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! 🎄

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. 😊

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.

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!

Picture A Christmas

I love this idea by Julie Hawkins! (I saw it on Facebook) I would like to make them large (each picture 8 1/2 x 11) so they can see them really well. These are her instructions: Picture a Christmas: I first asked the children what picture came to their mind when I said the word “Christmas.” The answers included Christmas tree, Santa, gifts, baby Jesus love etc. I then told them I wanted to create a beautiful Christmas picture in our minds and then put up the middle picture. We put the first bubbled picture up and sang that line. We then added the second and learned it and then added it to the first. We then added the third and learned it and then sang it with the first and second etc. After all the pictures were up, we started taking them down and I had the kids sing the pictures we took down without me. My juniors learned this song in one week! I have a magnetic white board in my primary room so I bought a roll of adhesive magnet strip and put magnets on the back of all my pictures. This made it so easy putting pictures up and taking them down quickly. I'm hoping to get this ready for this Christmas.

Thanksgiving Sing a Story

I found this on Camille's Primary Ideas (she has a lot of great ones!) and I really love it and want to keep it for future reference. It's a story book where the children sing Primary songs to go with each piece of the story of the first Thanksgiving. Really clever. Here's the link to her page: http://www.camillesprimaryideas.com/2012/11/thanksgiving-sing-story.html?m=1

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).

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.

I'm All Made of Hinges

I saw this idea on the FB page for Primary Choristers and LOVED it. The kids did too! I was able to use it for both Jr. and Sr. Primary and Nursery! Win-win-win! I told the children that we had a special guest that day, "Bro. Bones". I had him "dance" for them and then put him in a funny position that we all mimicked as we sang, then I changed it to another funny position and we'd sing again. It was really fun. The first picture is the one I saw on FB, the second is my adaption. Super easy to make with a stack of small ribbed paper plates, brads, glue and a marker. I just printed the words in sections, cut them and glued them on.

Oh What Do You Do In The Summertime?

This last summer I was called as Primary Chorister again! I was so excited!! Best calling in the church! Since then, I've been taking pictures of things to share but never took the time to post them! I need to learn how to do it from my phone. I remembered another chorister using these posters for the song "Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime" years ago and loved them. When I was chorister last time, I just gathered some props for them to use. This time I was determined to make my own. I borrowed this set and got to work. I changed a couple of them and got my set all drawn and my kids were helping me color them. Somehow before finishing the last couple of posters, we ran out of steam and I never finished them! I will for next summer and I will post them but in the meantime, I thought you might enjoy seeing the posters that inspired me. They LOVE using these posters and we especially get a lot of giggles when a boy is one of the girls, so funny!

Update: I finally finished the posters last summer (they took FOREVER!!) and loved using them! Here are my versions: