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!

Musical Scripture Chase

Remember the good ole days of seminary when we had scripture chases? Where i grew up, we had them every Friday and I loved those days...so a couple weeks ago, while watching senior primary get completely engaged in a scripture activity for sharing time, I decided there had to be a way to utilize that interest for singing time. So here it is:

Pick the songs you want to sing and look them up in the songbook. Most songs have at least one scripture listed and sometimes several-located at the bottom right had corner.

Once you have your songs and scriptures, determine how you want your scripture chase to go, here's a few ideas:

1-write the reference on the board and have them raise their hand when they find it. (Either wait several minutes for more kids to locate the scripture or choose the first hand you see). Have the child read the scripture and guess what song it applies to. Whoever guesses correctly gets to come lead the song or hold visuals or whatever.

*only write one scripture reference at a time to keep the over zealous ones from jumping ahead :)

2-Tell the primary the song you want to sing and write 2-3 different scriptures on the board (with only 1 of those relating to the song). Have them look up the scriptures and guess which one relates to your chosen song. The correct guesser can lead or pick a "how to sing" card.

3-for a really ambitious activity, tell them what song you want to sing and ask them if they know a scripture that might relate...(i have a feeling those with songbooks may catch on quick and notice the scripture references which would be great too)

4-Can you think of other ways to do a scripture chase? I'd love to hear your ideas too!

*these ideas might work best if you have a lot of time, maybe for a 5th sunday if you're given the whole time for singing on those days...

Hello flags and other files.....

I need to apologize to those of you who asked for my hello flags. (and other files) I replied to you right away but apparently, it was to a "noreply" blogger address that i just now discovered. I am relatively new to this blogger thing and even more unexperienced with computers. I'm so sorry for not paying attention to where my reply was going. If you'd still like the flags or anything else you've asked for, please email me again with your email included and i will make sure to get you the files you want. Again, i apologize......

good thing i wasn't called to be the ward computer specialist huh??? :)

Song Writing

The primary is doing great learning the words to "As a Child of God". They loved the tic tac sing today and did great. (in fact, they were only stumped once) However, I want to use one more week to learn the phrases...

I'm going to assign each class the task of writing a particular line of the song; i.e. "i came to earth with power to choose", "good choices bless me and my family too"...anyway, with all 3 verses and the chorus, there are 8 phrases and we have 8 classes so it's perfect. (if you have more classes you can combine a couple classes or for fewer classes, have them each write 2 phrases or don't do the chorus since they most likely already know that)

Anyway, i'll give each class a paper, they'll select their scribe and then write what they think the correct words are. I'll give them a few minutes to do this then have each class come up (depending on time, I may have them write it on the board) and sing (with the piano), their assigned phrase. The rest of the primary will determine if they got it right or not.

Our SR. primary loves doing things like this that challenge their memory and I'm hoping this activity will help solidify the phrases of the song.

Melt a Snowman

This idea is from here...i think it's a darling idea-especially for junior primary. I mentioned this in my last post and had a couple people ask for snowman parts...so, here is my snow guy. I think i'll bring real twigs for his arms and tape those on. I'll probably jazz up the hat too (the night's still young right?) :) I have the buttons and scarf in a word doc. if you want them....

*depending on time, i may have 2-3 children take off snowman parts to make him melt after they sing a song real "hot". I want to use as many children as possible which is why i made the mouth have so many pieces.

Tic Tac Sing

I saw an idea similar to this somewhere, only i can't remember where.....(So sorry-i'll try to be better at bookmarking ideas i see) Anyway, i am doing this for senior primary tomorrow although my daughter said i should do it for Valentine's day since they are X's and O's (hugs and kisses) but....maybe i'll just have to use it then too! :)

Last week, when i taught, "As a Child of God", i had each phrase of the song on separate poster board strips...those will come in handy again tomorrow.

I'll invite a child to come up front and choose a piece of paper from a jar. On these slips of paper i've written each phrase to the song and below it i wrote an example of the phrase with one or 2 words changed. Here's an example:

I came to earth with power to choose

(I came to church with power to love)

Good choices bless me and my family too

(Good friends bless me and my family too)

I feel so safe and happy because

(I feel so safe and happy today)

Anyway, you get the idea. I didn't want to make it too hard or change too many of the words because i really want the right words to stick in their heads and if i use too many wrong words, i think that's what they'll remember.

So....the child will pick a paper strip and decide if he/she is going to read the right phrase or the wrong one. Their team will then decide if they told the truth or not. (kind of like that game show, i think it's called Hollywood squares) After their team guesses, i'll post the picture phrase from last week that i used to teach the song and we'll see if they guessed correctly. (you can still play the game without the pictures...we've only learned the song for 1 week though so we'll use them) Anyway, if the team guesses correctly, they get an X or O in a square. If not, the play moves over to the other team. Each time a team has a turn, we'll sing that verse and the chorus as a way to "prep" them for the next round.

For junior primary, we are playing the melting snowman game found here. Happy sunday!

*I laminated the X's and O's as well as the snowman parts so they can be re-used.

*I have word files of the snowman parts, the song phrases and the X's and O's. I can email them to you if you want them.

**Another way to use this game: Draw tic tac toe board and place 9 pictures (one in each spot). Have 3 teachers sit in chairs in front of the board. Choose a reverent child, they pick a picture, ask them the question on it (the question will relate to the song that is pictured), the child asks an adult for the answer. The adult either gives a right or wrong answer and the child decides if they agree. If they’re right, they get an X or an O. Sing the song, then keep playing.

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!