Mother I Love You

So mother's day is coming up soon. 

I found this Utube video of the sign language for this.  It's super sweet. I plan on using this.  Usually we do two songs so I only plan to sing the first verse of this song and then sing another song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqmCKoKHbfc

I love the ending of this where they just hold up the I LOVE YOU SIGN.  I think it will be really touching. 

Sing It Backwards

My senior kids love to be challenged.  I was scouring the primary song book for a song that you can truly sing backwards.  And well, DO AS I AM DOING works.  I did this with them on Sunday and they thought it was hilarious and they usually think wiggle songs are lame. 

I did write the lyrics on a poster for them because it's hard to think in your head how to sing this.

Me follow, follow, doing I'm as do....

Mother's Day Corsages

So I found these flowers at Dollar Tree.  They come with a little vase.  I had this notion, that this could be used two different ways and if you can't find these exact products, you can always make them with cardstock or other household supplies.

First:  The kids could arrange a bouquet of flowers by picking these flowers and putting them in the vase OR I bought another set and made them into corsages.  I just clipped the wire steam off and hot glued a piece of elastic to it.  How this would work is that the corsages will be in a basket.  The helper picks a corsage.  Each corsage has a card color coordinated to it that has a question on it.  So they answer the question which has a mom song to go with it.  Then the helper chooses a sister/mom teacher in the room to give the corsage to.  Our primary has predominately female teachers and so I know this will work in my midst.  I thought it would be kinda sweet to see how they picked, a teacher, the pianist...a member of the primary presidency?

Questions:
What is the yummiest thing your mom makes?  Sing MOTHER DEAR
What is your favorite story that your mom reads to you or used to read to you?  Sing MOTHER TELL ME A STORY
How do you show your Mom that you love her?  Sing LOVE IS SPOKEN HERE
What is your Mom really good at?  Sing MOTHER I LOVE YOU
How do you help your Mom?  Sing QUICKLY I'LL OBEY
Does you Mom have a nick-name she calls you?  Sing DEAREST NAMES
Do you know what your mom's favorite flower is?  SING I OFTEN GO WALKING

Flower Bouqet

I found these cute little flower picks on Easter clearance.  Dollar Tree has stuff like this as well.  Anyway, I just filled a little tin pot with dirt and stuck them into it.  Pretty cute.  I figure the kids can either plant the flowers or pick them.  The flowers can have anything attached to them, different songs, lyrics to songs you are learning (have them guess what verse it comes from) or it can also just have suggested way to sing a song (like loud, soft, hum, oooo, ect).  I think this will be useful to me over the spring.

I also found these sparkly foam shapes on clearance.  Currently I am using them on my entry table in a candy jar for spring decoration, but I thought they'd make super cute magnets and somehow I could use them in primary...they could have songs behind them or clues to a game.  They could be hidden and we could make a design on them on the chalk board.  Could be useful.  I highly suggest shopping Easter clearance this month at Dollar Tree/Wal Mart!

Think Spring - quarterly song program song review

I had a fun little excursion to The Dollar Tree this week.  They just have the most random, cute and CHEAP things.  A lot of their merchandise is FLOWERS right now.  So I bought some of everything knowing I could morph it into singing times.  Here's idea one!  April is a very bizarre month for me with General Conference and Stake Conference looming.  I therefore only have Sundays this month with the kiddos.  UGH.  Anyway, I thought I'd do a review of the first 3 songs we have learned for part of one of those Sundays.  These flowers came from the Dollar Tree.  I just glued the base to a poster.  We will sing and if they sing well, the flower will grow.  We will see if we can make our primary-garden bloom. I did something similar in January with melting the snowman and I was astounded how much the juniors got into this...singing their hearts out to make Frosty melt.  I have hopes they will do the same to make the flowers grow.  I have just taped the songs on the center of the flower so I can interchange them and use this again if I so chose.  Behind the flower is taped as well but there is a plastic loop on the top.  So I will hold the poster and dislodge the bloom and hold it by the loop as the kids sing and just pull it up if they do well or leave it where it is if they don't.  Once the song is done, I will stick to whatever height they got it to.  Hopefully it will be to the top!

Eggs & Props

I have decided to postpone my conference singing time until the week after conference so that I can do spring/Easter activities over the next two week.  It's hard to find ideas that are purely religious when it comes to Easter which is kinda frustrating as it is a tricky balance when you are a chorister trying to 'entertain' the kids but also teach them to have reverence for the songs we sing and understand that they are mostly about our Savior and the gospel.  So I am still pondering what I want to do on Easter Sunday and how to make it fun yet really focus on Christ.  This week however, I suppose we will do spring things in singing time.

