He Died That We Might Live Again

For our program song for April we will be learning "He Died That We Might Live Again".  Once again, I found some great ideas on Sugardoodle.  A lady named Bonnie shared the idea she read of a perfect introduction to the song.  She refers to this story, "Plane Crashes Into The Potomac"  and of the bravery shown by a couple of men to save other's lives.

I'm going to use the "Who, What, Where, When, Why, How" idea with wordstrips from Becky (same Sugardoodle link) for the Senior primary.  But for the Junior I think I'll do an Easter song introduction idea that I found on Teaching LDS Children.

Update 4/10/11 - I didn't end up having time yet to make the Easter song introduction box, hopefully I can for next week. The word strips worked so well though!  I've only done the first half of the song because we're also working on another song for Easter.  We'll finish it next week. To do the matching game, I printed the question words (who, what, where etc.,) on colored paper.  Then I printed the phrases on white sheets. I ended up doing a phrase on each sheet that I printed.  Before we began, I magneted the question words on the board.  For the Jr. Primary, I did them in order.  As we sang each phrase, we discussed which question it answered.  For the Sr. Primary, I mixed up the questions words all over the board.  Then as we sang each phrase, they had to figure out which question it answered and put it in order. As we learned it this week, I divided the phrases one way, but I'm going to change them for next week to this:

WHY: "He died that we might live again"
WHO: "Lord Jesus, our Redeemer true"
WHERE: "He died on Cal-v'ry's lonely hill"
HOW: "His life he gave for me and you"
WHEN: "He rose from the grave on Easter Morn"
WHO #2: "Our Savior and our King"
WHAT: "He showed his love for all man-kind"
WE CAN: "For his great love, give thanks and sing
                 "Re-joice! Re-joice! and sing, sing, sing."

For Junior Primary, after we learned each phrase, I picked a child to look for a plastic Easter Egg (I had hidden several around the room before we began) and we repeated and repeated until they found an egg -then we had to stop and go on to the next one.  They LOVED it!!!

Update 4/17/11 -  I forgot to take my list with me to church today.  (I hate it when I do that!) So when I got there I ended up rearranging all the question words because I couldn't remember what I had put down.  It still worked though.  Here is a picture of how it ended up at the end of today.

We continued our Easter egg hunt this week.  I went ahead and did an Easter egg hunt with the Sr. Primary too because they begged last week once they found out that the Jr. Primary had done one.  It's amazing how much more the children pay attention and sing well when they want to be picked for doing a good job. ;)  By the end of both singing times, they knew the song really well, and I had their attention most of the time! Yay!

Scripture Power!

I've been trying to find something I really love for the song "Scripture Power" and today I ran across this fabulous idea from Teaching LDS Children.  It's only for the second verse, so I still need to come up with stuff for the 1st, but it inspired me!



(Visit their site to get the pattern!)

Easter Ideas!

I really love this simple "Ways to Sing in an Egg Carton" that I found on Precious Primary.  As I find or come up with other Easter ideas I like, I'll add them to this post.

Here is a great Easter song introduction idea and really fun Easter egg song review at Teaching LDS Children.

Songs for General Conference

Every Sunday before General Conference I have to sing prophet songs.  Two of them that are my favorites and absolute musts are:

Latter-Day Prophets - I read this idea somewhere to do small and decided it would be fun to do big too!  I have taken 16 sheet protectors and taped them together side by side, then I inserted an 8x11 picture of each prophet in order from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson.  I also printed little strips of paper with their names on them so you can read them better and slid them inside the sleeves to the bottom in front of the pictures.  Then you fold it up accordian style.  You could use it as a sort of flipchart but what our Primary likes to do is hold it out long with helpers (it takes about 8!) while we sing it.

Modern Day Apostles (As I Have Love You) -  I also read this one somewhere years ago.  We sing the last names of the First Presidecy and the Quorum of the Twelve to the tune of "As I Have Loved You".  I put all their pictures up in order with a strip of paper taped to the front with just their last name large so it's easy to read.  It's a fun way to review who they'll be listening to the next weekend so that they're more familiar with their faces.  So it goes like this:

"Monsen and Eyring, Uchdorf, Packer Perry, Nelsen, Oaks, Ballard, Scott and Hales, Holland and Bednar, Cook, Christofferson, Anderson, these are the modern-day apostles."

We often also sing "Follow the Prophet" and this year I added the 2nd verse of "If I Listen With My Heart" since we'd learned it.  It was perfect!

Songs for Spring!

      

Here is my list of favorites for Spring (which is also where I got the name for my blog, hee hee):

• Give Said The Little Stream:  We do kind of a fun variation on this song.  I got the idea from Peggy North on Sugardoodle.  "For every word that begins with a G, clap hands once (i.e. Give, Go, Grows, Greener, etc.) For every word that begins with an S, stand up and sit back down (i.e. Stream, Small, Still, Singing) Obviously, everyone sings this sitting down, so that they can stand and sit at the appropriate times--you'll need your own chair at the front.  The children LOVE this.  Start out slow when they're first learning, but as they get to know it better, the second time through they just love going FAST, and you get a workout on the chorus, especially!  I have done this every time I was a chorister, and it's always a hit.  I've since added snaps for words that begin with R (rain, raise). " We do head nods on the R words.  The kids really like it and it's a nice way to get some extra energy out!

• In The Leafy Tree Tops:  I brought a bird on a popsicle stick for a child to hold during the first verse and a flower for the second.  Of course we also all stand and do actions for the song as well.

• Little Purple Pansies:  I have a beautiful picture of a field of pansies (many purple ones) that I got out of an old calendar.  You could probably google one.

• Popcorn Popping: I also have a calendar page of an orchard of apricot trees in full bloom, so that the children can see why it looks like popcorn on the trees. (We of course do all the actions too.)

• Wind Is Blowing All Around (Rain Is Falling All Around):  Especially for the month of March!  I tell them about the days being "Lambs" or "Lions" and on the "Lion" days, how the wind roars!!!  I plan on next year having a lamb and lion prop or puppet to help me out. :)

Check out this fun Spring Singing Aide at Precious Primary!  It's really cute!

Stand For the Right

I was scrambling around looking for a flipchart for this song and found this simple fun idea by Cara Webber on Sugerdoodle:

Our prophet has some words for you (boy stands holding picture of prophet)

And these are the words:

“Be true, be true.”
(only boy holding picture says “be true, be true”)

At work or at play,
(child holds up broom in one hand and baseball bat in other hand)

In darkness or light,
(child holds up flashlight and turns it on when everyone sings “light”)

Be true, be true,
(boy holding prophet’s picture says “be true, be true”)

And stand for the right.
(everyone stands when singing “stand for the right”)

What I changed:

For "Be true, be true" I actually made a sign for Sr. Primary to hold with the words on it.  For Jr. Primary I laminated a large bee cutout.



For "work" and "play" I used a duster and a baseball (they fit better in my bag than a broom and bat).

It was nice because I could put everything in a small bag and I took the bag with me for a couple of weeks.  They learned it really fast, and had it memorized by the end of March. :)