The Holy Ghost Singing Time

The Holy Ghost is a topic discussed in the Come Follow Me- For Primary curriculum many times throughout the year.

In the June 2019 Friend there is an article titled " The Holy Ghost Is..." You can find the article HERE.  I have taken the pictures from the article and made them bigger so I can post them on the board you can download the enlarged pictures HERE.  I cut out and laminated the pictures and then placed them in a gift bag.  You could also gather items to represent those listed and use them instead of the pictures.

Music Lesson: Begin by showing the children the gift bag and telling them that you are going to talk about a special gift that Heavenly Father gives each of us when we are baptized. Ask if anyone can guess what the gift is.  If a child knows great, if not then tell them it's the Holy Ghost.  Then ask children to draw the pictures out of the bag and discuss what the picture represents that the Holy Ghost is.  When all of the pictures are on the board sing the song you have chosen about the Holy Ghost.

I have chosen Listen, Listen on page 107 of the Children's Songbook, but this activity would be appropriate for any of the songs about the Holy Ghost from the songbook.  Listen, Listen is a very short song that can be sang as a round and learned quickly.  My primary children LOVE rounds so I thought this would be a fun song for them.  To teach the song I will first sing it to them while they listen and then I will have them join in singing the song several times through.  Once I feel like we have the words down I will teach them how to do it in a round.  This song is supposed to be sang a cappella.  For the program we are going to use the handbells to sing it through one time before going into the round a cappella.  Even if you aren't planning on playing the bells during your program they are a fun addition to singing time and help the children engage with the music.

You can find my bell chart HERE (one thing to note is that the middle C and high C notes are the same color.  This song uses both notes so you will need to make sure the children playing C notes know which notes are theirs.  The first C is high and the other 4 Cs are middle C).  If you haven't used handbells before THIS is a good link to check out.  These are the handbells that I use.  You can find them HERE on Amazon. 

Shhh Don't Wake Dad

With Father's Day coming up I wanted to find a fun activity that I could use to review already learned songs as well as sing some of the Father's Day songs in the primary song book.  I found this fun idea called "Shhhh Don't Wake Dad" HERE.

 For those who are familiar with the game "Don't Eat Pete" this is a variation of that game.

To play the game you need to print the board.  This can be done by downloading HERE and printing it at a print shop in size 11x14 or Camille's Primary Ideas has a link HERE to print the board in a tiled format.  With this method you print at home and tape the tiles together to make a full board.  I opted to use the tiled option and it turned out great.  I decided to laminate my board and then tape together.  This way I can take it apart and store it for future use.  You will also need to print out the game pieces HERE.

How to play the game: post the game board where everyone can see it and explain that the primary is going to sing the dads to sleep.  Sing your fist song and then choose a child who was singing well to go to the hallway.  The other children will choose the dad that is going to wake up.  When the child in the hallway returns they will start to place the game pieces on each dad until they come to the dad that was chosen.

When they try to touch the dad that was chosen the primary will whisper 
"shhh don't wake dad".  Then that child will return to his/her seat and you will sing your next song and continue play.  Make a list of songs that you want to sing prior to primary starting and coincide them with the dads.  My list is going to be a combination of review songs that we have learned this year, songs about fathers and movement songs. Their are lots of variations that could be used so just be creative and have fun.

Baptism Medley- Baptism and When I am Baptized Part 2

This week I taught the second part of the medley which is When I am Baptized.  My primary children already know this song because we sang it for the program in 2018.  So for us it was just a review and learning it with the new accompaniment.

You can see how I taught the first verse of  this song HERE and also find a link to listen and buy the music.

To review this song I handed out colored scarves to the primary children and had them move them in an arch over their heads like they were making a rainbow.  This should be smooth and in rhythm with the music.  I had them sing this way while singing "I like to look for rainbows whenever their is rain and ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again" For the next part of the song we used the scarves to make quick downward falling motions like raindrops in a staccato pattern.  We did this while singing, "I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.  I want to be the best I can and live with God again."

We sang this several times through until I felt like the children had the words down.  We also sang the second verse the same way.

For the medley the first verse of Baptism and second verse of When I Am Baptized are sang simultaneously.  When we put these two parts together I had the group that was singing Baptism use the rhythm wands with the actions I had taught the week before and the group singing When I Am Baptized use the scarves using the actions above.  It was fun to see both the wands and scarves moving at the same time in different patterns.     

Song Hospital

In my ward the primary program is scheduled for mid-September.  That means we only have about 4 months left to finish up the songs we will be singing.  I like to do reviews along the way of all the songs we have learned to date to make sure that the children are remembering them from month to month, rather than wait until right before the program to cram.  This is especially important for us since the program is in September, which means that many children will be missing in the month prior to the program for summer vacations.

I decided to spend a couple of weeks doing a fun review game I got from my mom, who is also the primary chorister in her ward.  The game is called "The Song Hospital" and is  a fun way to get the children excited about practicing and "fixing" any problems the songs may be having.

To play this review you first need to make the "Hospital" my mom found this idea HERE and you can click the link to find the graphics to make your hospital.  This is what my mom's board looks like.

At the beginning of singing time I put on a white doctor's coat and hung a stethoscope around my neck. This really got the children's attention and they were eager to find out what was going on.  I told the children that this week all of our songs got sick and I had to take them to the song hospital.  Then I brought out my "hospital".   All of the songs had the sick emoji in the envelope to start.  I asked the children how many of them had been sick and had to go to the doctor before.  I told them the doctor's job is to help people get better.  Next, I brought out a few things that they might see  a doctor use and explained to them how we were going to use them to help our songs get better.

Small flash light- Sometimes when we go to the doctor they look in our ears with a light to make sure they aren't infected.  So today we need to look at our songs and make sure that we can hear the words and understand what is being said.

Tongue depressor- The doctor might have us open our mouths wide and say awww.  So today we need to have our songs open their mouths big so they can be heard really well.

Stethoscope- The doctor listens to our hearts to make sure it is working properly and is healthy.  We need to listen to our songs and make sure that they have a lot of "heart", this means that they have feeling and make people feel the message and the spirit.

I then told the children as they sang the song I would listen to see what needed to be "fixed" to make the songs feel better so they could leave the hospital.  We started with the first song and as they sang I would decide what item best fit how they could make the song feel better and then we would sing it again to see if it worked.  I only had the children sing the song about 3 times before deciding on it's final status.  Either it would feel a little better, but need to stay in the hospital a little longer or feel better and get to go home.  Then we went on to the next song.  I planned to use this activity for 2 weeks in a row and then bring it back one more time as it gets closer to our program.  This is what my board looked like at the end of our first week.  I left everything the same to take it back the following week so the children could start from where they had left off.

Love One Another

For the month of June I am going to use the song "Love One Another" as the scripture song.  You can see how I use scripture songs in primary HERE.

I will introduce the song by talking about how Jesus loves us and ask the children some of the ways we know this.  Then I will tell them that we are going to sing a song that tells us how we can show Jesus that we love Him.  We will sing the song and after I will ask the children if they heard the answer.  

To make the song a little more fun I am going to give the children jingle bell bracelets and have them shake the bells every time they sing the word love.  I purchased THESE  bells to use in nursery, but I like to let the older children use them once in awhile too.