The Black Hat won't be Back

Well, not all Sundays go as planned, in case you were thinking that all my plans work out perfectly.  This Sunday was one of those fail days, but the great thing about it is that primary is the most forgiving place, as long as you don't take yourself to seriously.  The teachers/leaders jump in all the time to help out, and the kids get a kick out of my mess-ups, and they really enjoy the fun.  So, don't stress if it doesn't work, and just change it up next time.

To introduce the June song "The Holy Ghost" pg 105, I had some pictures already done, but instead of putting them up on the wall or board, I tried hanging them up on a clothesline.  However, when I got there to set up, I realized there really wasn't places to hang it up properly.  I finally used some pushpins but with the weight of the pictures, I wasn't sure it would hold, and it also sank pretty far down so I had to kind of hold it up anyway.  I attached the pictures with clothespins, and each picture had a color of the rainbow marked on it with sticky notes.

For the activity I tried this, which also was kind of a fail. I couldn't find a black hat so I found a deep, black bag and I placed 8 different color crayons in the bottom.  It was supposed to be dark enough that the kids wouldn't be able to tell the colors apart when I asked them to pick a specific color that coordinated with one of the pictures.  Then they would say they needed more light to pick the right color.  Then I would ask them if they wanted to use a flashlight and talk about how that is like the Holy Ghost guiding us with light.

However, my black bag was just not dark enough, or maybe the room wasn't dark enough.  I had to put my head almost completely in the bag to block out enough light.  So, I had the kids just reach in without even looking, and then asked them if it would be easier if they could see or if they had more light.  Then the flashlight.  So it still worked out but not as good as I had hoped.

Not to mention that in senior primary (luckily not junior) my clothesline did come unpinned and the push pin went flying across the room in the middle of the song!  I just smiled and kept singing, while the secretary helped me hold it up for the rest of the time.  And one of the boys found my pushpin, so all in all it ended well enough.

However, it was not all a fail.  We were a small group this week so not only did a lot of kids miss my mishaps, but junior primary was small enough to gather them in the middle of the room instead of way spread out to the edges.  Then I passed out my new "shakey eggs" I finally got around to making*, and we did "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" pg 60, while keeping the beat and then shaking the eggs vigorously instead of jumping in the air at sun-BEAM!  They did great and the eggs were popular in nursery as well.  Now I just need to sanitize them all!

*Fill colored plastic easter eggs with various shaking items like rice, small beans, wheat, etc. anything that makes a rattling noise but doesn't spoil.  Only fill about 1/4 of the egg and then seal with hot glue.  I like to carry mine around in an actual egg carton for fun (also makes it easy to see if someone has not returned one to you).