If the Savior Stood Beside Me - Flip Chart

Here is a flip chart for If the Savior Stood Beside Me.  It is pretty much just key words with pictures.  On the chorus, the first two verses have "watching over me" in a downward direction, on the last chorus those words go up so the kids can remember that it ends on a higher note.  Have fun!

Click here for the PDF.

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Life is O'erflowing With Beautiful Things

Program season is almost over, and it's time to start singing for the holidays!  Because Thanksgiving is a somewhat neglected holiday, I love that this song was published in the Friend a few years ago.

{side note:

In our family, we bring out the Christmas music the day after Halloween.  We suffer through November, eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving so we can put up our trees and decorations!  We have two running jokes...

1. when the question comes up 'why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?' we say, 'if we didn't have Thanksgiving, how would we know when to put up the tree?!'
2.  right around turkey time, we jokingly say 'it's too bad we have to celebrate Thanksgiving halfway through Christmas!'

end side note}

All joking aside, I do love Thanksgiving!  Here is a flipchart for Life is O'erflowing With Beautiful Things.  If you haven't considered this song, you should.  It's simple, beautiful, and in line with My Heavenly Father Loves Me, and you can't go wrong singing about creation in all it's splendor.

Happy November!  I hope you spend at least a few minutes considering all of the blessings that we are given every day.  Life truly is overflowing.

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Our Door Is Always Open

We just got back from a family vacation, and I wanted to share a fun experience with you.  We have been going to Wallowa Lake for oh, about 28 years or so, and every time we're there on a Sunday we visit the ward in Enterprise, Oregon.  For the first time, circumstances allowed us to be there for the full 3-hour block.  That would mean, however, that my kids would go to primary!  They were NOT enthused.  But I felt very strongly that they should go and experience a different primary, and meet different primary kids.  They need to be exposed to things, right?  I started convincing them on Saturday.  

"It'll be fun, there will be lots of other visitors from the campground there!"
"It's just like our primary, only smaller!"
"Uncle Dillon is going to have to go to LOTS of new wards on his mission, aren't you brave like Uncle Dill?"
"There might be cute girls there."

All to no avail.  They were just not interested.  Then, thanks to a special prompting, I told them that if they go, the kids will sing them a welcome song.  They'll get to be the one's to go up to the front!  That did it!  As they bathed on Saturday night, we sang all the "Welcome Songs" we knew, and Gibson reminded me of the song I taught our primary when I was the chorister - Our Door Is Always Open (CS 254).  He loved that song, and we sang it and taught it to Georgia (who was too young at the time to remember it).

The kids were excited to go to primary, and find out which song they would have sung to them.  When I picked them up after primary, they both came out of the room BEAMING!  They had the best time.  They said goodbye to kids by name, said they'd see them when we come back next year.  Gibson asked if we could come back next week, and Georgia sang a new pioneer song.  It was awesome.

That is the power of music.  And that is another reason that I believe this is the most amazing job in the church!  Our primary songs are the bridges of our church, joining kids together from everywhere.

So I wanted to share with you the visual I made to teach Our Door Is Always Open.  It's a one-page visual, and you'll have to assemble it a little.  Here's how to put it together:

Print the PDF on cardstock or heavy paper
Page 1 - the door - cut out the top, right side, and bottom of the door frame (so it opens like a door)
Glue page 1 (after you cut it) right onto page 2 - the hills - make sure not to glue down the door
Page 3 - the girl - cut out her body, close so there's not background
Cut a small slit in the road that shows through the door.  Put a brad through the girl, and feed it through the slit.  I glued a little eraser onto the back to hold on to.
Have a child come up to the front and as you're singing, open the door and "walk" the girl up and down the path.  If you're teaching it, it can be any child.  If you're using it when you have visitors, have the visiting child open the door.
It's super rudimentary, but the kids (especially Juniors) love it.

What do you do in your primary to make visiting children feel welcome?

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Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes - Updated

When I first started this blog, I posted an idea on how to make HSK&T a little more fun.  Well, that idea evolved into something a little more rowdy fun, and I just realized that I haven't ever posted the new version here.  This new one includes the original body parts, a bunch of extra body parts, and now MOVEMENTS.  

Oh, yes.  That's right.  Actions!!  I know what you're thinking...and you're right!  It is the perfect way to sneak in your power-yoga workout in on Sunday without breaking the Sabbath!  So, here is the PDF with the girl clipart and all of the aforementioned body parts and action words.  Simply cut them out, use spray adhesive to stick the girl to the poster board, laminate the words, and velcro them to the poster board.  Make sure to leave 4 velcro dots at the top of the board to stick the words to when they've been chosen.  Got it?

