Latter-Day Prophets: Hot/Cold Matching Game

We are still learning the Latter-Day Prophets song and I decided to take the first six prophets and use them in a  matching game.

I pinned my accordion of pictures along the long wall in the primary room (accordion of picture instructions HERE) and I covered the first six prophets up with construction paper.  Then (before primary started) I hung miniature versions of those covered prophets around the room (mini versions provided by Leafy Treetops Blog here).  We then played Hot & Cold to guide one of the children to the first, second, third prophet, etc.

(Hot & Cold is singing or humming the song while you have a "seeker" looking around the room.  The LOUDER the singing gets, the closer they are. The QUIETER they sing, the further away. Pick a new seeker each turn.)

I had junior primary hum the song so they could become VERY comfortable with the notes of the song. It can seem a bit all over the place to the little ones, especially when you toss in all those new/tune names.  The kids seem to always find the missing prophet right around "David Ooooooo McKay".  I like to point out those little tidbits to help the kids recognize different parts of the song.

Once the missing prophet is found, we uncover the big version and make sure they are a match.  As a side note, with the little ones, I had the "seeker" come up and face me.  I think asked the rest of the primary to point (no words!!!) where we were going to guide our seeker -- just to make sure we all were on the same page. This helped a lot. Senior primary is old enough that the seeker quickly stepped out of the room and then I had the rest of the kids talk with each other to figure out where to next. I never helped them and this made it all the more fun if they were wrong!

It can also be helpful to point out physical features on each prophet to help them remember.  For instance:

Lorenzo Snow's beard looks just like snow!!

I'm sure you can think up other features to help.  Like...who was the first prophet (after our first Joseph Smith) to NOT have a beard?!

Latter-Day Prophets

Can I just say again how grateful I am to all of you Primary Choristers that put in so much work and are so willing to share with all of us?  Thank you, thank you!

A big THANKS to "In the Leafy Treetops..." blog. She has done some amazing hand-outs for learning Latter-Day Prophets and our singing time tomorrow will be super fun because of her!

Need ideas for learning Latter-Day Prophets (Children's Song Book, pg 134)? GO HERE! Don't forget to use her PDFs that she so kindly is sharing.

Hymn #239 "Choose The Right": 2nd Verse

I have used this method a lot (mostly with the senior primary, who can read).  I write out the entire verse on a large poster board.  Then, under each word, I number 1 through 6.  After we sing the song a few times, I then have a square cardboard box with numbers 1-6 on it.  A child comes up, rolls a number.  Whatever number comes up I use construction paper and/or post-it notes to cover up all the words with that number under it.  To keep it interesting, I use my silly song cards to change the way we sing the song each time.

With junior primary, I left the poster board up for teachers to see and then we just sang it over and over with the silly cards.  I did start by reading the words and explaining what they meant.  I feel like the kids remember the words better if they just aren't these big, ominous words that don't mean anything.  You can also start singing line by line in a silly manner.

Variations for this method that would work:

- Use a dry erase board and/or wet-wipe board and erase the words
- Use a flannel board with the words as flannel posts and pull down the words
- Don't use the "dice" and just have children choose a number between 1-6

Now, my picture below is not my best work, but hopefully you get the idea. :-)

Sing it a few times like you see below. Free for them to read.

See the numbers under the words?

Eventually all the words will be gone. 

Flip Chart Games

I came across a wonderful blog with
lots of super, duper ideas. The name of the blog is

"In the Leafy Treetops the Birds Sing Good Morning..."

She had some marvelous ideas on how to use flip charts 

(I always just stand in the front and hold them.
It didn't even occur to me to make them in to games!)

My two favorite ideas she had were:

1) Hand out a flip chart to each class.  Each class only sings the part shown on their paper.  Rotate between the classes.  Another rendition is to have them posted in stations and have the classes rotate around the room.

2) Post the flip charts in 4 corners (or areas).  Have a child blind-folded as you sing the song. At the end of the song, have them try and guess which chart they are under.

I love all the helpful blogs around the web! Keep up the sharing! We all need new, fresh ideas (and those "old, overused games" you use might be brand new to someone else). Share, share away!

Thank you, Leafy Treetops!