Baptism Medley- Baptism and When I Am Baptized Part 1

For the Primary program I have decided to teach the children a Baptism Medley arranged by Monica Scott.  The medley is of the songs Baptism and When I am Baptized, both from the Children's Songbook.  I chose to teach this song because our primary is mostly junior children and it is difficult to teach songs with a lot of versus to them. This arrangement only uses the first verse of Baptism, which is learned easily.  Plus, our primary sang When I Am Baptized for the program in 2018 so the children know it pretty well.  You can hear the music HERE and purchase the music for this song HERE for a very reasonable price.  This arrangement is fun because you sing the first verse of Baptism and the second verse of When I Am Baptized together.

If you decide to just teach Baptism this lesson will work as well you will just need to continue on with the lesson to include the 2nd and 3rd versus. 

To teach this song I used THIS technique posted on Camille's Primary Ideas. I did not use the real t-shirts but just printed, cut and laminated the t-shirt illustrations Camille posted on her blog. The t-shirts had the words who, where, when, what, how, and where written on them.   Before primary started I hung up all but one of my white t-shirt print outs on a "clothes line" that I had hanging across the chalkboard.

Music Lesson: I showed the white t-shirt that I hadn't hung on the line to the children and told them this story.

Max's mom gave him a brand new white t-shirt to wear to school one day.  At lunch time Max got out his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and took a big bite.  The sandwich was pretty full with his favorite raspberry jelly and some oozed out and fell on his white shirt (at this point in the story I used a red washable marker to color on the shirt to represent jam).  After lunch Max went out to recess and decided to play soccer.  The field was kind of muddy and as he ran mud splattered up onto his white t-shirt (make mud splatters with a brown marker on the t-shirt).  When school was over Max went home for dinner.  His mom had made his favorite, spaghetti with meatballs!  Max dug right in,but in his excitement a meatball fell from his fork and hit his white shirt (make another red mark on the t-shirt). Then Max's mom brought out his favorite dessert, blueberry pie.  Max ate his entire piece, but not before he dribbled a little blueberry filling on his white shirt (make a blue mark on the t-shirt)  By this time Max's shirt was pretty dirty.  So what do you think he did?  Did he throw it away? No his mom put some stain remover on it (spray with some water) and put it in the washing machine (wipe with a paper towel until the marker comes all the way off) and hung it up to dry (add the now clean t-shirt to your clothes line).

Then I told the children that we were going to learn a song today that teaches a gospel principle that is like Max's white t-shirts and asked if anyone had a guess what the song would be about.  Several children guessed baptism and we discussed how after we are baptized we are clean from mistakes, but we will make mistakes again that will make us dirty like the t-shirt.  When that happens we can repent and our wrongs will be washed away and we will be clean again.

I then played a recording of just the first verse of the Baptism medley. I asked the children to listen for the answers to the questions as we listened to the song.  I stopped the music after each phrase was answered and hung a corresponding picture under the t-shirt with that word on it.   After we had listened to the entire first verse and had the pictures in order we sang through it with the piano a couple of times.

Then I gave each child a rhythm wand and taught them an action to go with each phrase of the song.  Putting a movement to phrases helps the children learn and remember the words faster and helps them not get bored while singing the song over and over.

These are the actions that I taught the children using the rhythm wands:

I Love the Words of the Prophets

Since President Nelson was a heart surgeon I thought it would be fun to do a Valentine's Day singing time highlighting him.

I found these super fun balloons called Wack-A-Pack at the Dollar Tree.  The balloon comes in a flat sealed packet.  When you hit the packet the balloon begins to inflate until it is big enough to POP out of the packet.  When the balloon pops out it does makes a small Popping sound, but it isn't super loud and I didn't find it to be irreverent for primary.  Before primary began I placed 6 Wack-A-Packs on the table and under each packet I placed the name of a song, along with a quote from a general authorities that went along with the song and an action.

Music Lesson: I started my lesson by showing a picture of President Nelson and explaining to the primary children that when he was younger he was a heart surgeon.  We discussed how he healed literal hearts in order to save lives.  Then I transitioned to talk about how all of us are able to heal and touch the hearts of those around us by being kind and reaching out to them in loving ways.  I asked for some examples from the children on what they could do to heal people's hearts.

