Pioneer Songs

Today we had a really fun day singing Pioneer songs.  I put the names of the songs on the back of Pioneer cutouts from the churches old figure sets, any Pioneer figures would do, I used the family members (dad, mom, older boy, older girl, young boy, young girl), a covered wagon (The Oxcart) and a scenic one (Westward, Ho!).  I told the children that I had brought some Pioneers with me that wanted to hear some songs about them.  For each song, I called a volunteer to come up and pick one, if it was a person, I pretended like the person "whispered" to me what song they wanted to hear and then we sang it. 

To help keep the songs fun we added some fun ways to sing them.

Little Pioneer Children - Jr. Primary - I had them gather berries, gather "chips", hear, see etc.,
Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked -  It's a given on this one, we "walked and walked and walked" through the rows of chairs.
Update: I have since copied this idea that someone made and I have a child hold each part of the song.

The Handcart - Jr. Primary - I had them stand and push or pull whenever they heard the words.
The Oxcart - We sang really slow and had the teachers do a fun idea I read on The Ordinary Adventures of a Primary Chorister, they were oxen and mooed while we sang, it was so funny!  The kids loved it.  It actually sounded pretty cool!
To Be A Pioneer -  It's such a fun song to split and sing against each other.  It's our favorite!
Westward, Ho! - I made two signs that say "Westward, Ho" on them.  I split the singers into two groups and have two volunteers hold the signs up when it's their groups turn.  It helps the song move along.

(We sang Pioneer Children Were Quick To Obey in Sacrament Meeting, so I didn't use it in Singing Time - See flipchart.  I haven't learned Covered Wagons yet, maybe next year.)

Update: Last year I tried something that I will be repeating this year. I wore a blouse, long skirt and a pioneer bonnet. We sat in a circle around a fake fire to do our singing. (see post on Campfire) The kids really enjoyed it!

Beautiful Mother's Day Song

I realize it's a bit late for this year, but I just figured out how to upload documents onto a companion site for my blog, so here is a really beautiful Mother's Day song that we did this year.  My Heavenly Father Loves Me has been my favorite Primary song for years (there are a few new ones getting up there now too).  So when I found this idea on Sugardoodle, I loved it.  I changed a few words, because I felt it was easier to sing and added pictures for a flipchart.  It was perfect.  Several people commented what a beautiful song it was. 
 

Pioneer Children Were Quick To Obey

Our Primary children are singing this in Sacrament Meeting today.  I could only find one partial flipchart besides one that you have to pay to subscribe to the site.  So I made my own and here it is.
 

New!!! Flipcharts!!!

I finally figured out a way to include flipcharts that I make on my blog.  I had to create a seperate google page, but at least it will let me upload them.  I'm including the link here: https://sites.google.com/site/pansiesandpopcorn/flipcharts  As I have time, I will upload my flipcharts to this site.  If  you have any trouble accessing them, let me know.  :)

The Fourth Article of Faith

Like many of you, I chose this song for June because it goes so well.  I found a really great flipchart for this song and I can't find where I got it from!  I wasn't going to do one, because they know it pretty well.  But I notice that the Sr. Primary knew it a lot better than the Jr.  So, I printed one and it has really helped!  I let five kids come up and each hold a part of the song.  The first week I wanted to sing it several times through, so I had each group go tap a new person to come up and hold pages.  Since we're split, we got through everyone in only few rounds!  Here are some other nice charts you can use that are on Sugardoodle.  If I ever find mine again, I'll add it to the post. :)

Book of Mormon Songs

I'm really excited about an idea that I'm going to use tomorrow.  It's so simple, but I think it will be really fun!  I'm first going tell the kids that we're singing about a special book today.  Then we'll sing the "Books in the Book of Mormon" song and put up a timeline that coincides with the books.  Then I'm going to add to the time line pictures that go with the stories that are in the verses of the song "Book of Mormon Stories".  We'll go down the timeline and as we get to each picture, we'll lift it up and there will be the words to the verse that go with it. (I'm going to print each verse on a sheet of paper and attach the verses behind the pictures ahead of time and put them up with the picture when I put in on the timeline.)  I think it will be fun for the kids to see them in order.  I was going to add "Nephi's Courage" at the beginning with a picture of Nephi, then I found a verse for him that a lady named Emily Rosengren has made up, so might do that.  I guess you could do both! :)  She did several fun extra verses that you can find here on Sugardoodle. For the Sr. Primary, I think I'll add in all the "extra verses" So the order is:

