Mix-Ups

I've been doing primary music for less than a year and I'm already tired of the same old Welcome Songs.  I would LOVE to have an updated Primary Songbook sometime!  Until then, just gotta get creative.  So first I changed the words on "Fun to Do" to say "Meeting a Friend" or "Meeting New Friends."

But that was only one day.  Then I got on pinterest...

Found this awesome idea here to mix up the "Hello, Hello" pg 260, welcome song by using different languages.  A visitor gets to pick a stick with a language on it, and then we sing while replacing "Hello" with the word for hello in that language.  I knew it would be a hit because especially the older kids love trying to sing the birthday song that is in a bunch of different languages, only this is simpler and the little kids can get it too!  The link above shows even more language options, but I'm keeping it simple for now and will add more when they become bored of these.

(Want to eventually switch to actual flag representing each country)

I also "mixed up" our work on "Follow the Prophet" pg 110.  I modified the idea here, and took key words from the verses we are working on, then found a substitute word to replace.  I HAD to steal their idea, which was to replace "follow" with "swallow", and even though we are not doing the Jonah verse this year, still so funny!

Anyway, I made footprints and wrote all the right words and replacement words on them, using different colors for the three different verses.

For junior primary I gave each kid a set of footprints and they had to pick the right one.  Then we put the right ones on the board leading to a picture of the prophet, and the replacement words I gave to the kids and they could put them somewhere on the floor leading somewhere else.  When we got a verse done, we sang it.

For senior primary, we have a small group, so I split them up into three teams, one for each verse.  I had scattered all the footprints on the floor, all mixed-up.  Each team had to find all the words in the right color for their verse, take them to one corner of the room, then put them in two lines.  1) one line for the right words in order.  2) one line for the replacement words in order.  I thought they'd get it pretty quick, but it took some time and some continued directions to help them along.  It was helpful to have some of the adult teachers jump in to help.

When all teams had theirs right, I let each team sing the "silly" version of their song with all the replacement words, and then everyone together sang the right words.  They struggled with singing the "silly" version because I could not find perfect rhymes/rhythms for every word, but it was still fun and it mostly got them up and out of their chairs and working together.

On a more reverent song, I would not do the silly word mix-up, but since this is a pretty upbeat song and it has funny lines already, I figured it was okay.

Follow the Prophet: Family Feud

We've been working on the song "Follow the Prophet" pg 110, for a few weeks now, so I wanted to see if they are really getting the words and the story behind them.  So I made a quiz about the 3 verses we are learning.  Each answer had 2 options, and both were phrases from various parts of the song, just mixed up from a different verse.  For instance:

Q: Where was Moses leading Israel?

A: (wrong) Lion's Den,  or (right) Promised Land

I would pick two reverent kids to come up and gave each of them a flyswatter.  I read the two possible answers out loud and laid them out on a table in front of them.  Then I quickly read the question and they had to see who could swat the right answer first.  Some of them were tough, because both answers could work so they had to really think about the words from the correct verse.  Even the Sunbeams had heard the song enough that most of them eventually figured it out, and I purposely gave them the easier questions.

There were 5 clues for each verse, and I had this charted on the board.  All the questions were mixed up so as the kids answered questions correctly I put them up on the board in their corresponding spot in relation to the 3 verses.  When we got all the answers right for one verse we paused and sang it, and then continued on until we had done all 3 verses.

For junior primary I made sure to repeat the answers a number of times for the youngest who couldn't read.  I also had them review the 3 verses before we started the game.  Senior primary did not need this review.  I also did not separate them into specific teams like boys/girls, left/right etc.  Instead I just gave points to the color of the flyswatter the winner was holding.  That way no one really felt like the were on the losing team particularly since I handed out the flyswatters randomly anyway.

This took up quite a bit of singing time, but I really liked it because it showed me just how much they were really understanding the song, not just memorizing it, and the kids had great fun whacking away at the right answers.

For a wiggle song we did the "Wise Man and the Foolish Man" pg 281, and I had the Sunbeams be the floods, all holding a blue blanket that they raised up on each chorus.  An older (taller) class stood behind them with clouds (quilt batting) and lowered them as the rains came down.  Sunbeams were pretty uncoordinated, but it was fun anyway, and got all of them involved.

All About Faces

Primary was "All About Faces" this week!  Introduce by talking about a singing faces, i.e. open mouth, eyes watching, ears listening, etc.

First, I introduced the kids to my FIRST faces:

I got the idea for these guys on pinterest and made them my own. They are awesome and popular with the kids!  Cutting through the tennis ball to make the mouths was harder than I thought it would be so my husband took pity and cut them with a dremel tool.

Anyway, I let the kids pick their names and they talked the the kids a bit.

A funny way to do this is to tell the kids that they are going to make different faces and the kids have to guess what emotion it is.  Obviously, they really can only make one face, but you can have fun with that.  Use the following:

1) surprised - open the mouth really fast and wide
2) tired - open the mouth a little slower
3) funny - open the mouth a little and then jiggle them up and down
4) scared - open the mouth fast and wide, have them "shiver"
5) singing - open their mouths medium and wave them around like they are bobbing their heads to a beat

This was quite funny and the teachers laughed even more than the kids.  For a warm-up song I had the kids grab a slip of paper out of the golf ball mouths, which had a fun song written on it, and we sang that song.

For the SECOND faces of the day, we worked on "Follow the Prophet" pg 110, with a kid being the prophet's face, idea found here:

The THIRD faces of the day were for lip syncing, again reviewing songs they are working on for the program.  These visuals came directly from here and there are many different designs to choose from, the only trick was to get them sized right for kids mouths.  Luckily I have two good guinea pigs at home to practice with!

Make sure before you have kids do these that you explain that it is inappropriate to be sticking their tongues out, etc. that they only get to do it if they will try to sing the words.  These were quite funny looking so it took some time to stop the giggling, but they quieted down when I said they wouldn't get picked if they were not singing.

Finally my FOURTH faces of the day I only did in Senior Primary, where we worked on the song "Latter-Day Prophets" pg 134.  I knew they had memorized most of this song before hand, so I passed out pictures of all athe latter-day prophets and asked them to figure out the right order.  I'll admit, a few of the kids knew the order a lot better than I, something to brush up on for next time.  *(If you do this song, make sure to research some different wording to add the most recent prophet(s) to the end).

Marching into March

March is upon us, so in Primary we "Marched into March."

We started by practicing our marching in place, while I got my marching gear ready.  I put on my marching hat and I had a baton to keep the beat.  Then we sang "Follow the Prophet" while literally marching around the room, with me leading the way, holding a picture of the prophet we were singing about.  We did a couple of rounds to review each verse.

After getting everyone settled again, I took my hat off and put it to the side.  I told them we would then review some song by doing fun actions.  I prepped my hat before coming in to have the action cards already in it, so they were amazed when I had someone come up and pull a card from my hat, not knowing they were there the whole time.

I've seen lots of action cards on pinterest, with the usual ones like jumping, turn in circles, wave your arms, but I wanted some different stuff, so I made up my own.  They really enjoyed swimming in place and conducting music.  They were a little hesitant about the chicken and robot dances but finally got into it, especially after I demonstrated.