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. 

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.

The Prophet Said To Plant a Garden

I cannot take credit for the cleverness of these seed packets.  This is my sister, Kirstin's, creation.  But what to do with the packets?  So I put them on sticks and stuck them in a pot.  Spring is the time to plant a garden. I was thinking it would be fun to introduce the song THE PROPHET SAID TO PLANT A GARDEN (pg 237).  I am going to have the words on a simple poster.  We will sing this prior to playing so the kids can hear how cute this song is and think about why we plant garden even though Wal Mart is down the road.  The seed packets are of vegetables and on the back is a riddle with clues to a song.  To play this game, it is similar to the game PASSWORD.  You give one clue at a time and see if the kids can get the song using the least amount of clues.

BEET PACKET :  NOTHING BEETS SINGING

Your choice of song ( no riddle)

PEA PACKET:  PEAS SING

(high, low, show, follow =  Do As I Am Doing)

LETTUCE PACKET:  LETTUCE SING

(food, trees, pop = poppcorn popping)

CARROT PACKET:  If you Carrot-all to sing

(book, sacred, prohets, actions = Book Of Mormon Stories)

CORN PACKET:  Corn you sing?

(yellow like corn, up in the sky, shaped like a circle, shines for Him = Sunbeam)

TURNIP PACKET:  Glad You Could Turnip To Sing

(body, 4 parts, head, toes = Head Shoulder Knees, Toes)

Of course you can make the clues harder depending on your audience and you can pick any songs you want.  I am celebrating spring and chosing songs to do with the season mostly.  I always do the song of the month and article of faith prior to the games and so I feel the songs in the game can be fun ones as we do our serious singing when practicing those other songs! 

The Early Bird Springs Into Action

So this singing time idea is all about celebrating spring with ACTION songs (which the juniors love)...although I will say I subbed for the seniors a few weeks back and did one action song with them and they LOVED it, so much they started requesting all their favs.  So this could be used for the big kids, too!

  So this is a poster with a spring scene on it.  The scene provides places to stick birds: in a tree, in the birdhouses, on the ground.  The kids will pick a bird (you can hide the birds or have them in a basket or tape them to the chalkboard, ect.  On the back of the birds are all songs having to do with nature and spring...and they all have actions.  This is a chance to sing some of these sweet little songs that we never get to.  Some of these songs may be totally foreign to your primary children, but I think if you have the pianist play it through and show them the actions, they will pick it up, and because they are not program songs, they don't have to be perfect...this is just more about having fun and singing some oldies but goodies!

Sun Is Shining (goes to the tune of Rain is Falling) Use hands in the the air to create a sun
Happy Song ( I posted the actions of this son in a previous blog)
The World Is So Big (even if your kids don't know this, it's easy to get with some made up actions...just do stuff that goes with the words, like making a circle with your arms for ROUND, ect)
In The Leafy Treetops (make your arms form trees, mimic bird, simple actions to go with the words see, sun, they must tell everyone, look to you neighbor, ect)
Bird In A Tree (such a sweet little song, form hands into a nest, count 1-2-3 with fingers, mimic flying of the bird, ect)
Popcorn Popping

Choose And Review - Primary Spring Training (baseball)

I am by no means a baseball fan, but you can not ignore the fact that spring training is going on and that baseball season will soon start and be huge for so many people.  So I found these little mits and balls.  Of course the balls go to gloves.  With 4 months under our belts, I felt it was time to choose and review.  So how these work...  The mit will have song titles on them, mainly of the NEW songs we have started to learn from January, which will include the article of faith songs we have sung.  So that amounts to 8 songs to date.  The balls, will have word phrases on them.  So the mits will be lined up on ones side of the chalf board (magnet on back) and then there will be many balls with song phrases on the back...more than you have mits.  And the helper will chose a phrase (for the juniors, you can read a phrases to them until they hear one they recognized and they want to pick or if they don't know they can guess)  For instance... "in its light - - -!"  The kids would know that ball goes to the CHOOSE THE RIGHT mit.  And after you make a homerun and connect them, you either sing the verse of that song that the phrase came from or the entire song or phrase of the song you picked, depending on the time you. 

I hope this is a fun way to review the songs we have worked so hard to learn.

