Hershey kisses because WE LOVE TO SING!!

This sunday is our last primary before Christmas since we only have Sacrament meeting on Christmas day. I just want to SING! SING! SING! and get in as many Christmas songs as possible but i know that having an activity of some sort will help keep their attention...especially because we'll be all combined for primary on sunday so i'll have nearly 100 children.

Here's my idea: (taken from a popular FHE game using big candy bars) In order to accommodate my desire to sing, sing, sing, AND keep the children interested, i decided that i am going to have one class at a time come to the front where i'll have a long table set up with utensils and gloves for each child. They'll also have a bowl of hershey kisses in front of them. The rest of the primary will act as the "timer" and sing a christmas song. Those up front will have the duration of the song to unwrap as many kisses as they can with gloves on and using the utensils. (i plan on making this harder for the older kids with big gloves and allowing the sunbeams to do it without gloves). They have to unwrap the kiss, and throw the trash away with their utensils before they can get another kiss. Of course, they can keep whatever they open. Even if they don't open one, they'll get a chocolate kiss for participating.

I'll rotate through, having each class get a turn (as long as they are reverent and are singing when it's not their turn to unwrap). I think this will allow us to sing lots of songs and keep the primary involved. I'm hoping anyway!!! :)

Baking cookies is fun to do!

I can't remember where i saw this idea, but it's a great one and the kids love it! Sing "Fun to Do" using these words/actions:

Making some cookies is fun to do...

Mixing the dough....

rolling the dough...

Cutting the shapes...

Sprinkling the sugar...

Waiting for baking is hard to do. (fold arms, tap foot like waiting)

Eating our cookies...

The younger kids, sunbeams especially, love this!

Pin the bow on the present

I did this last year and pulled it out for an encore today. It is a simple way to sing lots of Christmas songs and keep the children engaged at the same time. Blindfold one child (or a teacher)-I just use one of those beauty sleeping shades that i bought at the dollar store. Once the person can't see, point to the present they are going to pin the bow on so that all the children know which one is the goal. Give them a bow with that fun tac stuff on the back. Then, play just like hot/cold. Start singing softly and continue softly while they are far away then sing louder when they get closer to the "mark". I put ribbon on the presents and showed the primary that our goal was to pin the bow at the intersection of the 2 ribbons. They loved it. This year i placed all the presents together on the board, but if you want to make it more challenging, put the presents all around the primary room and the blindfolded person will have to walk all over searching for the "chosen" present by listening to the volume of the singers. Be aware of where they are going though so that they don't trip on something....Have fun!

Singing with Christmas trees!

For SR. primary: I am teaching 2 different Christmas songs tomorrow for performances coming up. We are learning "Silent Night" in German and "If i had been in Bethlehem". I know i won't have time for much of an activity so i printed several of these Christmas trees-each with a different number in the center. Before primary, I will tape them under chairs randomly. I plan on having the children look under their chairs to see who has the trees. I will have all those with trees come up front. Whoever has #1 will sing phrase 1 with their class (I will have the words to the song written on a poster and each phrase will have a number in front of it), the person with #2 will sing phrase 2 with their class and so forth. I'll probably have the children with trees swap with each other so that their classes get a turn singing other phrases too. I'm hoping this will be an organized way to help them learn these songs.

For JR. primary, I printed these Christmas singing cards posted by Brittney that she found on pinterest. I'll tell them what song we're singing, then they will pick a card to determine how we'll sing. For example:

elf-tiptoe in place like we're sneaking

Christmas tree-spread our arms like branches

angel-fly like an angel

santa claus-put our hands on our bellies and pretend we're laughing while we sing

ornament-roll our hands

reindeer-prance in place

snowflake-twirl and spin in place

gingerbread-run in place

candy cane-twist

snowman-melt to the floor

If I had been in Bethlehem

One of the counselors in primary asked me to teach this song. I'd never heard it so i was definitely curious. I immediately looked it up online....it is a beautiful song. It is by Sally DeFord and was published in the Friend in December 1989 which i think means it is approved for use in primary. :) Anyway, if you're looking for a new Christmas song this year, check out this one here. I plan on making visuals for this song. I'll try to post them when i'm done if you're interested.

