Christmas Bells!

I love Christmas time for many reasons, but one of my favorites in primary is that we get to do bell songs.  My mom had metal pipes (probably that my dad made) that we could ring, but they were kind of awkward to use and were either muffled by little hands or too loud.  I am sometimes cheap when it comes to primary stuff, but I had to invest in a set of beautiful colored bells found on Craigslist, because I remember how much I loved playing them when I was a kid. These are much easier to use than the ones mom had!

 To start, I went over the rules for bells:

1) Hold them by the handles, not the bell part
2) Ring them once, not over and over
3) Ring them nice and confident, but not hard or violent
4) Only play when it is your turn (color)
5) Try to sing while doing bells
6) Pay attention

We had to do "Christmas Bells" pg 54, of course.  Coordinating bells with small children is much harder than you can imagine, I made a color coded key:

 They did a pretty good job with following, although there is always at least one who zones out or is so busy singing that they miss their only note, but its fun to give them a little wink or nudge to pay attention and they usually do better the next time.  It takes some coordination for director as well, trying to follow key, sing, and often help smaller children.  I made sure to always have one sunbeam do the color that required the least amount of notes, and often I had them stand by me so we could do it together.  I switched a number of times so everyone got a chance to do a bell, depends on the size of your primary.

I cannot tell you how much the kids love playing bells!

We then moved on to another song, "Little Jesus" pg 39, which is another favorite song and very simple. Easier than the first song, especially with rhythm.  This was a good one because you could have the bigger kids do the red/orange/yellow, and the youngest do your pink and blues, and still feel like they are a part of the music.

I really wish we could do bells in sacrament meeting, but our counselor said no.  I know others don't have a problem with it, but I understand that the handbook rules are perhaps a little bit vague, so we go with how they read it and move on!  We had a great time in primary at least and they were really getting good at it after a few weeks of fun practices.