Help Hand Sign

I thought I knew most of the songs in the Primary Songbook, but I was wrong!  Most I don't know are probably not my favorite, but I recently came across "Help Me, Dear Father" pg. 99, and really loved it.  Honestly not sure how I missed this one!  Great message, good progress of verses, lots of repetition, simple yet memorable tune.

Since the word "Help" is in this song numerous times, I taught the children the hand sign for "Help".  I found a great website that describes and shows pictures and explanations and videos of many hand signs.  Also, we are lucky to have someone in our ward who is fluent in Sign Language, so I checked with her and confirmed that I was doing it right.

The sign for "help" is made by closing your left hand into an "A" (fist with thumb up).  Place the outstretched palm of your right hand under the left "A" hand and raise both hands. 
 
I thought this was an effective and simple way to teach a great song!

Position Cards

Thought this would be fun and easy, and it was a hoot! 

I call them "Position Cards" which are simply drawings of stick figures in different positions.  Got these from this site, sized them about 1/4 page, laminated them and put them on a ring for easy flipping.  I mostly use them with faster songs.  As the kids sing I flip the next card and they try to get in that same position.  It's quite entertaining to watch, especially if the teachers try!  *In fact, for a future song I think I'll have the teachers demonstrate and the kids will love it.

My favorite use of these so far has been for "Book of Mormon Stories" pg 118, because normally I'm not a big fan of that song, especially with the kind of cheesy hand signals.  This gave them something to do that was different, but still involved movement.  It was especially funny when I sped it up towards the end and was flipping them pretty fast, almost had to stop conducting I was laughing so hard, and they were having a great time!

Map it Out

To teach "I Will Follow God's Plan" pg 164, I figured I'd focus on the idea of a plan.  I had previous purchased a map of the United States for a craft project, and only used one state, so I cut out the rest of the map and then printed some small clip art items to represent words to the song.  Before primary I laid them out on the map so they all fit and marked a dot where each should go, then drew a line from one to the next.  I had the pictures start near our home state, and end way up high on the other side, kind of to represent Heaven.

The kids got to come up and figure out which picture applied to the next line of the song, then place it on the map in order and then we sang the song.  On a later date, I removed various pictures to see if they could remember what was in that spot and the words to go with it.