Mr. Potato Head-2nd idea

Awhile back i posted an idea using Mr. Potato Head. JR. primary loved it so much, i decided to bring him back last week for an encore visit. At the last minute, i changed the plan slightly. Rather than assigning a song to go with each body part (i.e. eyes-"I love to see the temple", mouth-"Smiles", ear-"If i Listen with my Heart", etc.) I decided that when a child picked a piece to put on Mr. Potato head, we would use that body part to do something with while singing a song. For example, eyes-we sang with our eyes closed; ear-each side of the room took turns singing phrases, one side sang while the other listened. We did this back and forth for the duration of the song. Other ear-we covered our ears with our hands while we sang; nose-we wiggled our noses while singing. The primary children suggested we snort while singing but we ended up wiggling it instead (although i did hear a few snorts) :) Mouth-we did the wide mouth whisper i mentioned in a previous post. With their mouths open as wide as possible they had to whisper sing. It's great-they love this. Anyway, it was a fun activity for JR. primary and ended up being a fun way to redo a previous activity with a few minor changes. They love Mr. Potato Head. Last time they built him silly with his ear where his eyes go, etc. but this time they built him normal. Either way, they seemed to have fun.

Name that holiday tune

Many of us probably put up our Christmas trees this weekend so i decided that in primary we'll do the same thing. We are going to play "name that tune" (at least in SR. primary) Each side of the primary room will "bid" for how many notes they think they need in order to guess the song and then the person who actually guesses the correct song after hearing the notes will get to pick an ornament and help me decorate my tree. Simple. Effective. Ready to go.

Musical sticks

In my ward, the presidency has the incoming sunbeams come in for singing time beginning in November. That means not only do i have 15 sunbeams right now but i will get 7-8 "almost" sunbeams starting on sunday. Needless to say, we have a very young junior primary.

While at story time with my youngest last week, i watched the teacher do an activity with sticks. She gave each child 2 short sticks (about 6-8 inches long). She had them beat out a rhythm as she chanted a poem, read a book and then said their names. Initially i thought the kids were too young to understand her beating out the syllables in their names but they weren't! They loved it and all wanted their names to be done. The teacher would call on someone-ask them their name-then show them how many syllables. She'd beat it out first then have them all say that child's name and beat it out together. For example, "Britt-ney", "Em-ma", "Jack". On the one syllable names, she had them beat that one syllable really loudly. They loved it.

I'm sure you see where i'm going with this....as choristers, we rarely see things without wondering how it can relate to singing time, right? Anyway, since i will have "new" sunbeams on sunday, i thought this would work well to help us learn their names. I found short sticks at a craft store used for making suckers and i'll give everyone 2 sticks. I'll have the new sunbeams come up and we'll "beat out" their names so that we can all get to know them. We'll probably throw in some teacher and older kids names too. Maybe we'll even sing their names to a familiar song tune. Or sing, "here we are together" while tapping out the rhythm and adding their names.

I'll bring my toy musical instruments to add pizazz and keep them interested. We'll take turns using those as well as our sticks and have them work on beating out rhythm for different songs like "Book of Mormon Stories", "I am Like a Star", etc. Hopefully this will not only allow us to learn the new names but will keep all the children engaged.

Singing with CANDY!

So...i had this idea today. I'm not sure yet exactly how to use it but here it is:

I thought it'd be fun to do something with the candy the kids all got while trick or treating this week. I picked some candies and wrote little rhymes for each of them with ways to sing. I plan on using these as some type of "sing like a..." game.

I think i'll start by saying something like, "how many of you still have candy leftover from Halloween? I bet our candy can help us sing!" I'll display either real candy bars or pictures with the rhymes on back.

