Faith verse 1

This is a song that I remember learning as a child in primary.  I love the visual images that are used to teach about faith and how they are all very understandable to primary aged children.  When I sing this song it produces a visual image in my mind so I decided to use those visuals to help teach the song to the primary children.

Music Lesson: I will start by telling the children, "faith is a word we hear a lot at church, but it is sometimes hard to understand what faith means.  We are going to learn a song today that will help us understand the meaning of faith.  The name of the song is Faith and I am going to play a recording of it while I draw a picture on the chalk board.  As you listen to the words and watch the pictures I am drawing try to think about what it means to have faith."

Then I will play the song faith with the words which you can download at lds.org or play on your digital device from the gospel library app.  As I play the song I will draw picture clues on the board that will help the children remember the words of the song.  You could also just sing the song if you can draw and sing at the same time or ask someone else that knows the song to sing while you draw.

My picture will look something like this:

Faith is knowing the sun will rise, lighting each new day. (I am going to also write the words faith is... inside the sun, but I forgot for my picture.)

Faith is knowing the Lord will hear my prayers each time I pray.

Faith is like a little seed: If planted, it will grow.

Faith is a swelling within my heart. 

When I do right, I know.

Once we have listened to the entire song and have the drawing on the board I will then have our pianist play through each phrase while we sing the words using the pictures as our guide.  We will continue to sing the song until the children start to catch on and know the words pretty well. 

  Then I will invite a child who has been singing well to come up and draw a picture clue for a phrase of the song (they can replicate my drawing or draw something of their own) and the rest of the primary will guess which phrase it goes with.  Once we guess we will sing that phrase. We will continue this having different children draw as the primary guesses until I feel  the children know the words well.    

After we are finished singing I will ask the children, "now that we have learned the song faith what do you think it means to have faith"? We will finish up our discussion and end the lesson.  

Primary Singing Time Jeopardy

This week I am going to do a review game for all of the songs we have learned to date for the Primary Program.  I wanted to do something that would allow us to sing a lot of songs more than once, but not get boring.  So I came up with this game that is loosely based on Jeopardy.  There are a lot of ways you can do this including making a digital game board, but after considering lots of different ideas I decided to go with a hands on printed game.  This is what my game board looks like. I made each category a different color so it would be easier for the children to keep track of what was available.

My categories are Name That Tune, Fill In The Blank, Fun Things and Picture Clues.  The program songs that I am going to be using are Heroes of the Scriptures, The Church of Jesus Christ, Baptism, Jesus Once was a Little Child, Holding Hands Around the World, and Come Follow Me.  I am also going to use a few fun songs, that list includes,Dearest Mother (our Mother's Day Song), Books of the New Testament, A Child's Prayer and Sing a Song.  You can easily adjust the game to use whatever songs you want to review.  

To play the game I will have a child choose a category and $ amount.  We will turn over the matching card and follow the directions on the card and then we will sing the matching song.  I am going to have the primary children as a whole play against me.  The child who chooses the card will get a chance to answer first, but if they need help they can ask any other primary child in the room.  If  they are able to answer correctly the primary will get the points if not then I will get the points.  You could also split the primary into teams using different methods, boys vs girls, teachers vs children... I have chosen to do it this way because I think it is less competitive and helps the children work together. I have put each program song in at least two different categories so even if we don't get through all of the cards we should sing all of the program songs at least once.  Here's what the game board looks like with all of the questions showing.  

To make the game you can download the game board and questions HERE.  You will need to print out pages 5-9  five times each on your different colored papers.  Page 10 will be printed 5 times for the "Name That Tune" category, then you will need to decide which 5 songs you will use and match them up with the $ amounts.  I would suggest making a list for yourself and the pianist.  Once you have printed all of your game board pieces I would suggest using double sided tape to adhere the questions to the $ amount that they go with.  That way you won't have a lot of loose papers floating around and getting miss placed.  I plan on putting my game board on the chalkboard with magnets.  If it ends up being too big I'll just lay it out on the floor.  

I think the answers are pretty self explanatory, but just in case here are the answers for each category in order from $100-$500.  

Name That Tune- The songs I am using are Books of the New Testament, The Church of Jesus Christ, Dearest Mother, A Child's Prayer, and Holding Hands Around the World.

Fill in the Blank- Savior (Come Follow Me), little and child(Jesus Once Was a Little Child), immersion and Jordan's (Baptism), singing and world (Holding Hands Around the World), Ammon and sword (Heroes of the Scriptures)

Picture Clues- Baptism, Jesus Once was a Little Child, A Child's Prayer, Heroes of the Scriptures, and Holding Hands Around the World.  These picture clues could easily be used with different songs that have similar ideas.  

