School is out for summer...

So here in Idaho, school ends this week.  The kids are excited to be FREE!  I like basing singing times off holidays and seasons as my mind immediately went to SUMMER VACATION when I was stewing about what to do this week for the primary children.  I have been thinking of some new and fun ways to celebrate summer (see future posts).  I thought this week we'd kick it off.  I have a lot to teach this month as I am attempting the We'll Bring The World His Truth medley.  I am super excited song for June, WHEN I AM BAPTIZED, is a repeat this year.  We will spend no time learning this song although last year I did a post on teaching this song if you are looking for ways to introduce that particular song.  My kids love the 'rainbow' song and we sing it so often, they still know both verses by heart.  WHEW. 

So this is a cup that could be used all summer long OR you can use it as one single singing time.  I copied a bunch of summer FREE clip art off the web.  I chose images that fit the songs I wanted.  You can pick your own songs. I chose songs we know and love.  I mounted them on orange and yellow construction paper, laminated them and stuck them on sticks (then put them in a orange cup).

The imagines on the sun sticks correspond to the song we are going to sing.  I am going to have the 'helper' pick a stick.  He/she tells my what the image is of.... is it something they find fun to do in the summer time and why?  Then the pianist is going to give the helper a few notes (name that tune) and they get to guess what song it is.  The fewer the notes the better because the image on the stick is a clue to the song.  Once they guess it, we sing it.  These songs are all about things we do in the summer.  So each week you could do a few of these and keep adding or you could do an entire singing time (if you have time) on this.  I did include a few songs from the program in here for review as well as I felt they sort of fit some of the summer activities. 

I will spend most of my time this Sunday teaching a new song and doing a little on Father's Days songs that we need to polish, so likely I will only do this as an brief activity at the end of all that. I always like to do something FUN after learning songs because they do get restless (me, too).

Oh What Do You Do In The Summer Time?  - image sun with the word SUMMER overlaid
Happy & You Know It - Big Smiley Face (if you're happy school is out, shout Hooray!)
Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam- image sun- (represents playing in the sun)
Give Said The Little Stream- picture of girl fishing in a stream -(does anyone fish in summertime?)
Leafy Treetops- image of a tree- (climbing trees anyone???)
Holding Hands- image of kids holding hands- (playing with friends anyone?)
Fun To Do- image of a pool (swimming in pools is fun to do)
I Hope They Call Me On A Mission - image of a suitcase (anyone going a trip this summer?)
When I Am Baptized- image of a rainbow (represents playing in nature)
Book Of Mormon Stories- image of a book (anyone do the summer library reading program or read for fun?)

Again you can do any image any song...

Time for Review- SING OR DARE

I do a lot of blog stalking.  Sometimes it's fun to go into the archives of these amazing blogs, blogs that are no longer active.  There are some GOOD things in there if you dig.  I am always looking for games to play for review that aren't killers to produce.  Sometimes the games I see are really involved and require a lot of props and prep.  I love to do fun things but not spend week preparing for it.  So I thought this was a super fun and easy idea and I made it my own by tailoring it to my primary.

It is a spoof off of TRUTH OR DARE rather SING OR DARE

So again, this involves cards.  The kids can choose a dare card of a sing card.  Disclaimer, I might warn the kids that if they choose a DARE card, to be prepared as they are silly and may entail embarrassment!  The SING cards have to do with all the songs we have learned so far and ways to sing them so we can review.

SING CARDS:
1)  Everyone Stand & Balance on one foot- if you put your foot down before the song is up, sit down.  Let's see who is the last person standing (this would be the helpers choice of song)
2)  Play STOP & GO - Sing Latter-day Prophets (insert a program song you want to review)
3)  Rub your belly & pat your head - Sing WHEN HE COMES AGAIN (insert a program song you want to review)
4)  Play LOUD & Soft (these are signs you rotate)- sing HOLDING HANDS (insert your choice of program song)
5)  Clap the rhythm of the song Golden Plates - insert songs of your choice
6)  Use rotating flash cards (ooo, buz, lulu, tweet)- sing If the Savior Stood Beside Me

DARE CARDS:

1)  Give the Primary Presidency 'high-5's'
2)  Name at least 6 Latter-Day Prophets
3)  Act out your favorite wiggle song & let the audience guess what it is
4)  Recite the 13th Article of Faith
5)  Stand on your chair and say, I LOVE PRIMARY
6)  Try to name everyone in your primary

Now you can make these sings/dares easier and harder depending on your group.  But overall, I felt this was a super easy yet FUN way to review.  You get a lot of variety in this singing time.  Have fun!

