Primary Pirate

Aaaarrrrrrgggg Mateys!  This week we had a visit from the Primary Pirate!  Got some of my pirate costume stuff out, and borrowed a few accessories from mom. 

My kids modeling some of our awesome pirate paraphernalia!

I also happen to have a small wooden treasure chest which I filled with some "jewels", and then interspersed some puzzle pieces.  I think I got the blank puzzle pieces from Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  On one side of the puzzle I drew a treasure map. 

Treasure Map - primary room - red X marks the spot!

I then chose a helper "parrot" (I actually had a parrot beak they had to wear) to come up and dig through the treasure to find the pieces.  We would sing the song as they each worked on putting the puzzle together.  Finally they were able to discover where the treasure was hidden!

Singing Time Vacation!

School just started for us, so I decided that I needed a VACATION!  (got the idea here)  When music started I didn't say anything, just started setting up a camping chair, then got dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, hawaiian leis, a pair of sunglasses, a big floppy hat, and I got out a drink and straw and sat down, telling the kids that summer was over for them, but my vacation had just started.  I told them they were going to be in charge today instead of me and I was just going to relax.

I had a bag for each song we have been working on, with various props I had used.  I then picked a kid for each song and they could look through the bag, decide what props to use and how to conduct.
This worked pretty good, but they weren't quite as independent as I had hoped, they still needed lots of help deciding, holding things, pointing at the right parts, etc.  Which of course I then used to my advantage and at the end told them that apparently they weren't quite ready to replace me yet, so next week I would come back from vacation and get back to work!

Keep the Commandments

Teaching the song "Keep the Commandments" (pg 146) can be fairly easy as there is a lot of repetition.  This concept worked really well:

1) Ask the kids "Where do we find the commandments?"  When they say scriptures sing the song "Scripture Power" and while doing so dress up someone as a warrior, specifically with the "Sword of Truth" and "Shield of Faith" from the 2nd verse.  I also talked about the difference between warrior offense (sword, etc.) and defense (armor/shield)  You could the discuss a few of the commandments and see if they can figure out which ones are offense (the ones that are proactive - the SHALLS), and the ones that are defense (the SHALL NOTS).

2) Ask "Who brought us commandments?"  Sing "Follow the Prophet" Moses verse (pg 110) and dress up another kid as Moses.  I put some of the key words of the song on a "staff" and had him raise it up and then lead the kids around the room.  

3) Now tell the kids that the best way to keep the commandments is to do them over and over until they become habit. Then have them learn the song by showing the repetition of certain phrases. I wrote the beginning of each line on the board to show how it often repeats, and then I had "Moses" use his staff to point to each line as we sang it.

4) I had a little time left at the end so we sang the song a couple more times and passed around a set of commandments I made out of cardboard, and when I stopped the music the person holding it had to name one of the 10 commandments.