(Printer help...when you select print, make sure to change the page scaling to "Tile All Pages" or choose the poster print settings.  The image should print on 4 pages total.)

Have fun!

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Ducks in the Pond CS 264

 

I love this song.  And last spring when I taught this to my primary kids, they learned it in about 5 minutes and they loved it, too!  Visuals for this song are really easy, you can do pictures or props.  I did pictures so they would file away easily.   Here is the PDF with the pictures I used.  (Me being an Oregon Duck fan, I did bring my quacking duck-bill shaped noise maker once, just to demonstrate what a happy duck song is.  All in the name of science, right?  It was hilarious.  But don't do that, it was crazy, not that you have a duck call anyway!  or do you?)

Ducks in the pond quack a hap-py song (picture of a duck)
Mother hens cackle the whole day long (hen with chicks)
Birds in their nests (picture of bird or nest)
And wind in the treetops (picture of trees)
All join in singing a hap-py song!

Oh, how fun to teach them the word "cackle!"

I would bring out this song mid-singing time, just as a break.  Or at the beginning as a wiggle song.  And by wiggle I mean sit still and sing big.  I would challenge them (especially on cloudy Sundays) by telling them that if they sang big enough, spring would come!  I lucked out one week, because we sang it at the beginning of primary and by the end the sun was starting to shine.  They thought they were magic!

Happy Spring!

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Father, We Thank Thee for the Night

This song is a gem that was originally published in "More Songs for Children," the supplement book to the old primary songbook, "Sing With Me."  It's now in the Children's Songbook, page 8.  I remember singing it when I was in primary, and it would be a great song to sing during Thanksgiving time and throughout the year!

I've created a simple flipchart here.

It does have all the words, which I usually only do for songs that don't necessarily need to be memorized.  This way, whenever you want to sing it, the kids can sing along without the awkward silences while trying to remember the words!

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Praise to the Man - Verse 3

This activity comes straight from this month's Friend magazine (June 2011, p. 43).  I always look for ways to incorporate the games and activities that are there, and this activity seemed perfectly suited for Praise to The Man.

First, here is the attachment to the worksheet.

Second, this activity is definitely more suited for Senior Primary.  However, if your primary is mixed, you can still use it - just have the oldest class(es) come to the front and sit with the yougest class(es).  I have done this, and it's a sure fire way to get the older kids to participate happily and the younger kids to feel loved by the older ones.

You can do this by class if you have a large group, or individually - it's really up to you.  Once the words are on the page and in their heads, singing it should come easily.  Have the piano player quietly play the music in the background, not only to set the mood but so the tune is in their heads as they find the words.

I created this puzzle late at night, and I've completed it twice but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct.  If you find an error, make sure you let me know!

Have fun, and let me know how it goes with your primary :)

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Sing-A-Story - Joseph Smith

Several days ago, I read this post by Kathleen at The Children Sing.  Her posts ALWAYS inspire me, and this one was no exception.  It has been on my mind all week!  With all of the focus on Joseph Smith during these past weeks in primary, I decided to follow Kathleen's example and create a "Sing-A-Story" for Joseph Smith.  I thought it would be a nice way to end this month, and something I can pull out again in June (martyrdom), July (pioneer day), April (organization of the church)...you get the point!  I have uploaded two different versions for you - one has songs listed, the other does not.  This is so you can plug in whatever songs your primary knows.  So, thank you Kathleen for this wonderful idea.  I have a feeling I will be coming up with many Sing-A-Stories!

Since it is meant to read like a book, print the odd pages and then the even pages.  If you want to save on ink, just print the words and add in your own pictures from the Gospel Art Kit or from your church magazines.

Sing-A-Story - Joseph Smith (with songs)

Sing-A-Story - Joseph Smith (without songs)

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Golden Plates

This week I've decided to have a little bit of fun and include some visual aids with PTTM.  But being the multi-tasker and multi-purposer that I am, I wanted to create a prop that would have some staying power.  So here are my "Golden Plates."  First, a quick tutorial to show you how to assemble this super easy visual aid:

1.  Start with a full poster of foam-core (I get mine at the $1 store) and cut it in half, then half again and so on until you end up with 16 rectangles approx. 5x7" each.  Don't feel like you have to cut exactly, I think the varying edges are kind of cool (and historically accurate, I'm pretty sure....teehee).

