Week 15-I Feel My Savior's Love

There's no song assigned for the month of May, however, our primary still had a new song to learn due to an upcoming Hope for Haiti Concert. The Humanitarian Service Committee has decided to do a benefit concert for Haiti. Every church in the area has been invited to attend and participate. I mean EVERY CHURCH, not just LDS churches. I think it's really gonna be something to see! The primary has been asked to sing a song for this event so this week, we learned the first verse and chorus of "I Feel My Savior's Love."

One night, while looking at endless singing time blogs, I came across this idea that I had to steal...Magic Potions! You start out by writing all the words to the song in red, green, yellow, or blue.

Then to set up the potions, you fill four clear cups with about 3/4 cup water and maybe 1/3 cup vinegar (more vinegar=more fun!). Then you place four spoons in front with a different color of food coloring on each.


Then you cover the drops of food coloring with baking soda.

Then you call on someone to choose a spoon and stir the magic potion. It bubbles and fizzes and then, with more stirring, turns red, blue, green, or yellow.





If it turns yellow, all the yellow words are removed and the kids have to sing the song without those words. You continue this with all the colors until no words are left.

For the junior primary, this idea had to be adapted since many cannot read. So I put the words and helpful pictures on different colors of paper. Whichever color appeared in the potion determined which part of the song we would learn first. If the red appeared, we would learn the part of the song on the red paper first, etc.

Week 14-Whooooo loves to sing?

My sister-in-law Liesel made the most adorable owls for Valentine's Day (her family's theme was "Owl love you forever") and when I commented on her blog about them,(how I'd love to fit owls into singing time somehow) she offered to make some and send them to me. Are you kidding me? How nice is that? She sent me enough owl parts on the cutest paper to make 10 large and 10 small owls and she even came up with the name for the singing time activity..."Whooooo loves to sing?" Very clever.

We had a good number of songs under our belt and I didn't want to add another new song so it was great to use the owls as a review game. I brought a little stuffed owl (which actually belongs to Grandma) and tossed it to someone sitting reverently. As I threw it I said, "Whoooo love's to sing?" Once the child caught it, I said "Tyler, (or whatever name), do you love to sing?" If the answer was yes, then "Tyler" got to pick out a mommy owl from the tree. On the back of the mommy owl was a song, and on the corresponding baby owl, was a way to sing the song.

For example:
I Know that my Savior Love's me: you lead
He Sent His Son: just your class sings
Follow the prophet: leave out the word 'prophet'
The Church of Jesus Christ: Sing acupella (sp?)
Mother, tell me the story: sing with the lights out
We sang other songs too that won't be part of the primary program, but you get the gist.

Week 13 -Mother Tell Me the Story

We needed to start learning a song for Mother's Day so I introduced "Mother tell me the story" by acting the song out with Cole. I sort of rocked him back and forth with a blanket while we sang the song to each other. I know I use Cole too much, and I hope that doesn't offend people. He's very convenient.

Then, I had four books displayed (since the song is about bedtime stories), labeled as book 1,2,3,or 4. In each book was a line from the first verse of the song (which is the only verse the kids need to learn). I called on someone to come up and try to find the first line of our song in book one. Once is was found we practiced that part of the song. We continued this for the rest of the books. For the "mommy" verse of the song, I passed out the words to the teachers and they filled in as the "mommies".

Week 12-The Church of Jesus Christ

The song for April was "The Church of Jesus Christ". It's just a great little, upbeat song. I thought it would be fun to visit some of the kids houses before Sunday, and video tape them. My idea was to have different kids in the primary each sing a different line of the song and video tape it. Then I could play the video for the primary on Sunday, and it would play the whole song for them with the singer constantly changing.

The kids loved it. They wanted to keep watching it over and over, especially the kids who were in it. Later, to help them really learn the words, I had fun pressing 'play' then pausing it to see if they could think of the word or phrase that comes next.

We also learned a couple more verses of Follow the Prophet, again using actions and dancing.


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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.