Going On A Bunny Hunt

So here is a version of I SPY.  I got these funny glasses at the Target $1-sot. I will wear a pair and the other I will give to the helper I choose. I will pick a helper and then we will go on a bunny hunt. I will have all my bunnies stuck around the room. I will start describing the bunny in question and my helper will go find it.  The bunnies each have some directions on it.  Some are songs, some are ways to sing songs.  The song ones are straight forward: sing the songs to do with spring.  The others are going to be used to help us sing and review program songs we have learned in the past 3 months along with the article of faith songs we've been learning. 

There are 6 Bunnies:

Once There Was Tulip (sung to Once There Was A Snowman)
Happy Song (using props from a previous post)
Half Sing, Half Hum (Stand For The Right -March's Song)
Stand And Face The Back Of The Room (Choose The Right)
Article of Faith #8,#9, #10 ( Girls Sing, Boys OOOOOO then flip flop)
Teachers Sing (pick a song for them to sing)

Egg-Toss Review (Choose The Right)

Well my ward had a highly irregular February and we only attended two Sundays due to conferences and what not.  So we are still learning the verses of CHOOSE THE RIGHT, which is no easy feat for those little sunbeams. But they are real champs and have come a long ways.  Since this month's song is STAND FOR THE RIGHT, a song they know well from last year's program, I am spending very little time on it. 

For this game, I have 3 Easter buckets.  They will be place at different lengths on the floor.  One is worth 5, one worth 10 and the other worth 20.  We will be singing Choose The Right over and over, which by the way, really makes me insane.  I really dislike singing a song over and over again, beating it to death, but I figure this was a good week to review.  And they haven't really been tested on this yet. 

I will have the pianist play and then stop whenever she wants.  Then I will ask who knows the next word if we were to continue singing.  If someone gets it, they get to come up and try for the egg toss.  They can choose the easy basket at 5 points or go the distance with the the 20 pointer.  If they make the basket (using a plastic Easter egg), I will give them their egg medal that says EGG-CELLENT!  We will then continue singing and the pianist will stop at a new place and we will do it over and over until we have sung the song multiple times. 

This idea of course could be used any time, and it doesn't have to be an egg, it could be a bean bag or whatever matches a particular holiday or season.  I also thought that I could make a bunch of those funny little medals and give them out to kids that I think are singing really well.  I could walk around the room and listen and that is when I think those kids try their hardest because they know I am watching and listening.

Happy Easter!

Easter Time Singing Con-"EGG"-tration

So this game is played like the standard CONCENTRATION game. I have 16 eggs.  Each has a twin.  One side is a pattern with a song on it.  The other side has a number.  I will put magnets on these so they can just stick on the chalk board.  If the kids make a match, they sing that song.  They keep trying until all the matches are made.

1.  January's song (use the song you taught in January)

2.  February's song (use the song you taught in February)

3.  Song of the month (the current song you are teaching)

4.  Popcorn popping

5.  In The Leafy Tree Tops

6.  Happy Song

7.  Jesus Wants Me For a Sun Beam

8.  Once There Was A Tulip (to the tune of Snowman-see previous post!)



He Is Risen Eggs

So I made and laminated these eggs using the color swatches you get at a paint store.  I just printed out the letters on my computer in a block font and cut them out.  They all have a magnet on the back so they can stick to the chalk board.  Some eggs have songs and some have a question about about Easter.  There are a few ways to use these eggs.  The first is just a an "egg scramble" where you could have the eggs up on the board in mixed order and have a helper come pick and egg, see if there is a song on the back and then try to place it.  It might be best in this situation to do the dash marks in chalk under it so the kiddos know there are 3 words and have a reference to where they put them.  This would be challenging for the seniors as they decode the Easter message. 

I do no think my juniors are up for reading and spelling out the sentence, so I did a spin on this decoding for them using colors verses words.  I have a secondary set of eggs without the letters on them that correspond to the same colors as the ones with the letters.  I will put these on the board in order so they know there are 3 words here.

Then they have to hunt for the egg that matches and when they find the matching egg, we will replace the plain egg with the one with the letter on it, finally creating the message.

The songs on the back of the eggs are:
WHEN HE COMES  AGAIN
I'M TRYING TO BE LIKE JESUS
JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUNBEAM
HE SENT HIS SON
I FEEL MY SAVIORS LOVE

Questions
What is your favorite part of Easter?
How do you know Jesus love you?
Why do you think we celebrate Easter?
Who was in the tomb when the rock was rolled away?