You've Had a Birthday

With the new time changes taking place in 2019 I know some wards have decided to cut out singing birthday songs to the primary children.  In my primary we have decided to continue to sing happy birthday to the primary children, but it is now part of my 20 minutes of singing time versus opening exercises.  For this reason I have chosen to sing You've Had a Birthday to every child during 2019 so that I am not spending a lot of time teaching new birthday songs.  We have a small primary so this isn't a big deal since we aren't singing the song every week.  If you have a big primary you might want to learn several songs to rotate so everyone doesn't get bored.

Since we are singing the same birthday song to every child I wanted to come up with something that would make the song special and that the children would look forward to.  So I bought these birthday blowouts at the dollar store. They do not make noise, but when you blow through them the end shoots out like a frog's tongue.

On a child's birthday I have them come to the front of the room and give them the blowout.  Each time we sing a rhyming word "hooray, today, too, you" the birthday child blows on their blowout. This is really simple, but the primary children LOVE it! At the end of the song they get to keep the blowout to take home. I have them put it under their chair to keep them from blowing it the rest of singing time.    

For the rest of the primary I give them THESE egg shakers and let them shake to the rhythm while we sing.  

Holding Hands Around the World

This week I am going to be teaching the song Holding Hands Around the World by Janice Kapp Perry.  This song was printed in the July 2002 issue of the Friend and you can find the sheet music HERE.  As part of our 2019 Primary Program we are going to be focusing on how primary children can influence those around them by living the gospel.  This song shares this message beautifully and has a nice catchy tune that is fun to sing.

NOTE: This lesson could also be adapted to teach I Love to See the Temple, Families Can Be Together Forever, The Lord Gave Me a Temple or any other song related to the temple.

Music Lesson: I will start by handing out 2 rhythm sticks to each of the primary children.

Note: For my rhythm sticks I just use 6" dowels that I bought in a pack of 15 at the dollar store.  You could also just cut your own.

 I will explain to the children that we are going to watch a video that has a bouncing ball following the words of the song.  Each time the ball bounces they will hit their rhythm sticks together.  I will demonstrate for them how to do it before having them start. I will then play a video of Holding Hands Around the World using the LDS-Singalong2 app and the children will use rhythm sticks while we watch the entire first verse and chorus (I will be having a couple of children sing a duet for the second verse so I won't teach that in primary).  I'm not going to worry about the children singing during the first run through.  This is just to familiarize them with the song.  Depending on how well they do and if I feel like they are enjoying the rhythm sticks we may do it another time through using the rhythm sticks.

Note: You can click the link to find out more about the LDS-Singalong2 app and how it works.  What I like best about this app is that it has words on the screen with a bouncing ball to help the children sing along so it's great to introduce songs they may have never heard.  I also really like that you can turn off the voices and have it only play the music making it really versatile.  If you don't want to use the app there is also a video of this song at ChurchofJesusChrist.org (what used to be lds.org).  However, this video does not have the bouncing ball, which is going to be helpful in using the rhythm sticks.

I will have the children put the rhythm sticks under their chairs while we do the next part of the lesson.  The last line of  the chorus is, "We are building the kingdom of God".  So I am going to have the children build a temple with legos while we continue to listen to the music.  To do this I will have the pieces needed to build the temple set out on the table in groups.  I am only going to have 8 children help with this part, but you could let more children help by having groups of children come up together and share putting on the pieces in each group.  If you have built with lego sets before then you will be familiar with the way the directions are laid out and I will be using this same technique.  Each group of legos will have a picture of what the lego temple looks like before and after they add the required pieces.  We will be building the Spokane temple.

   

 

You can download the temple directions HERE

You will want to print them and then cut out each step so you can show the group that is building just their part as this will make it less confusing.  

NOTE: If you don't have the exact lego pieces that I used just improvise.  You can make a lot of different bricks work and it doesn't have to be exact.  

As we build the lego temple I will continue to play the music video so that the children become familiar with the words and tune.  Once the temple is built I will have the children get out the rhythm sticks from under their chairs and we will use them to sing through the song again this time trying to sing the words and hit the rhythm at the same time.  

I'm not sure how long it will take to build the temple, but if we still have time I will use THIS picture flip chart that I made to go with the song.  The flip chart doesn't have all of the words listed, but is just meant to remind the children of the key words and phrases.  If we don't have time I will start next week by singing through the song with the picture flip chart and reviewing the words.  

