Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Week 11-Easter eggs

So the next few posts don't have any pictures because they're still on my camera at home and I'm at my parent's house. I'll have to add the pics. later.
For week 11, I used one of my sister's ideas of doing a little easter egg activity. It was very easy to prepare and fun! I brought in an Easter basket filled with plastic eggs. In half of the easter eggs I had a piece of paper with a song named on it for the kids to sing. The other half of the eggs had an easter joke inside. So the kids took turns picking out an egg from the basket and seeing what was inside.

Week 10-Review with E. Bunny

I knew a large portion of our singing time would be spent reviewing our two songs for the Easter program (Hosanna, and I know that my Savior loves me.) I wanted to make it a little different though.

So I told the kids that when a friend of mine found out that we would be singing Easter songs that day, he insisted on coming. I said that this friend of mine thinks he's some kind of Easter expert. Then I brought out our guest which was a stuffed bunny, that I just referred to as Easter Bunny. I told the kids that he can talk to me and that he says he's very "hoppy" to be here with them. I made a few other bad Easter puns throughout singing time. After I placed E. Bunny on the table, I pretended that he told me that he would prefer for someone to hold him. The kids loved getting called on to hold the bunny as we sang. Then after each song, bunny would tell me what he thought about the song. After the kids sang Hosanna, I said that Bunny thinks the song is missing something. Bunny explained that what he thinks the song could use is a "ding-dong-ding". So then the kids were split into two groups, so one could sing the regular verse, and the other could sing the ding-dong-dings.

Eventually, we said goodbye to E. Bunny and moved on to learning another verse of "Follow the Prophet", again using hand motions and actions to remember the words.

Week 9- Hosanna, and Follow the Prophet

This week we had to start learning two songs. I wanted the kids to sing in Sacrament meeting for the Easter program so we practiced "Hosanna". (I'll also have them sing "I know that my Savior loves me" for Easter.)
For "Hosanna", every line of the verse ends in an "ing" word: ring, king, sing, and bring. I posted these words with pictures on the chalkboard in a mixed up order. Then I sang a line of the song, leaving out the last word, and had a volunteer pick which "ing" word ends the line best. We did this for all lines of the verse. And now anytime we review the song, I can pull out the pictures of each of the "ing" words to help us sing it correctly. For the chorus, we talked a little about what "Hosanna" means, and then I told them that the chorus is just singing the word "Hosanna" four times.
After they got the basics down, we jazzed it up a little by dividing in half and having one side sing Hosanna, and the other be the echo.

Then we moved on to learning "Follow the Prophet." I read on sugardoodle about someone who uses a little disco inspired dance for the chorus. So I decided this song was going to be all about dancing and doing actions to remember the words. I made a funny, large disco ball to get the kids excited about dancing. This week, the kids learned the chorus, and the first verse.