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.