Direction for the game: Have a child come up to the table and show the primary the accompanying action for the balloon pack and what song they are going to sing.  Explain that they will sing the song normally until they here the balloon POP out of the packet and then everyone will continue to sing while doing the action that accompanies the song.  Once the song has been sung and the balloon popped then read the general authority quote that went with the song and hang the balloon under President Nelson's picture.  

I used  THESE action cards from Susan Fitch to put under the packets, but you could also just write the action on a piece of paper.

I found quotes for all of these songs, but I only used the first 6: Sing a Song 253 ( we sang love instead of like), Love One Another 136, I Love to See the Temple 95, Jesus Said Love Everyone 61, 

A Happy Family 198, I Know My Father Lives 5, If the Savior Stood Beside Me, Oh how we Love to Stand 279, I Feel my Savior's Love 74 and  I Will Follow God's Plan 164.

You can view and print the quotes I used HERE. 

I also decided to print pictures of the general authorities that said the quote on sticker paper.  After we read the quote I place them over the pictures on the balloons before hanging them up. 

Snowball Throw Review Game

We have been getting so much snow here that I decided to bring a little snow fun into primary, with this snowball throw game. To make the game I printed out these winter pictures on cardstock and cut them out.  I them taped the pictures to empty toilet paper rolls to make them stand up.

Download the winter images. Here

To play the game I stood up the winter images on a table in the front of the room and chose one child at a time to throw a "snowball" and knock over one of the winter images.  

When they knocked over the image we sang the song that corresponded with it.  I used this game to review  the three program songs we have learned up to this point and I added a couple fun activity songs to keep the children interested.  

You could also use this game to sing the same song over multiple times by assigning each image an action/activity and then singing the song using that action/activity when the image gets knocked over.    

The Church of Jesus Christ

In October 2018 General Conference President Nelson gave a powerful talk to the members of the church entitled, "The Correct Name of the Church".  He stated members should call the church by it's full name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and reminded members that we should not use nicknames when talking about the church.  President Nelson stated, "Thus, the name of the Church is not negotiable. When the Savior clearly states what the name of His Church should be and even precedes His declaration with, “Thus shall my church be called,” He is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended." With this in mind I will be teaching the song, The Church of Jesus Christ in March.

I will begin my music lesson by sharing some of President Nelsons remarks and linking that to the March Come Follow Me Lessons for Primary.  I will help the children understand that this is the same church today that Jesus organized while he was on the earth.  My comments will be brief and then I will continue with teaching the song.  

This song has a really nice catchy tune with a great rhythm.  I am basing part of my teaching on a post from Camille's Primary Ideas with a few changes of my own and I won't be doing the treasure hunt.  You can view Camille's post Here.  

First I printed this super cute free flip chart from Susan Fitch that you can find Here.  Instead of making a flip chart with it I cut out the picture circles and glued them to cheap paper plates.  Then I cut out the top words that are the lead in phrases to the sentences, I belong, I know, I'll follow... and glued them to the top of the plates next to the pictures.

The rest of the phrases I will hide around the room for the children to find.

 The paper plates will be displayed on the chalkboard in the order that they are sang in the song.

As the children find the phrases they will bring them to the front of the room and match them with the paper plate pictures.  Then either myself or a member of the presidency will help them tape the phrase to the plate with double sided tape.

Once all of the plates have been matched with phrases we will sing the song using the plates to help the children remember the words. If you have a large enough primary you could have children that are singing well come to the front and hold the plates while the primary sings.   If you don't want to use the plates you could also just make the flip chart and use that instead to teach the song.

Once we have sang through the song a couple of times I will teach the children the actions using plain paper plates.  Using the paper plates helps the children feel the very obvious "marching" rhythm that is present in this song and helps them associate the phrasing with movements, which in turn helps them memorize the words faster.  Plus, it's just fun getting to bang paper plates together while singing! You can view my video below to see my actions and how to use the paper plates.  You will need to have enough paper plates for each primary child to have two plates.  I just buy the big pack of thin cheap paper plates and reuse them until they are too bent to hold their shapes.