A Happy Song

We hope it is time for spring right?  That the sun is on its way and the earth will awake? I am in the mood to sing something about springtime!

Well here is a song I NEVER hear anymore, so I made some visuals for it.  I hope the kids enjoy singing it and that we can revive it and have it become a favorite again!

Ducks in a pond sing a happy song

action:  clamp hand open and close like a ducks beak

Mother Hen crackles to the whole day long

action: do the chicken arms up and down

Birds in their nest

action: cup hands to form a nest

and wind in the tree tops

all join in singing a happy song!

action: wave arms back 'n forth in the air like wind

then hold hands out (like when we sing what did I see?) for all join in part

The 2nd verse is super cute, too.

Once There Was Tulip

My husband just bought me these.  They are my favorite flower.  They reminded me of another little variation of a primary song that is so fitting for spring.  Again, I am tweaking the lyrics of an old favorite so the song gets more longevity throughout the year.  This is to the tune of ONCE THERE WAS A SNOWMAN.  So with the tulip, you do the actions in reverse, starting out small on the ground, and growing up tall, tall, tall like a flower would grow!

Once there was a tulip, tulip, tulip...
Once there was a tulip, small, small small, (get on the ground, then pinch your fingers to indicate a teeny little seed)
In the spring (or sun), it grew, grew grew (start standing up slowly and getting taller and taller)
In the spring (or sun), it grew, TALL, TALL, TALL

Have You Ever Seen Bunny?

I like to tweak lyrics to certain songs, adds a little variety to some of the kiddos favorites.

So in honor of spring and Easter...  I got these ears for 97cents at Wal Mart.  I did this in November with "turkey" and I called up 4 helpers who had to put on some feather headbands (bought from JoAnns) and my helpers demonstrate how they think a turkey would walk. Then I had the entire primary stand up and sing with me and do the turkey walk. So I will do the same but with the bunny ears. The little kids got really into this last fall, and it is a fun wiggle song for the spring time.  Since the ears are blue and pink, I will ask for a boy and girl helper as ask them to show me how they would hop and then we will sing...

To the tune of HERE WE ARE TOGETHER

Have you ever seen a bunny, a bunny, a bunny?
Have you ever seen a bunny hopping along?
Hop this way or that way, and this way or that way (hop in all directions)
Have you ever seen a bunny, hope this way or that?

It seems like any spring time animal could be used.  A duckie or lambie or goosie....!

St. Patricks Day Singing Board Game

Once again, I can't take credit for this.  My sister Kirstin created this and I copied it.  It is a spoof off any board game.  Can be played with dividing the primary into two teams OR you can just take the journey from start to finish with the entire primary.  I made two magentic markers.  I will use the chalk board to put this poster up (with magnets).  You use a dice to roll and see how many spaces you go.  Some of the spaces are SING IF, which have coordinating cards.  Other spaces have PICK A CARD, which have coordinating cards.  The other spaces are just fun, things to do with green, lose a turn, go back, ect.  This was just free handed on a poster board.  The spaces can be anything you really want.

SING IF CARDS:

Sing if if you are wearing a CTR ring

Sing if you are wearing green

Sing if you have green eyes

Sing if you love the color green

Sing if you hate green beans

Sing if you know this song (have pianist play a little bit of a song & guess)

Sing if you have ever drank green milk

Sing if you don't like being pinched

Sing if you have ever eaten LUCKY CHARMS cereal

Sing if you CHOOSE THE RIGHT

PICK A CARD CARDS

What is your favorite thing that is green?  (ex:  trees, flowers, mountains, my eyes, ect)

What is a new missionary called? (a greenie)

Green is for GO, get another turn (have child roll dice again)

What does "green with envy" mean?  (Jealousy)

What is green and has four leaves and one stem? (a four leaf clover/shamrock)

True or False?  Green is a primary color?  (false)

Name a symbol we see at church that is green and has 3 letters in it.  (the CTR shield)

The cards could be use seperately as well, without the board game.  You could just choose a helper and have them pick between the two decks.  You could divide the group into teams and have the cards worth points and see what they earn by answering the questions right or singing the songs well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!