Here's the rhymes: (some of them are rough, i know-i'm still working on them)

Skittles: These colors are red, yellow, green and blue. Check the color you are wearing, we'll sing with just a few. (call out colors, whoever is wearing that color sings)

Lemon drops: Ew, it's sour! Better scrunch up your face to sing this song at a super brisk pace! (sing with a sour face and do it quick)

3 Musketeers: Pick 1 friend and a teacher and you 3 will be our starring feature. (the 3 sing either a phrase or the whole song)

Snickers:When you laugh, you sometimes wiggle, lets sing this song while we giggle!

Baby Ruth: Who has a baby in their house? Lets sing this as quiet as a mouse.

Butterfinger: Grab your friends hand and we'll sing while we stand.

Twix: Betwixt you and me, our classes will sing the best as can be! (2 classes sing at a time)

Milk duds: Chew it slow or else it'll stick. We'll sing this song anything but quick. (sing slowly)

Almond joy-What shows joy for all to see? It's a smile from you and me! (sing while smiling)

Can you think of rhymes for a Crunch bar? M&M's? Kit kat? Reeses? Licorice? I'd love to hear your creativity!

Wide Mouth Whisper

One of our primary teachers told me something she'd seen in another ward she attended. I tried it last week in junior primary-it was great.

Tell them to open their mouths as big as possible and while doing that they have to whisper. It was hard to sing in a whisper while mouths are open wide but they loved it. So fun to see their faces too...i'm sure mine looked just as comical! :) This is a great one to add to your "sing like a..." list. You could pretend you're all wide mouth frogs who can only whisper. Start by "croaking" the song, then sing (wide mouth whisper) the words.

"Primary Colors" and more.....

Today, we learned "Primary Colors". I saw an idea somewhere on the internet (sorry-i can't remember where...) and it led me to make these...

Simple, but they worked great. I had 3 children hold the circles with the numbers facing outward, then turn them around when it was time. It was fun to learn a song from the "olden days". We also sang "This is God's House", "Dare to do Right", "Give, Said the Little Stream" and "Called to Serve".

They didn't do very well on "Called to Serve" because they were too busy being silly so i took a minute to tell them about the song and asked the teachers about singing that song on their missions and how they felt about it. Then, I put my husband on the spot and asked him to come up and sing "Called to Serve" in German while we sang it in English. The kids were so enthralled, they all stopped singing about halfway through just to hear him sing it in German. It was fun and i'm so grateful for my sweet husband who was a good sport, although now i think I'm in his debt.... :)

I also made flipcharts on Word for "This is God's House" and "Dare to do Right", but i don't know how to upload them to this site. Any tips??

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 Kneel to Pray

I want to teach the song, "I Pray in Faith" to Junior primary (senior already knows it). I found this idea here, which i liked. I'm just going to include a poster as a visual for my young ones. I'm going to have them "make the poster" as they build the song. I wrote the first word of each line on the poster as seen above.I'm going to tell them that i didn't have time to glue on my pictures so i need their help. The 8 clipart pictures will be jumbled up on the chalkboard for them to choose from as we learn/build each phrase.

I'm going to ask these questions for each phrase:

*What position are we in when we pray?" KNEEL

*how often do we pray? EVERYDAY

*who do you talk to when you pray? HEAVENLY FATHER

*Why do we pray? HE HEARS AND ANSWERS ME

*How do we know this is true? FAITH

As they guess the right answers for each line, i will sing it several times while a few children choose the correct pictures to put on my poster. Then we'll all sing that line together. We'll continue until all 4 lines are complete and our poster will look like this:

*I feel like i need to explain a couple of my pictures: I couldn't think of anything for "answers" so my 14 year old son suggested i use 2+2=4. It may be too abstract for the little ones but it's the best i (he) could come up with. My FAITH is in a shield because when i taught the 2nd verse of scripture power i did it this way and i like to be consistent with words that are in different songs. Hopefully the rest are self explanatory-happy singing!

HOORAY!

Yes, that's right. The song i'm singing this week is, HIP HIP HOORAY! OUR PROGRAM WENT WELL TODAY! I was so glad when it was over-i wanted to do this:

But, as it turns out, I was so tired i could hardly eat lunch before collapsing on my bed. But what a great feeling! 9 months of teaching songs, trying to ward off boredom and complacency by being creative and finally it all paid off. Yippee!