I am bringing back my little bucket of eggs that I used last year, but putting a new twist on it.  There are 7 eggs in my bucket.  I am going to have the kids try to get a bean bag in the bucket in a TOSS game.  Whether they accomplish this on their TURN as helper or not, they will chose and egg.  Inside the egg are little clues as to what songs we are going to sing. I just got these images off the net for free, printed them on card stock and put them in my eggs.  Once the helper opens the egg, they will try to decide which song we are going to sing.  Then each song has a PROP they can hold while we sing it.

First we will spend some time reviewing all the verses of IF THE SAVIOR STOOD BESIDE ME, then we will play

BUNNY-  Have You Ever Seen a Bunny (Sung to Here We Are Together) pg 259 - prop- bunny ears
DUCK IN A POND- Happy Song pg 264 - prop- duck finger puppet
ONCE THERE WAS A TULIP (sung to Once There Was A Snowman) pg 249 - prop- silk tulip flower
MY HANDS- pg 273 -prop- pair of wacky gloves
RAIN IS FALLING (we've been having rain & snow for our spring weather- gotta love Idaho) - prop- an umbrella
POPCORN POPPING- pg 242- prop- goofy glasses
I AM TRYING TO BE LIKE JESUS- pg 78 - prop- picture of Christ

*My sister made this cute duck felt puppet and since I had it, I am going to use them.  But you could use a rubber ducky as a prop or anything you have around the house that reminds you of the HAPPY SONG.

Shamrocks & Rainbows

How funny that St. Patrick's day falls on a Sunday this year.  We have to celebrate!  I have been doing loads of blog searches and have combined and morphed a few ideas I have seen out there on the net.  Last week I did my crazy leprechaun hats and it was a huge success.  So I am using on of my hats from last week.  Inside the hat, I will place 10 cards that I just made using free clip art off the net.  Some cards have a shamrock on it and some have a rainbow on it.  I am going to have a helper choose a card out of my crazy hat.  If they get a shamrock, they have to answer a question.  If they get a rainbow card, they get to come forward and mix a color potion.  Once the potion is mixed, it will fizz up (hopefully they will think this is COOL) and that color will indicate who sings our song.  Let's say the helper mixes the cup with RED in it, then those wearing red have to stand and sing.  We should get the main colors of the rainbow if we get to all the rainbow cards.  The question cards do not have a song attached and so hopefully those will go quickly enabling you to get through all 10 cards.

Here are the questions:

1.  Name a symbol we see at church that is green and has 3 letters on it?  CTR
2.  What does it mean to be green with envy?  JEALOUS
3.  True Or False, green is a primary color?  FALSE
4.  What is a new missionary out in the field called?  A GREENE
5.  What is your favorite thing that is green?  trees, clovers, eyes, broccoli, etc..
6.  Do you feel lucky?  Name a blessing you enjoy...
7.  Sing if you hate green beans (have those people stand up) then continue and ask...sing if you have ever drank green milk...if you like Lucky Charms cereal...if you choose the right.  You should hopefully have the entire primary standing by the time you list them all off and then sing a song, maybe let the helper choose his/her favorite!

For the Rainbow part of this...bring a cookie sheet to primary and place 4 clear cups on it.  Fill will a small about of white vinegar.  Have the spoons resting on the cookie sheet with drops of food coloring on them and a small amount of Baking Soda on them.  Have the helper stick the spoon carefully in one of the cups.  It should turn a color and fizz immediately.  You may want to experiment with this and find out the best and cleanest way to do it. I plan to have it all ready to go so there is no scooping or pinching in colors.  I did read some blogs where they had some cups not fizz and some that did but we all know the kids want to have the cups fizz, which is why I am doing them all this way and adding questions to spice it up.  Once the color is made, have those people wearing that color stand and sing.

Here are the 4 songs I chose to go with color cups:

PINCHING MY CHEEKS IS FUN TO DO - FUN TO DO
Once There Was A Tulip (see previous posts for new lyrics to Once There Was A Snowman)
In The Leafy Treetops
Popcorn Popping

All these are fun songs and springy.  We will review If the Savior Stood Beside Me prior to our little games so that will be the spiritual portion of singing time.