Battleship Song Review

This Battleship Primary Program Songs Review was a bit hit when we did it last year. (Thanks to those who shared their ideas and files!) I plan to use again this year as the program gets closer. I realized after the fact that the dice are only six sided and my grid has seven rows!! So I moved all the ships so that nothing is parked in G or 7. My version that we’re playing tomorrow is that each ship section is marked with a verse of one of our songs that we have learned. The kids will roll the die that will choose the letter and number to bomb. I will mark it hit or miss and will sing the verse if it’s a hit!

I just googled images on the internet to use on it. If it's helpful, these are the ones I used:

I cut off the bottom part and then used a font program to make the word Primary to match. You could print it in a white font or cut it out and shade it with grey and black colored pencils or crayons.

I drew the lines and printed a picture of a simple alphabet because I wanted the squares around them but you could just type it in a word document like I did the numbers.

Or you could do a grid like this:

I used these for the battleships:

And for the markers (hits and misses) I used a pdf file that Sister Tashia Glen posted on the FB page Latter-Day Saint Primary Music Leaders. (LOVE that page, I get LOTS of ideas from there!) You could also make your own big red "X"s and hit bursts.

Christmas Songs Game

Made up a new game last Christmas! 😃 Yes, I'm posting it six months later. Lol!! I was given the whole time in Primary (music leader’s dream right??) I had completely planned on a “sing a song for each nativity character” activity but felt that I needed to let the children have more choice and control over which Christmas songs we would sing today.

So “Name a Tune/Pick a Tune” was born! I printed the names of all the songs from the Children’s Songbook and picked out the ones that I knew and added the one song from the Hymn book that they’d learned this year. (There were more than are in the picture, we had already sung some). I made “special effects bulbs” that went on some of the songs (bells, finger lights, scarves, sing as a round etc.,). If those songs were chosen, we did the special effect also. I prepped by putting all the names on the board and all our special effect tools on the table to be ready.

How to play: I drew a child’s name, they would choose to name a tune or pick a tune. If they chose pick a tune, they chose a song and we would just sing it. If they chose name tune, I chose a song from the board and whispered it to my pianist. She would then play it until they guessed it and then we would sing it.

With the Senior Primary, I took it up a notch. All the Christmas songs in the Hymn book were fair game too! So we passed out hymns books to all of them. They chose two of them and begged to sing all the verses! I was so surprised! Also, I had two guests come in that sat blindfolded on chairs up front and had to guess on the name a tune ones. The kids thought it was fun to try to stump them. All of us were sad to see our time come to an end. It was a very rewarding day! 🎄

Hawaiian Song Review

We just got back from my daughter’s wedding in Hawai’i. The groom’s family live on Oahu so they were married in the La’ie Temple. It was our first time there and it was AMAZING! I wanted to share some of that experience with the Primary children so I showed them pictures of the temple and the wedding and we sang “I Love To See the Temple” and I shared how my daughter has sung that song since she was a little girl in Primary and know she finally had that dream come true! I told them that they can too one day.

Next we talked about “Paradise” in the scriptures, the Garden of Eden and when Christ spoke to the thieves when he was crucified from this week’s lesson. Then I shared this poster of some of my favorites things from the paradise I visited. They came up and chose items that had the songs written on the back BUT there was a twist! They had to come up three at a time and one would choose the item that had the song on it, then each of them had to do something during the song. One had to put on a Kukui Nut and shell lei and do the hula, one had to squat and make the ugly face and grunt like the tiki statues and one had to lightly strum the Ukelele. It was so fun!!!

Faith

Years ago when we first learned the song "Faith", I bought a galvanized metal pail and printed little cut outs for each part of the song and put magnets on the back. We drew the pictures from the inside of the pail and put them in order on the outside of the pail.

Since then I found this idea on the blogspost "Primary Sing Ideas" that I like a lot better, so I made one of these charts.

She gives great step by step directions on how to make one here.

When I made mine I made some slight changes. Instead of four individual pockets I just make one large one. I couldn't find the same heart with the CTR on it so I just printed the word right on a piece of paper. I will probably replace it eventually.

Smiles

I saw a post by Gabby Gellenthin and her great idea to use this pillow case for the song "Smiles" aka "If You Chance to Meet a Frown...". I ordered one from Amazon and threw it on an old throw pillow and voila! The nursery kids adore it!!

Sing The Rainbow (Skittles)

I saw a lot of people posting different variations of this online. Here's my version.

I introduced it by mentioning St. Patrick's Day and symbols of that holiday, including the rainbow (put up pot of gold and rainbow picture) and told them that we were going to "Sing the Rainbow" today (put up Super Singing Skittles sign and SKITTLES acronym picture) and read the acronym. As I put up the colored Skittle pieces, I explained that there was a song on the back of each one. Then the other leaders passed out a container (disposable condiments containers) to each child and teacher. Each container had in it one of each colored Skittle to make the colors of the rainbow. (To make these you have to purchase both the original and wild berry flavored Skittles.) I explained the rules of the Skittle containers: They could only open them when I told them to, only eat them when I told them to, could not shake them or they would be taken away. I then gave them permission to open the container and pull out one Skittle and hold it, then I started choosing children. For this particular activity, I wrote the names of each Primary child on a colored popsicle stick (so we had all the colors of the rainbow). I put them all in a can (there was a Jr. and Sr.) and drew from there. I called out the name of the child I drew and asked them what color they chose, that's the Skittle color we sang. Then the kids were allowed to quickly eat their one Skittle before we sang. With one group they all ate what they drew and it somehow worked out. With the other group they would put theirs back and eat the color chosen. We kept going until all the songs were sung. Yummy fun!

Songs for each color:

Red - Gethsemane (he bled for us)

Orange - Did Jesus Really Live Again (sunrise)

Yellow - The Primary Colors (red, YELLOW, and blue)

Green - Give Said the Little Stream (..."the grass grows greener still"...)

Blue - My Heavenly Father Loves Me (..."or look at the blue, blue sky"...)

Purple - Little Purple Pansies

Food Rhythms

Someone somewhere posted this great guide that uses food to teach rhythms, I don't know where it originated from, but I love it!

I was thinking that sometime this summer I will pull it out to have a "Rhythm Picnic". I think I will put down a checkered tablecloth and a small basket or make a basket poster that I can make a slit in and reach into. Something like this:

Inside the basket, whether real or paper, will be these fruits (cut apart from the chart) to draw out and practice their rhythm. I think the kids will enjoy doing something different.