 

Nursery Song Activities

These are the songs that I sing in nursery and the activity I do with each one.  To see my earlier post on choosing songs for nursery and other tips click HERE

All of the songs I sing are in the Children's Songbook

I start every nursery singing time with the song Hello Friends pg 254.  "Hello friends it's nice to be here with you in nursery..." I substitute primary for nursery.  I sing this song while the children are gathering and it helps them recognize that it's time to transition to singing time.  

Once all of the children are gathered I hand out small pictures of temples and we sing
I Love to See the Temple pg 95 while the children look at the pictures.
I purchased these little cards from Deseret Book several years ago.  I lamented them punched a hole in the corner and put a book ring that opens easily through them to keep them all together.  The kit that I purchased I couldn't find, but THIS set is similar.  You could also just clip temple pictures from church magazines and laminate them if you don't want to purchase something.   

Not many of the children sing this song with me yet, but I had a nursery leader tell me a few weeks ago that one of the nursery children recognized the temple on his tie and he thought it was because we had been singing this song with the pictures.  So that put a little smile on my face. 

Rain Is Falling All Around pg 241- I use this song all year long and change out what is falling based on the season. We use the egg shakers to make the sound of the rain, snow, leaves...as we sing the song.  

THESE Egg Shakers are fun and versatile.  They can be added to about any song to help keep the children interested. Other songs on my list that could easily be used with egg shakers are Fun to Do, Wise Man/Foolish Man and Popcorn Popping.

Fun to Do pg 253- We use hand actions that go along with the words while we sing this song .  We sing this song through 3 times and I use the words reading a book (put hands together like an open book), singing a song (bring your open palm to your mouth and move it away indicating your voice leaving your mouth) and folding my arms (have children fold arms) in that order.  

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam pg 60- This song is definitely a favorite in my nursery.  To sing it I have the children wear THESE shutter glasses (they LOVE these) and put THESE sunshine rings on their finger. Then we do the standard open and close sunburst movement every time we sing "sunbeam".  I put my rings on pointed to the inside of my hands so when I open them the sun peaks out.

NOTE: I know a lot of people like to have the children jump out of their seat when they sing "sunbeam", but I caution against this because it is a very hard habit to break once they become Sunbeams in the older primary.  Then you don't have a few small nursery children jumping, but a lot of children jumping around and it becomes irreverent pretty quickly.    

Roll Your Hands pg 274- We use hand motions with this song. I try to exaggerate the quickly and slowly parts so the children anticipate the change of speed.  

If You're Happy pg 266- For this song I use THESE jingle bell bracelets.  We sing it first by clapping our hands and then a second time through by singing "if you're happy and you know it put 'em in the air"  We raise our hands and shake our fingers during this verse.  Sometimes I add shout hooray if the children are still enjoying the bells.  

Follow the Prophet pg 110- To sing this song I printed 4x6 photos of President Nelson. I had mine printed at a photo shop (I didn't want to use that much ink on my printer) and then laminated them and adhered them to popsicle sticks.  Each child gets a picture stick and then we march around in a circle singing the chorus only of Follow the Prophet.  I usually sing it two times through.  You can download the picture of President Nelson HERE.

We end by singing I Am a Child of God pg 2.  For this song I have all the children sit in a semi-circle and fold their arms.  Then I turn the pages in THIS  picture board book called, "I am a Child of God" by Greg Olsen, while we sing.  This just helps to keep the children focused because not many of them have started singing the words to this song yet. You could also cut out pictures from church magazines or print from lds.org and laminate.   

In January I taught the song Jesus Once was a Little Child pg 55 in primary singing time.  I made picture sticks to go along with the repeating words in the song.  So I decided it would be fun to sing this song in nursery as well since I already had the visuals prepared.  I don't sing it every week, but sometimes I sing it for the closing song in place of I Am a Child of God.  I only sing the first verse with the nursery children.  

I sing about 9 songs each week (takes about 10 minutes) with the nursery children.  Since children this age look forward to knowing what is coming next and consistency I sing these three songs every week to help indicate singing time is starting and ending:

Hello Friends pg 254 (Gathering song)
I Love to See the Temple pg 95 (Opening song)
I Am a Child of God pg 2 OR Jesus Once was a Little Child pg 55(Closing Song)

With these songs I sing about 6 activity songs.  The songs that I already mentioned above are the ones my nursery children like the most so they are our staples, but each week I do switch out 1 or 2 of those songs with an activity song from the following list just to keep things fresh and help familiarize the children with a variety of songs.