2.  Punch holes (I did 2) on the side, so you can add rings.

3.  Glue each "plate" together with a glue of your choice.  If you want your plates to open, well...you're on your own.  I was going for easy, not awesome.  Make sure the holes line up, or you'll have done all that work for nothing :)

4.  Here is what your stack of plates looks like when it's all glued together.

 5.  Spray paint your plates with gold spray paint.  Make sure to spray the sides really well, because the paint doesn't cover well on the foamy part.  But don't spray too close or too thick, because the paper will get too wet and get wrinkly (learned this lesson the hard way on a previous - failed - project).

6.  Use gold pipe cleaner to form the rings.  I didn't have gold, so I just spray-painted some black ones that I had.  You could go so far as to etch some sort of engravings on it, but that's up to you.  And that's it!

So the plan for tomorrow is simple - we'll start with "The Golden Plates" (CS #86), and I'll bring my golden plates inside a wooden box that I have.  I will pull them out and share with them the story of how the plates were found by Joseph Smith and how the experiences leading up to and as a result of that marked the opening of this, the last dispensation.  That will lead us into reviewing the first verse of PTTM, and we'll play "The Golden Plates Lay Hidden," the clever name for the hot/cold game.  That one is always a hit with our primary, and we really need the repetition with all of the big vocab in this song.

I hope all of you are having success with this amazing song.  We learned the entire first verse and chorus last week using the last two activities I posted, and it was amazing.  I was shocked that the kids were so on top of it - I had chills when we sang it all together at the end.  I know the Spirit is there when we sing every Sunday, but with certain songs, there's just something special, don't you think?  I LOVE IT!!!

Check in with us - how are things?  What's worked?  We'd all love to know!

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Praise to the Man - Verse 1

Because I'm teaching this song in little bits and not all at once, each section will be it's own post.  This is the activity I have planned to teach the first verse.

You will need:
4 envelopes, labeled with colored ink:  Red, Green, Blue, Orange
This document, with the phrases cut into strips and put into the matching envelope
The trivia questions in the PDF, or you can write your own.  Or just skip that part, it's up to you.

The plan:
I will divide the group into 4 sections, and let a reverent child from each section come up and choose an envelope.  They will take it back to their group and they will all have 1 minute or so to learn their part.  Then we will sing the song, each section singing their part.  The section that sings the best will have a chance to answer a trivia question.  If they get it right, they get to switch all of the colors around, however they want.  I will then give another minute or so for the group to learn their new parts, and the game will continue until each group gets a chance with each color.

I love this kind of activity, because it's another great way to get the kids to sing a song over and over again without getting bored, and also helps them memorize their parts without a lot of "I sing, U repeat" going on.  I have found that the more I leave it up to the kids to learn the words, the better they learn them!

Now, I'm going off to start my "Mother's Day Fest." Happy Mother's Day to you all, and I hope you have a restful day!

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Dearest Mother, I Love You

As usual, it's a little late to use this for Mother's Day next week.
As usual, I didn't feel inspired to do this song until this morning.
As usual, I frantically put this flip chart together before church and finished with only minutes to spare.
As usual, I was at church today with Saturday hair.  And mascara.
I did manage clean clothes, deoderant, and brushed teeth.
Don't judge me.  I know you've been there.

Here is the flip chart for this quick, 4-phrase song.  I put a lot of words on it (which I don't usually do), but I don't usually require the kids to memorize songs that are only sung once a year.  Of course, I encourage the kids to shout sing forte on the I LOVE YOU!! part.

I wanted to post it now, just to get a head start on 2012.  How's that for planning ahead?!
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Praise to The Man

So, here we are.  The song that we've all been worried about since we first opened the 2011 primary outline last fall.  The big one.  The hard one.  The big words.  The challenging music.

Sigh.

I'm going to start things really simply with this one, given the complexity of it and also knowing that I really need to review Mother's Day songs with them and I haven't even seen them in almost a month!  (General Conference, vacation, Stake Conference - phew!)

I'm going to start by playing them an MP3 of Scotland the Brave, played on bagpipes and drums.  I've been listening to it on my phone now for a couple of days and man! - that song is amazing!  It gets me excited.  You know the kind of excited you are when you can't figure out why you're excited?  It's a great, triumphant feeling.

Here is a link to a youtube video that is kind of fun to watch.

So I'll start by playing the music, and I'll turn the volume up so they can really feel it.  Then I'm going to ask them how it made them feel.  I'll share with them that this song is a song of victory, of triumph over enemies.  At that point, I'll retell the story of Joseph Smith and how this song was written after he died as a song of triumph - Death shall not conquer the hero again!

All of this should only take a few minutes, then I'm going to pass out the following cards to each class.  Here is the link.  (Because my primary is combined, I always ask the oldest class to come up and sit with the 2 youngest classes and help them participate.  This keeps them engaged, and helps the little ones keep up with the rest of the primary.)

