July: Pioneer Month - Diving for Crickets

I am using July as an opportunity to revive the fun pioneer songs from the Children's Songbook.  There is a story in this month's friend called 'Saving the Wheat'.  I took this story and created a different version of "fishing" that allowed us to pick a variety of songs.

I printed out little crickets and a seagull picture.  I then placed the cricket cut-outs in a bin of rice (you could also use wheat berries if you have them and are willing to use them).  I then attached paper clips to each cricket.  For the pole I used a piece of wood (skewer) and yarn to make a pole for the seagulls.  I attached my seagull picture to the yarn that had a magnet attached to the bottom.  (Hopefully that all made sense).  I began by telling the kids the story from the friend and then we went diving for crickets! Each cricket had a song written on the back. I enjoyed the simple way of bringing a real adaption to the game and I think the kids will remember the bugs! They had lots of fun!

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?!

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!

Hide-n-Seek Snowman

We did another snow theme today. We are finishing up the final verse on the song "As A Child of God" and needed a game that would allow us to repeat the song over and over again (anything to drill it in, right?).

I created a snowman out of white poster board (3 circles, increasing in size).  I then created 6 snowman items for the kids to hide (one at a time).  The items I made were a hat, eyes, nose, scarf, buttons and mouth.

This game is similar to "Hot and Cold" where children say hot/hotter/cold/colder depending on how close the seeker is to the hidden "treasure". However, with singing time, we have the kids sing quiet when the seeker is far away and gradually get louder as the seeker gets closer.  This is a great game to sing a song in a repetitive nature while keeping the kids interested. I select one kid to be the hider and another to be the seeker. The seeker steps out in to the hall (with a leader) and waits for us to hide the treasure.  Once they come back in the room, we begin singing.

Remember to make sure the kids are still singing! I had to stop a few times and make the kids re-focus on the song and words when they were just mumbling or messing up the words.

Other options for this game are:

• On each item to be hidden, have a song choice on the back (to mix up the monotony)
• Have one object to hide and have the child that is hiding the object pick their favorite song
• Hide letters to build a word (rather than snowman pieces)

This is also an easy game to pass on to a substitute. I would suggest the sub lets the children pick the song, or provide a list of well-known songs for them to use.

Substitute Ideas:Tic Tac Toe

Here is a great resource for those times when a substitute is needed.  I would print this out, laminate, and keep in your stash ASAP.  It is easy and the kids love it.  During my first few weeks, when I was figuring it all out, this was a life saver.

Click HERE to read/print TIC TAC TOE game.

Courtesy of http://afprimarysingingtime.blogspot.com