Bon Bons- 13/12/09

Today was a very festive primary. To start I brought along all the christmas hats I have. Reindeers, Santa hats, elf hats, christmas hats etc and we all wore hats for singing time. Then I had christmas bon bons with songs in them, so I chose two children at a time to crack them open and we would sing the song inside. That was a lot of fun. One of the songs was 'Christmas bells' and when we sung it I got one of the children to shake some bells in time with the music and it was really effective. I also taught the oder girls the part that goes over the song and they sounded beautiful. Next week we will be singing for the Relief Society.

Primary Presentation 29/11/09

It has been a while since I have been able to write with all the preparations for our Primary presentation. It was last week, and the kids did an amazing job. There were some things that the presidency did that I thought was quite unique for our presentation. Because it was all about eternal families, our first counselor in Primary created word strips in the shape of a home. So throughout the presentation we built a home with the main themes of each month. I did another video presentation, and the kids all walked in with their builder hats on. I'm so grateful for all the children in primary and for their sweet spirits. I love my calling. I also had a thought for a new project. I would love to teach the children some songs that they can perform for elderly people at retirement homes. Perhaps a faith in God activity?

Primary Idol Review 19/10/09

This week I taught both the junior and senior primary "Seek the Lord Early" using the visual helps from Shari's singing time [http://singingtimecollection.blogspot.com/2009/06/seek-lord-early.html].
 I laminated them, and they really helped the children to learn the words very quickly.

Then afterwards I had an activity similar to Australian Idol, to see where we're at with our songs for the primary presentation. I made three laminated flip charts with the numbers 1-5 and they were for three judges. I chose two leaders, and one of the children that were singing well when I did it with the seniors, and three leaders for the Juniors. This worked well. Then I got the children to tell me what songs we needed to know for our program and I wrote them on the blackboard. Then in order we sang each of our songs and the judges gave a score and feedback for each song we sang. This gave me a good idea as to which songs the children needed to work on, and it was a bit of fun. And now when we do that activity again, the children can try and beat their scores.

General Conference- 11/10/09

It was Conference this week, so of course no primary. It was such an uplifting conference. There was one talk that really got me thinking about Primary and the impact that my teaching can have on the lives of children. It was a talk given by Russell T. Osguthorpe in the Saturday morning session. Some things to think about:


1. As a teacher, do I view myself as a messenger from God?
2. Do I prepare and then teach in ways that can help save lives?
3. Do I focus on a key doctrine of the Restoration?
4. Can those I teach feel the love I have for them and for my Heavenly Father and the Savior?
5. When inspiration comes, do I close the manual and open their eyes and their ears and their hearts to the glory of God?
6. Do I invite them to do the work that God has for them to do?
7. Do I express so much confidence in them that they find the invitation hard to refuse?
8. Do I help them recognize promised blessings that come from living the doctrine I am teaching?

It's a great talk, here's the link: [http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1117-5,00.html]

Don't say a word game- 27/09/09

SENIOR PRIMARY

To learn 'How firm a foundation ' better today, we played the game 'Don't say a word'. The way that game is played is I would choose one child to go outside, and another to pick some words out of a pretty box, that were all words from the song 'How firm a foundation. Then I would hold them up in front of all the children and they would have to sing the song without saying those words. Then I would invite the child outside back in, give them a pen and paper and tell them to listen out for the missing words and if they knew them they could write it down, and their team would get a point for each word they got right. I played it as girls verse boys and they loved that. The boys won in the end.

JUNIOR PRIMARY

I wanted to do a pass the parcel type thing, but due to lack of time this week I used my trusty pretty box and put in all different ways of singing. There was whispering, humming, girls only, boys only, standing up, sitting down, eyes closed and free choice. We sung the song 'I lived in Heaven' as they passed the box, then when the music stopped we did what was on the card they picked out.

Plate Memory Review-20/09/09

This is an all time favorite of mine that I bring out every so often so the children can review their program songs. It's a game of memory on plastic plates with pictures that relate to the songs we are doing for our presentation. The children singing the best get to come up and flip around two plates to see if the pictures match. If they match you sing the song, if not, the next child has a turn until there's a match. Here are some pictures. The images are glued inside the plate and a number is written on the back. The plates can either be stapled to the string or fed through holes and tied with a knot.

Ping Pong ball toss- 13/9/09

This is the game I played with the kids in singing time today and it worked a treat. Today I wanted to focus on the song "I lived in Heaven," since we haven't sung it in quite some time. The game itself is really easy to prepare. All that was needed was a bucket or box of some sort filled with cups that are squeezed in there tightly so they can't fall over inside. Then inside the cup I added a piece of paper in each with some of our other presentation songs and one cup that had a "free choice". At the beginning of singing time I told them we would sing "I lived in Heaven", then I would choose the best singer to come up, throw the ball from a distance and try and get the Ping Pong ball in a cup. If they get it in a cup we would sing the song in that cup, but if they missed we would have to keep singing "I lived in Heaven." It made repetition fun :) and was adaptable for Junior's and Senior's.