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!!!

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.

Valentine's Songs

I'm used something that a previous music leader made. The small hearts all fit in the large heart pocket to be drawn. On the back of each heart is a song about love. On one she had a corny valentine joke, I decided to take it further and put one on the back of each one to read before we sing! 😄

Another variation is the laminated bookmark things. You have the kids and/or teachers, leaders fill it out with their name and their favorite Primary song, put them in the heart and draw from them what to sing. 😊

Mr. Potato Head

For one Sunday, the lesson was "I Have Been Sent To Earth To Gain a Body and Be Tested". I decided to do the Mr. Potato Head idea that I've seen on here and sing songs about the body. There is a song on the back of each piece (or set like ears, arms etc.).

Eyes - "Two Little Eyes"

Ears - "I Have Two Ears"

Mouth - "If You Chance To Meet a Frown"

Nose - "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" (last word 😉)

Hands - "I Have Two Little Hands"

Feet - "Two Happy Feet" or "If You're Happy and You Know it"

Body - "Hinges" or "Do As I'm Doing".

Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?

My singing partner today likes warm hugs! 😄I needed to drill the Spanish verse that we learned for I Am A Child of God so I printed and laminated pieces of Olaf and then put magnet tape on the back of each piece. As they sang each time through (sections at first and then the whole verse) a member of the Presidency watched the children and chose someone who was paying attention and singing well to come pick a piece of him out of a ziplock baggie and put it on the chalkboard. They were very attentive and sounded great! I was so pleased! "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" for the win!! ☃️

You could also put the numbers of different songs on the back of each piece.

UNO Review

Last fall when I was trying to find a fun way to review all our songs for the program, I ran across this UNO Review idea. Several people posted it so I don't know who actually came up with the idea (but it was not me). I originally used it for our program songs review and it worked out perfectly as we had eight songs and the kids loved it! I used a file that Whitney Bennett posted on Facebook:

Here are her directions for getting it printed: "I just put this together in Photoshop and wanted to share it with you all in case anyone was wanting it. I am printing it as a 20x30 at Costco for $8.99, laminating it, and mounting it to foam board (for long lasting durability). If you are interested in printing this off and using it, please download the high-resolution print file in the following link (copy and paste): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzsbI9PhThK0X1NuNUVnaDc5N3M/view Make sure you print it as a 20x30, otherwise it will NOT fit the print correctly and cropping will occur. Have fun everyone! *PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK AND CLICK THE DOWNLOAD ICON ON THE TOP OF THE WINDOW. IF YOU JUST SAVE THE ATTACHED FILE, IT WILL BE GRAINY WHEN PRINTED BECAUSE IT IS NOT THE HIGH-RESOLUTION GRAPHIC." So I printed it, laminated it and made song titles in each of the four colors. I did two in each color and I would swap in a new one once the first one was sung.

There are lots of ways to play. What I did was pull out of a deck of Uno cards one of each color of the skips, reverses, ones, twos and all the wilds. I would choose a child to come up and choose a card. The color on the card told us which song we were going to sing (on wilds they would pick a color) and the symbol would give further details. On "skips" I think we had them skip while they sang. You can also have them skip certain words. On "reverses" they had to turn around and sing to the back wall. This really helped me see how well they knew their songs! 1 or 2 was the first or second verse or one or two times depending on the song and how many verses it had (none of them had more than two). Again on "wilds", they got to choose. As I said, it was a big hit! Then in January of this year, someone suggested using it for reviewing the four verses of I Am A Child Of God. It worked pretty well. I ended up using these exact printouts for my verses, however, this is someone else's picture of theirs. I did end up pasting over a church produced picture of the Savior for the third verse.

I have seen several people post that they also used Uno for teaching a song, although I have not tried that yet!

New Year Countdown!

This year we had New Year's Eve on Sunday so I really wanted to do a countdown of some kind. I first found this idea which looked really fun:

However I didn't feel good about having the noise of popping balloons as we have a child in our Primary very sensitive to loud noises. So when I found this one posted on Facebook by Jessie Guzman Lawson, ....

I knew that I had to make one! I polled many of our Primary families during the week to get their "Top Ten" favorite Primary songs. I then chose the top twelve responses and typed them up placing them along with some foil confetti in the plastic cups that I hot glued onto the foam board in the shape of a clock. I put them in order of favorites (12 least, 1 most) then covered each cup with a sequential numbered square of tissue paper held on with a rubber band. I would choose a child to come up and "punch out" a number, out would come the song and the confetti, and we'd sing the song. It was a big hit!!

Little tip: The Jr. Primary were first and so vigorous with their punching that we lost a couple of cups. I had to tape them on for Sr. Primary and asked them to poke the cup with their finger instead!

Stuffed Turkey

This is one I REALLY wanted to do this year, but I was super short on time to teach Christmas songs before the ward party, so I didn't. Next year though! I also found this online and have no idea who to credit, but it's a very fun idea. Basically, you make a turkey body out of a paper bag and the legs out of smaller paper bags. You "stuff" the inside with slips of paper of songs you want to sing (you could also put ways to sing them).

Children All Over the World

I also found these ideas on the FB page for Primary Choristers (I wish I had paid attention to who the person was that published the first one so that I could give her credit). The first one is similar to the "Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime" posters I posted, where the children put their head through the hole. The second one (contributed by Kaylee Perron) is having them dress up holding signs with the words (she had the printed one and how to say it). The third one (contributed by Karen Skousen Robinson) also uses posters but the heads go above the bodies, no face holes. She did a male on one side and a female on the other to avoid children not wanting to be one of them because it's not their gender. I think they're all cute ideas!

Pumpkin Patch

I did this activity for picking a song this past fall. It was super easy! I placed stickers with the numbers 1-5 on the bottom of some decorative pumpkins (you could use mini real one too, or hey large ones too! ha ha!) I placed them on a sprig of fake greenery and voila! Pumpkin Patch! Then as they picked one, I just looked on my list to see which song corresponded with the number. You could also write the actual song on the sticker or on some tape.

Bean Bag Toss

Here is a picture of a game that she made, she made it out of PVC pipes.  She just had the kids toss a bean bag into the pipes and each pipe is numbered, so you can assign the numbers to songs or whatever.  The kids love it!

My sister-in-law recently became Primary Chorister in her ward so her husband made this clever way for the Primary kids to choose songs.  It's based on a song that's very popular with kids right now called "What Does The Fox Say?".  This version is "What Do the Kids Sing?".   The idea is to put the fox and the speech bubbles up on a board, and have names of songs on the back.  The kids pick what the fox sings, and then turn the bubble over, and that is what the kids sing. :D





The best way to download a good image from the PDF images above is to right click the white rectangular box to the right of the "thumb image" you want and "save picture as" to your computer.

If You're Happy And You Know It . . .

This singing aid is used for the song "If You're Happy" #266 in the Children's Songbook.

A child takes a turn chooses a colored strip and just like it suggests as options for this song, we insert the words into the song instead of "clap your hands" and we do an action with it. For example if they chose "toot your horn", we would sing:

If you're happy and you know it, toot your horn (toot, toot)
If you're happy and you know it, toot your horn (toot, toot)
If you're happy and you know it,
Then your face will surely show it.
If you're happy and you know it, toot your horn (toot, toot).

 

While I have often used this song and done substitutes before, the simplicity of this key ring for letting the children choose a substitute and the bright fun colors really appealed to me (and the children).  We have a small enough nursery that we let every single child pick one before we move on to the next song.  Bonus: for the children that can talk and are learning colors, it's a fun reinforcement of their color recognition.