Farewell, Adios, See Ya Later Alligator

I copied this picture to eventually make my own poster which I haven't yet. I don't know where I borrowed it from and the only post I could find on FB, where I get a lot of my ideas lately, credits someone named Amber Nielsen with the idea but I couldn't find her original post. So this may be her picture, may not. It's sung to the tune of "Hello Song" CS 260

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!

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!