They are for the chorus only, and that is all I plan on teaching them tomorrow.  I'm just going to sing the chorus a few times while they put the words/symbols in order.  This type of activity works really well for my primary, so I do similar things quite often.  But hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it?!

So what are YOU doing to tackle this doozie?  Have you already had success?  Share with us!  We'd all love to hear, and it's never too late to share ideas.  Some people are still a few weeks away from this one, and our plans can always change with the  right inspiration!

{added Sunday after church}  The mp3 was a total hit.  The arrangement I have is by the Nashville Pipes & Drums, and it starts out very reverently, so the kids were just listening quietly (I told them that if they got restless I would have to turn it off).  Then there's a pause and the drums start in and the pipes get really loud.  The kids were visibly excited, and most of their little heads started bobbing up and down with the rhythm.  When the song was over, they wanted to hear it again!  I asked how the song made them feel, and some of the comments were amazed, excited, like I want to march, like I just won a race, like crying, reverent, hopeful.  It was awesome.  I didn't have time to do the chorus activity I had planned, but I decided to sing the entire first verse alone and if any of the kids knew the words have them join in.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the kids knew most of the words, especially the chorus!  We're going to have a lot of fun with this song, and I know that they felt the Spirit today as we sang about our Prophet Joseph Smith.  Oh, how I love this calling!!!!!  And be sure to read the comments, one has an excerpt from a letter from Joseph to W.W. Phelps that is so tender it gave me chills.  Thank you, Trish!
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Hand in Hand Together Flipchart

I am planning on teaching this song tomorrow, which comes from The Friend.  It has a really catchy tune, and should be really easy to teach.  Here is a simple flipchart I made to go with it.  This is one of a few extra songs I'm trying to teach this year for the program.  When I looked through the outline, I wanted to include a few more songs that are specifically about scriptures, since that's the subject of our theme! 

Are you teaching any extra songs that aren't included in the outline?  What are they?  We'd love to know!  Have a great weekend, and enjoy the General Conference break!

Hand in Hand Together
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Nursery Props #2 - Ribbon Wands

This idea is not my own, in fact it has been around for centuries, I'm sure.  I can just imagine some midieval child running around a muddy field with one of these in her hand trailing behind her in the wind.  But I digress.  I made these to sing with "Give, Said the Little Stream," and the kids are enthralled every time I bring them.  They just love to run around and twist the ribbons around in the air.  I have a very young nursery this year, with only 2 of about 10 that are over the age of 2.  So anything simple that gets them moving is HUGE.  They also don't do a lot of singing, given their age, but I love to see them get excited. 

I put them together quite simply - with popsicle sticks, and 4 lengths of ribbon in different colors and lengths.  Have fun!

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Nursery Props #1 - Sunbeam Mirror

The next few posts will be specifically geared towards Nursery-aged children for those of you who do singing time with them each Sunday.  If you do, you know that it can be really hard to keep those little ones' attention without some visual helps.  This first "prop" idea is a mirror to use for Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, or any other song that talks about sunshine, light, warmth, etc.

Here are a couple of pics to get your juices flowing.  As you sing, just hold the mirror in front of each child, and I promise...their faces will LIGHT UP!  (Tee-hee!  I love it when that works!)

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Stand for the Right - Flip Chart

So, true to form, I created this quick flip chart to take to singing time about---oh,---10 minutes before church today.  It's nothing special, but it does the job.  So here it is if you're still in the market for some visuals for this (thankfully) simple song for March!

Stand for the Right Flipchart
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Follow the Prophet - More Verses

We are a little ahead of schedule on learning our songs, so I've decided to spend some time tomorrow learning some of the Book of Mormon verses of Follow the Prophet.  Here are the ones we're going to learn, although we won't get to them all tomorrow:

Lehi was a prophet, sailed across the sea
From Jerusalem the Lord told him to flee
Coming off the boat he knelt down in the sand
Thanked the Lord for leading them to the promised land.

Nephi was a prophet, he chose to obey
All of the commandments that the Lord did say.
Nephi was courageous, valiant and true
What the Lord commanded, he would go and do.

Samuel the prophet was a Lamanite
Called to teach the Nephites and bring them gospel light
Prophesied that Christ in five years would be born
"Repent or be destroyed," are the things that Samuel warned.

Joseph Smith the prophet, He restored the truth
He found the Book of Mormon while still in his youth
He faced persecution, endured until the end
Served the Lord and now God says, "Well done my faithful friend."

Pres'dent Monson is our prophet, he teaches us through God
To follow the commandments and hold the iron rod
We watch at General Conference; the words he speaks are true
And even through we're little, there's so much we can do!