The Wise Man and the Foolish Man pg 281- We do hand actions to this song and then use the egg shakers to make the sound of the rain as it comes tumbling down. I usually rotate this out with another song that uses egg shakers.   

Book of Mormon Stories pg 118- Sing with hand actions

Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes pg 275- Sing with actions

Popcorn Popping pg 242- Sing with hand actions or egg shakers

Little Seeds pg 243- Sing with actions

Smiles pg 267- I made a smiling and frowning face and put them on Popsicle sticks.  As we sing the children flip them to the face that matches the words.

Some of my ideas came from Camille's Primary Ideas she also had a number of different songs and activities that I don't use that you may want to check out.  

Of course after you have gathered all of your wonderful visuals and noisemakers you will need a nursery bag that will hold everything.  I found THIS amazing bag and it holds everything I use for nursery as well as all of my primary singing time stuff.  All of the pockets help keep things organized and easy to find.  

Tips for Singing in Nursery

I love to go into the nursery to do singing time.  Even though the little children may not "sing" the songs with their voices they really are learning and singing in their hearts.  I think the key to nursery singing time is to use repetition so the children know what to expect and anticipate what you are going to do next. Since most children this age will participate by actions and movement long before they start using their voices to sing, bringing a variety of hands on visual aids and noise makers really enriches nursery singing time.  When I teach songs in nursery I just start right in and sing using whatever visual I'm going to use.  The children will watch and listen and because I do the same songs in nursery week after week they eventually just join in at whatever level they are at.

The first thing you want to do when preparing to start teaching music in nursery is consider a list of songs that you want to use.  It's important to know all of your nursery songs by heart and not need any help from a book to sing them.  I like to use a variety of songs when I choose songs for nursery. I try to put in a mix that will allow us to get up and move, use noise makers, and use hand movements.   I also like to teach a couple reverent songs that we would sing in primary singing time.  That way when the nursery children leave nursery at age 3 and join the older primary as Sunbeams they will recognize and be able to sing some of the songs we use in singing time.

I do nursery singing time acapella because I like the freedom to speed up and slow down a song according to the individual children and what they need and I am comfortable singing without accompaniment.  If you feel more comfortable singing with music I would suggest making a master playlist in the order that you want to sing the songs so you aren't skipping through music trying to find what you want. A couple of ways you can do this is to make a playlist in the gospel music app and play the music from your phone (this is especially nice if you want to make more than one play list so you have a little more variation in what you sing) or you can download music from lds.org and add it to a CD.

All of the songs I sing in nursery are from the Children's Songbook.

I sing about 9 songs each week (takes about 10 minutes) with the nursery children.  Since children this age look forward to knowing what is coming next and consistency I sing these three songs every week to help indicate singing time is starting and ending:

Hello Friends pg 254 (Gathering song)
I Love to See the Temple pg 95 (Opening song)
I Am a Child of God pg 2 OR Jesus Once was a Little Child pg 55 (Closing Song)

When I first started singing time in nursery I introduced the children to all of the songs I wanted them to learn by singing the three songs above in the same order every week and then adding in 6 activity song for a full month singing them in the exact same order each week.  The next month I sang 6 new activity songs in the same order every week.  By the end of the two months the nursery children had favorites and started requesting to sing certain songs so it became harder to stick to a strict order and schedule.   Now I know what songs the children like the best and we sing them every week and rotate in the other songs around them.  This is what my list of songs looked like when I first started:

Month One: 

Hello Friends pg 254
I Love to See the Temple pg 95
Book of Mormon Stories pg 118
Rain is Falling pg 241
Fun To Do pg 253
Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam pg 60
Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes pg 275
Smiles  pg 267
I Am a Child of God pg 2

Month Two:

Hello Song pg 254
I Love to See the Temple pg 95
Roll Your Hands pg 274
If You're Happy pg 266
Popcorn Popping pg 242
Wise Man/Foolish Man pg 281
Little Seeds pg 243
Follow the Prophets pg 110
I Am a Child of God pg 2

Now:
Hello Friends pg 254
I Love to See the Temple pg 95
Rain is Falling pg 241
Fun to Do pg 253
Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam pg 60
Roll Your Hands pg 274
If You're Happy pg 266
Follow the Prophet pg 110
I am a Child of God  pg 2 OR Jesus Once was a Little Child pg 55

Each week I rotate one or two of the action songs out for a different action song on my list so they stay familiar with them,but I always try to sing the songs the children request so my list is pretty flexible.

