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!

Learning by clothesline

I forgot to take a picture of our clothesline song, but this is a very simple activity that gets the children involved. All you will need is:

• clothesline (or sturdy string - I used yarn)
• clothespins (the spring kind)
• visual aids that can be pinned to the line

I made all of my visual aids on paper.  I then used magnets to pin them all over the chalkboard.  We sang the new song once through.  Then we started with the first line.  I called a child up to find the very first picture in our line.  Once they picked the right one, they hung it on the line (which I had attached across the room, or you can have two very patient kids hold it).  Once we had two lines of pictures on the string, we would sing those lines.  Do this until the song is complete.

For the older kids, who learn the song quickly, I would then randomly remove pictures and see if they could remember the words. If they made a mistake the picture would have to be added back.  The goal was to have an empty clothesline by the end of singing time.

Another option to make this more of a game is to hid/tape the visual aids all over the room so they have to search for it.  Depending on the number of children you have in your primary you can have them seek one-by-one, or an entire class at a time.