i thought it'd be fun to re-visit "Latter-day Prophets". This idea came to me based on a Price is Right game. (hey, inspiration is all around us, right?) I have a 81/2 X 11 picture of each prophet from Joseph Smith to Pres. Monson. I will place them randomly on the board and while the rest of the primary sings the song through, one child will come up front and attempt to put them in order before we finish singing. I am anticipating that they will not recognize all the prophets and will have a difficult time completing this the first time around. If they have some wrong at the end of the song, (which i'm sure they will), i will pick another child to come and build on what's already been done. (I'm thinking i'll have a button like from the taboo game for the child to press when they are done and then i'll reveal to them how many they have right, but not which ones are right) The child up front can only use their class for help since the rest of the primary will be singing the song repeatedly. I am excited to learn this song since the last time i sang it the prophet was Pres. Kimball. I guess it's about time i learned the updated version!

Primary Tag

Scatter your song visuals on the board. Explain the rules to tag, i.e. no running, only soft "tagging", etc. Invite a child to go first. Their task is to find the first picture in the song and put it in the 1st position, then tag another child to find the 2nd picture and so on until all the pictures are in order. The rest of the primary sings the song over and over until all the pictures are in place.

Lets Play Jacks!

Here's an idea that works best for senior primary when you are trying to teach a new song. Rather than telling the primary how many times you want them to sing a particular phrase you are working on, invite a child to "play jacks". (they throw the ball up and see how many jacks he/she can pick up, then they catch the ball before it bounces) However many of the jacks they picked up is how many times to sing that phrase. Have another child play jacks for the next phrase and so on. Sr. primary is pretty on top of it and they will figure out really quick to not pick up any jacks so you can tell them if they don't get any, then the primary sings that phrase 3 times or they sing a duet with a friend or their class sings alone or whatever you choose. You can also use the number of jacks they pick up to be how many children sing that phrase, how many teachers, how many boys, how many girls, etc. Simple but fun. Keeps them engaged and wanting to participate.