Keep the Commandments

I think music in Primary should be fun, but still keep the children reverent enough that they can feel the spirit.  In order to do this I like to add movement to songs that we normally might not think of as  action songs.  Keep the Commandments is this kind of song for me.  It's relatively easy to sing and has a great message, but is a little slow so sometimes the children can get bored with it.  In order to make this a song the children look forward to singing I put these reverent actions/movements to the song:

When we sing Keep we clap

When we sing Commandments we rub our hands together

When we sing any word that starts with an S we stand up
When we sing Peace we roll our hands
When we sing Blessings we shake our hands down from the sky

Singing the song this way makes it have just enough movement that the children stay interested, but still keeps the reverent attitude that the song should bring.

My 13 year old daughter suggested that after teaching the initial actions it would be fun to have the primary children suggest actions for other words and continue to add them to the song.  You could keep going until as many actions as possible had been added.  I haven't tried this yet, but thought it sounded like a fun idea especially if you just need a quick time filler.  

Watch my video below to see the actions.

Jesus Once Was a Little Child

The words to Jesus Once Was a Little child were written in 1841!  So some of the words that are used are a little difficult for primary children to remember and understand.  The message of the song is so great though that I really do like it.  Plus, I think it helps the children to relate to Jesus as an individual and to feel closer to Him when they understand that he really was a child just like them.   

I taught this song in January to go along with the New Testament 2019 Come, Follow Me-for Primary curriculum.  I modeled my lesson around a lesson plan I found HERE.
I printed an oversize measuring tape that I found HERE and hung it on the wall prior to primary starting.
When Jesus was alive people didn't have books like we do now, they used scrolls.  So today we are going to read some "scrolls" that tell about events in Jesus' life.
I printed off  THESE words to go along with each phrase and rolled them into small scrolls and tied them with a ribbon.

Music Lesson: On the table I had some scrapbooks that I had made of my children that I briefly showed to the primary.  Then I asked the question,"How many of you have scrapbooks, photo albums or journals at home with pictures/stories of your families and ancestors in them"? Scrapbooks can help us remember things that we have done like, birthday parties, vacations, or family events.  Scrapbooks/journals can also help us remember and learn about ancestors or members of our families who are no longer living.  Looking at and reading things in scrapbooks can help us understand people better and get to know things about them. 

The scriptures are like a scrapbook or journal about people who lived long ago and they help us to understand them and what they were like.  Knowing this information can help us understand how we should live and what Heavenly Father wants us to do. 

The scriptures tell us of Jesus Christ. How does knowing about Jesus Christ help us? (we can follow his example, we can understand that he is like us and that helps us know that we can follow Him)

"How many of you get measured by your parents or doctor every so often to see if you are growing"? Today we are going to use a measuring tape to symbolize the way Jesus grew just like us, as a child into an adult. 

   

Each scroll has a picture that matches it.  You need to listen carefully to the scroll being read so that you can decide which picture matches with it.  

Today we are going to learn a song called, "Jesus Once was a Little Child".  This song is about the way Jesus was when he was a child like all of you.  Once we read the scroll and hang the picture we will sing a part of the song and by the end we will have learned the entire song. 

Note: I had one child/teacher read the scroll and at the same time had another child at the front of the room deciding which picture corresponded with the information in that scroll.  Once decided I had the child hang the picture on the measuring tape and I hung the song phrase on the board. We tried to hang the pictures starting at the bottom and going up to represent Jesus growing.  We then sang the phrase with the piano.  We continued this until all of the pictures were hung and the entire song was on the board.
  

When we sang the following words I defined them so the children would understand the song better:

pure- free from sin, good or wholesome

meek- a willingness to obey God 

mild-gentle and not easily provoked.

vexed- annoyed or frustrated

Most of the pictures I used can be found on lds.org and in the gospel art book, but a couple of them were difficult to find.  So you can print those photos below by right clicking and saving to your computer. You can also print the word strips for the song HERE.  

Note: This lesson had a lot of elements happening and it took me two Sundays to finish it. If you want to make the lesson go faster eliminating the scrolls would cut down on the time.  

Once I had this song taught my mom, who is also the primary chorister in her ward, suggested making picture sticks to correspond with the repeating words.  This was a great help for the younger children to help them remember the words and participate more easily.  I used mostly pictures from Susan Fitch. Some I bought on her Etsy site and others were free on her blog so I can't include a download for them, but you can click the links above to go to her sites.  

First Verse

Second Verse

If you would rather make a flip chart for this song there is a really nice one on THIS website.