Teacher Appreciation Week In Primary

So this was a serious drag, but I never got to use my mother's day corsages because the presidency did this really cute sharing time and it basically took all the time.  So I have been racking my brain on a way to use them because I went to the work of putting them together.  And I thought about teacher appreciation week.  My kids' schools just had this event to honor their teachers, and so I thought it would fit nicely to do version of this in primary.  And boy do our primary teachers deserve ALOT of appreciation.  Now if you did use corsages, you could still do this and just prepare something else to give to the teachers...it could be a candy bar or a tissue paper flower or a note or whatever. 

So how I will do this:  I have a stack of cards to pick from.  I will pick a helper and they will chose a teacher in the room to spotlight.  Then they will pick a card from the stack.  The cards have song questions on them for the teacher to answer.  And depending on the answer, that is what song you will sing.  You should get a variety of songs here.  The child will then give the corsage or candy or flower to the teacher who was spotlighted. 

Questions:

What is your favorite primary song of all time?
What is your favorite hymn?
What is your favorite primary song about the Savior?
What is your favorite song about missionaries?
What is your favorite seasonal primary song?
What is your favorite wiggle song?

I made these cards on cardstock. I just googled free clip art and pasted it in with the text.  Pretty easy.  You could write any questions you want.  I will do this after we review the songs we have been learning in May.  I think it will be fun.  At the end we will sing Happy & You Know It using the lyrics!

We appreciate our teachers
Yes we Do
WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!
We appreciate our teacher
Yes we DO
WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are valiant, sweet and dear
So we'll give them a big cheer
We appreciate our teachers
Yes we do!
YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The Golden Plates

I am sort of behind because April was a weird month for me with General Conference and Stake Conference, giving me only two weeks to teach songs.  Those two weeks were dedicated to learning mothers day songs.  So I am playing catch up.

Last month's choose your own song for us was the GOLDEN PLATES.  I have seen on blogs that a lot of people are using this song for Aprils Choice.  It's so cute and short...it honestly reminds me of when I was in primary.  It's an oldie but goodie. I knew my primary kids would pick it up easily.  But I did a few props to help them learn it just the same. 

I printed out pictures that went with the lyrics of the song and taped them around the room.  We sang each stanza slowly, stopping at the end of each line and review, and depending on what they sang, they had to find the picture that coordinated.

The golden plates lay hidden (picture of the golden plates)
Deep in the mountain side (picture of the mountain pointing inside)
Until God found one faithful in whom he could confide (picture of Joseph Smith)
A record made by Nephi (picture of Nephi)
Written in days of Old (I didn't have a picture for this but you could find something maybe)
Now in the Book of Mormon, the story is retold (picture of Book of Mormon)

Now as they collected these pictures, they had to assemble them in order on the chalk board.  Once we slowly sang through the song once, stopping and collecting the pictures for each stanza, we sang it all the way through with no stops. 

Then I revealed the GOLDEN PLATES I made, which are pretty homely but I did my best.  I have seen blogs where they are much prettier than mine, but sometimes imperfect is okay. I made these by cutting up foam board, and attaching metal rings to it.  Then I just painted the whole thing gold with spray paint.  It was easy and cheap!

So when I brought out the gold plates, I asked how many of them had their own gold plates, and they all raised their scriptures, which is what I wanted them to do.  Then it was time to bear testimony of Joseph Smith and how indebted to him for finding the plates, translating them, and restoring the gospel.  Now with the plates, we hid them and as we sung the song playing the HOT AND COLD game, we practiced the song while the plates were hidden and found about 5 times...and in doing so, we pretty much memorized it on Sunday.  It was a fun Sunday. 

After church yesterday, I heard my kiddos upstairs singing that song to themselves subconsciously.  It's times like this that I know that as spastic and crazed as I feel on Sundays, they are getting it. 

We'll Bring The World His Truth

I do like to complicate things.  Mostly I like to find GOOD arrangements of songs that I know will invoke the spirit and all year I have been digging for versions of this and that.  Our program this year is going to include We'll Bring the World His Truth.  It follows the month that we talk about missionary work. 

In my ward we have over 100 primary children.  It's like having my own mini version of the Mo-Tab.  They love challenges as well.  I had this crazy idea of tweaking this song.  I own the book THE LDS SONGBOOK FOR ALL OCCASIONS...if you don't own this book, I highly recommend it. I found it at Seagull Book for like $12 and it's worth every penny.  It has some really fun songs in there, spiritual and silly.

In this book, there is a version of We'll Bring the World His Truth that is companioned with AS SISTERS IN ZION.  Many of you may know this EFY medley...very pretty.  The cool thing about THIS particular version is that it is simple.  It eliminates the portions talking about being daughters of God and marked generations.  It is simply a rendition of two church songs, put together like LOVE IS SPOKEN HERE.  I think my kiddos can do this.  Boys vs. Girls. 

Anyway, I thought I'd throw that out there to blog land.  It's so pretty. I think it will bring tears.  And it's not complicated...the trick will be getting the boys to sing ALONE.  But we have about 50 boys, I think we can do it.  :-)