The last verse I actually got at the Pat Graham workshop that was held back in January.  Brother Stephen Garrard from the Stansbury Park Utah Stake was there and while we were on the subject of "Follow the Prophet," he stood and sang this verse that he and his primary wrote.  I loved it, and actually chased him out of the room to ask him to write it down for me!  I know, sometimes I throw dignity completely out the window.  When he sang the last phrase (there's so much we can do), he pounded his fist in the air.  Even though it was just him singing it, I imagined all of my primary kids putting their fists in the air, and uniting together for the truth.  It was a neat thought, and I'm really excited to teach my kids that verse.  So a very special THANK-YOU to Bro. Garrard and the Millpond Ward Primary!

Here is the link to the Follow the Prophet Signs for these verses. 

I'm curious - what other verses does your primary sing?  With the church so generously allowing us to pen our own verses, I'm always curious to hear what ones you've found or come up with.  So please share them!  And if you'd like a sign for a different prophet, please leave a comment and I'll make one up.

I'd really love to hear your ideas, so please leave a comment :o)

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I Will Follow God's Plan

Another month, another song!  This week I'm only introducing the first half of "I Will Follow God's Plan."  I have a couple of other quick songs I want to teach, and of course we'll need to spend some time reviewing IILWMH, because I was out of town last week.  So, I will be using an idea from the Friend - you may have seen it, it's one of my 6-year old's favorite activities.  He calls them "blurs."  Have you seen the game?  Pictures of common things are distorted and you guess what they are.  Here's the plan...

I will pass out an envelope to each class with pictures that represent words from the first part of the song (link to the picture blurs).  Gift, plan, heaven, choice, earth, light, birth.  I have blurred the pictures a little bit using.  For the junior kids (we are all combined), I have the pictures without the blur.  I will start singing the song, and as I sing the kids will have to put the pictures in the order that I sing the words they represent.  Once they have them in order, they may sing along with me using the blurs as visual cues.

This is a fun way to get the kids to interact quietly.  I always like to have the children hear a song several times before I ask them to sing it, and this activity is great for that.  Most of the time, it takes 2-4 times through the song for all of the classes to get finished.  I do plan on having the older boys come and sit with the two youngest classes to help them out a little bit.

I will be doing something different to introduce the second half, but if anyone is interested in blurs for the entire song, please leave a comment and I'll make some.
                                                                     
What are you doing to introduce this song?  Share!  Please share!

{new} here is the link to blurs for the second half of the song :o)

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Listen, Listen

Here is the one-page "flipchart" for this song, along with a few pictures on how it works!  It's pretty simple, but it gets the point across in a really fun way and doesn't take up a lot of room, which is a real plus.  I keep in in a plastic sleeve in my Sunday Binder and use it as a visual even though most of the kids know it.  It's just a good way to include a few of those ever-willing volunteers by having them come up and slide the numbers and open the question mark. 

Step 1: 

Print out the PDF of Listen, Listen on cardstock or heavy paper.  There are 3 pages

Step 2: 

On the first page, cut along the dotted vertical lines and around the question mark, leaving it attached enough to fold it over.

Step 3: 

Cut out the numbers on the third page, straight across the page (this leaves enough room on either side to pull the slip out and move it back in again).

Step 4: 

Insert the number sheet into the slits.

 Step 6: 

Glue the top page onto the compass page, making sure not to glue the flap of the question mark or the area where the numbers slide in and out.



As you sing, move the number out each time you sing the word "Listen."  Open the flap when you get to "He will guide you..."

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Follow the Prophet

When I first was called as the primary chorister, I was overwhelmed (in may ways, obviously) by Follow the Prophet.  So many verses!  So many prophets!  So many different orders in which to sing it!  Thankfully, the presidency opted to only include 4 verses in the program, but it was still hard.  I was searching around the web, as I usually do, and came across this post  at I Sing U Sing and LOVED her idea of having a visual reminder of what verse we were on!  Of course my creativity only extends to clipart, so I created some reminder sticks to use for our program.  I have included all of the prophets that are in the Children's Songbook.  I know that there have been other verses written with some of the Book of Mormon prophets, so if there's a verse that your primary knows that isn't here, just send a comment or an email and I'll whip one up for you.  Oh, and you'll notice that I've changed the 'Adam' one - what can I say?  Everything's an evolution... 

Just print them out, cut & laminate for durability, and tape a popsicle stick to the back.  And of course, write the words on the back!  I don't know about you, but 9 verses of any song is a memory-overload :o)

Here is the link to the Follow the Prophet Signs PDF.  Enjoy!
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