• Books in the Book of Mormon
• Book of Mormon Stories (BOMS) verse #1

 

• BOMS extra verse - Nephi

 

• BOMS extra verse - Enos

• BOMS extra verse - King Benjamin

• BOMS verse #4 - Abinadi

• BOMS verse #3 - Alma

BOMS verse #5 - Ammon

• BOMS verse #6 - 2,000 Stripling Warriors

• BOMS extra verse - Moroni

• BOMS verse #7 - Samuel the Lamanite

BOMS verse #8 -  Christ

• BOMS extra verse - Jared's Brother

• BOMS verse #2

I've realize a little problem.  The stories in the Book of Mormon are not in chronological order! For example, the story of the brother of Jared on the timeline comes BEFORE the story of Lehi and his family but for the Books in the BOM song, the book of Ether needs to be in the right place.  Another example is that in the book of Mosiah the story of King Benjamin comes before Abinadi and then the story of Alma the younger however, chronologically it goes Abinadi and then Benjamin and Alma are at the same time.   So what I've decided to do, is for Jr. Primary, only do the books in order, put the pictures in the books they go in.  For the Sr. Primary, I'm going to do the timeline first and then "compile" the stories the way that they appear in the BOM to sing the songs. :D

D'net Layton made a Book of Mormon stories wheel that I think would be cool to print of and assemble with an arrow with a brad.  The Junior Primay would get a kick out of finding the right picture on their wheel that goes with the verse we're singing!  Here are some actions you can do with the verses. I'm not sure who made them up, but they're posted on Sugardoodle.  We may not get through all of them, but we can save extras for another day. :)

On A Golden Springtime

UPDATED! 3/7/2018

We are singing this song with the choir for Easter Sunday.  The children sing the 1st verse, the choir the 2nd verse in parts, and the children sing the third verse while the choir does ahhhs and oohs in harmony.

Last year I printed off a flipchart, but this year I found a fabulous idea that I'm using for the 1st verse.  It's a seed puppet and it's so cute!  Laurie McBride shares her idea on Sugardoodle explained in detail.  But where I first saw the idea was on the blog Singing Time Saver.  She has pictures on there of her puppet which I really liked, but I wanted to make a few changes.  So here's my version of the "Seed Puppet".

                                                                   Side 1 - Awake seed

Side 2 - Asleep eyes

When it's "sleeping" you fold your fingers over so that the sleepy eyes are over the awake ones like this:

(hint: make sure your marker is dry before you do the other side, or do flower first so that you don't get ugly marker stains on your felt like mine did!)

Then the seed "awakes" to side 1 by just opening your hand.

After the seed has seen "the day is bright", on the phrase "with all your might" I turn the puppet inside out on my hand and show "the flower" side for "push upward to the light".

It only takes a few times practicing to get the hang of it.  The Jr. Primary was crazy about it!  I was a little worried about the Sr. Primary but decided to try it because it's creator, Laurie said even her Sr. Primary liked it.  So I did, and while all I got from the older boys was some interest (that's something!), the girls were all saying, "again! again!". :)  Success!!!

After we'd done it several times with the puppet, I went back to the flipchart because that's what I plan to use in Sacrament Meeting, but they seemed to remember it a lot better! 

UPDATE:
I'm so excited that I ran into a FB Primary Music Leader friend Rachelle Taylor Jensen that shared with me her ideas for verses two and three of this song! I did my verse two puppets very similar to hers, adding a tombstone but ended up doing different ones for verse three. (I absolutely loved her cute verse three flags but I needed something more consolidated.)

So here are the puppets for verse two:

"On a golden springtime, Jesus Christ awoke and left the tomb where he had lain; the bands of death he broke".

"Awake, awake, O sleeping world! Look upward to the light. For now all men may live again.

"Look upward to the light". (Her sun was all felt and very cute, I didn't have any yellow felt so I improvised. Lol!)
Note: The sun puppet is also used in the other two verses for "to the light" and "glorious light".

Verse three:

"On a golden springtime, in a forest glade"

"The Father and the Son appeared as Joseph knelt and prayed"

"Awake, awake, O nations all! Receive the gospel light! The gospel true is here for you"

("Receive it's glorious light!' - see sun)