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! 🎄

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

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".

Scrolling "TV"

I have seen this idea many times and I have never made one, but a previous Primary music leader did and I used it and the kids loved it! I took a picture of the outside and inside and I'll let you figure out how to put it together! Lol!! You can swap out songs by just untaping the ends that are taped to the pvc pipe. Each new song just has to be taped together in order on both sides so that it doesn't catch. The pencil nubs keep the handles from sliding into the box.

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!

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).

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!

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:

Campfire

I love this little campfire someone made for the kids for Pioneer Day!  They turned off the lights and sat around the campfire to sing.

The campfire was made out of flickering LED candles and tissue paper.

Another option is to purchase a campfire cut out. I like this option because it folds flat and doesn't take a lot of room in my bin.

Here's one that I found on Amazon:

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!

In the Leafy Tree Tops

She says: " I have some huge flowers I will have some kids hold for the second verse, so I wanted some birds for the first. I don’t think I want the kids all handling them, so I am thinking of making a nest for them or I think it would be really cool if I could figure out how to make a tree branch that I could hang them in and have a child hold the branch.  Maybe a branch from an artificial tree."

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.

I Am Like A Star!

Visual aid to be used with the song "I Am Like A Star" #163.

Choose a child to come up and put their face through the circle in the center while everyone sings.  Our chorister really likes using this particularly because many children (and adults) often mistakenly sing "shining for the whole world to see" instead of "smiling for the whole world to see".  The smiling mouth helps them remember what the correct words are. :D

Update: I noticed another bonus today when we were singing this song.  Because each of the children want a turn being the star then we sing it many times and they're learning it quickly. :D

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.

The Chapel Doors

While I am no longer the Primary Chorister, being in Nursery I get to see many of the fun ideas that my successor finds or comes up with.  She graciously allowed me to take pictures of several of them that were so great that I just had to share. :)

The first one is a singing aid for the song "The Chapel Doors".  You begin the song with the doors shut. . . . .

 . . .and then as you sing, you open the chapel doors.

 

The kids love the anticipation of opening the doors to see what's inside!