Was it perfect? No way. Are there things i'd do differently next time? Absolutely. Was the spirit present? Without a doubt!

I love being chorister. I love the things i am learning, i love trying new ideas and i love the testimonies of the children as they sing. Watching those sweet faces singing the songs with all their heart just endeared them to me even more.

Good luck with all of your final preparations! Remember, your primary will be fantastic just because of who they are and the spirit they bring.

Will your teacher STAND for you?

My presidency gave me an idea that they've seen done in the past. I thought it was great and I'm going to use it this sunday when we have our entire primary combined to practice for the program that is the following week.

As we sing each song, the teachers should stand according to how well their class is singing. If they're loud-the teacher stands up tall; singing just ok-the teacher will 1/2 stand; not singing too great-teacher crouches even lower. The teacher should stand if even one child is singing but stand taller the more of their kids that sing. He/she can play with it and go up and down during the song if their class doesn't sing as loud in some parts. The kids will have a blast watching their teacher go up and down and hopefully they'll aim to have them stand tall! Our teachers will get quite a workout-you may want to prep them before hand. :)

Freeze Frame

I'm always looking for new twists to the standard wiggle songs. This morning, while watching a cartoon with my daughter, i thought of this: while singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" i'm going to shout "Freeze!" at which point everyone holds their current pose but the pianist keeps playing. Then i'll shout "go!" and we'll pick up singing from wherever the pianist is at in the song. I plan on having the pianist play the song through 2 times so we can stop and go several times. This activity would work with any song really, as long as you assign an action to be done during the song. I love how it requires us to pay attention and follow along in our heads with the pianist so we'll know where to start singing again when i say "go".

*i had another chorister send me a cute idea for popcorn popping. In portuguese, popcorn is pipoca (pronounced pee poka). When you use that word instead of the English translation-popcorn-it becomes quite a tongue twister! Try it!

Cantare Con Me...stile italiano!

Translation: Sing with me...Italian style!

Write the following words on the board: (the italics indicate how to lead)

Forte-very large movements

Piano-very small movements

Allegro-very fast

Largo-very slow

Staccato-sharp, robot like leading

Legato-very wavy and flowy leading

A capella-cut off motion to pianist, then lead normally.

Choose a different way to lead for each song (or several diff. ways for one song). See if the primary children can guess how they are supposed to sing simply by watching you lead. Using multiple dynamics for one song takes lots of practice and good eye contact and that's just what we want, right?? :)

Picture Taboo

Sometimes, it's fun to have a cute way to pick the songs you want to sing for the day.

materials needed: a picture to represent each song (i.e. Scripture power=scriptures; praise to the man=Joseph Smith; Search, Ponder and Pray=magnifying glass

Call a child up to the front and then hang a picture up behind them so that only the children sitting down can see it. Call on 6 kids to give clues about the picture and then let the child up front guess what it is. To go the extra mile, they can try to guess what song it represents. (for senior primary, write "Taboo" words on the chalkboard-these words cannot be used by the children giving clues) I was impressed by what good clue givers the children were! Especially junior primary!

You be the judge poster

So yesterday we began with our "judging". We sang each song while i recorded it then I played it back for them. They got to rate themselves on most categories. I rated them on eye contact and smiling. They seemed to like it and it's a good way for me keep track of what we need to work on in the next couple weeks. (notice we have a few half stars....we have a little work to do there) We actually sang 2 more songs but didn't have time to put the stars on so we'll add those next week. We'll also finish up next week using opening and closing songs in order get them all sung and rated next week.

Be your own judge!

Our program is in about 5 weeks. I decided today that i am going to record them singing all the program songs and then I'll play it back and have them rate themselves on how they did and what we need to work on. Here's some rating categories i'm thinking of: volume, enunciation, in tune, song familiarity, and blending. I'll chart this on a posterboard, and after they rate themselves, we'll spend the following couple weeks perfecting the songs according to their own ratings. I'm hoping that having them hear themselves sing will help them know if each song is program ready or not and will empower them with more of a desire to perfect the songs. I'll let you know how it goes....