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!

Hymn # 239 "Choose the Right": 1st Verse

This week I am going to attempt the first verse of "Choose The Right".  I have found that our children are very successful when I create a game/activity that forces them to listen closely to the words (even if they don't know them yet).  This week we are going to play a musical chairs of sorts.

I have printed (and laminated) a few keys items and also found a few props.

We will sing the entire song through once (or twice) for the kids to listen to the words.  Then, I will line up chairs in the front of primary, call up enough kids to have them each hold one of the signs and/or props.  (I will also hand out my CTR-on-a-stick from last week to remaining audience members. Same rules.)  Each child in the front of the room has to stand up when they hear the part of the song that matches their sign.  If they forget to stand up or miss it, then they get to pick someone from the audience to take their place (and the audience member will hand over their CTR-on-a-stick).  Lather, rinse, repeat!!

For our senior primary (who consists of "older" senior primary) I may have them line up, but not in order of the song (like I would intenionally do with junior).  I also might add a few more props/signs that would require them to act faster and listen for more words.

My props, in the picture above, are as follows:

Choose the right
When a choice is placed before you (B 4 U sign)
In the right
The Holy Spirit Guides (Wrong Way sign)
And its light (flashlight)
Is forever shining o'er you
When in the right
Your heart confides (heart sign)

I limited my props/signs to simplify it for the young ones, but you can add as many or as little as you want.

Hymn # 239 "Choose the Right": Chorus Only

This is quite the song to teach the primary! I love it, but hymns always take a little more effort.  For our first week in February, I spent the time introducing the chorus to the primary. ONLY the chorus.  I wanted them to have some confidence in a strong portion of the song before we moved on to the verses.

Last week I printed out pictures to represent the chorus lines (CTR shield, wise old owl for wisdom, etc).  I posted the pictures around the room and had the kids sing the chorus a few times and then called up a child to find the picture they thought came first, then second, third, etc.

As they found the hidden picture and brought it to the front of the room, I then had them place it on the magnetic chalkboard in the proper order (helpful hint: I allowed the remainder of the primary to help the "seeker" but ONLY if the seeker asked for help and ONLY with their pointing fingers -- no words allowed).

I also handed out CTR-on-a-stick.  Each child had a shield (printed and attached to a stick -- or pencil, like me, if you ran out of sticks).  Any time the kids heard the word "RIGHT" they had to hold their CTR-on-a-stick SUPER high!! It really helped them focus on the words.

(I got this idea off another pirmary blog and I cannot seem to find it!! My apologies in advance for not giving the proper credit. If one of you happen to find which blog, feel free to post a comment with a link to it and I will do the same if I find it.)

As a help, I also handed out a printed copy of the hymn to the teachers. I wanted to make sure that there was some singing along with the mumbling. Most of the teachers knew the song already, but cheat-sheets can't hurt a bit!

Feliz Cumpleaños

An easy and fun activity to help teach the birthday song "Feliz Cumpleaños" is to type out the language (and phonetic pronunciation) on separate pieces of paper. Then, print out blank maps of each country.  Split the children in to groups for each language and let them try and figure out the pronunciation.  Then have the children come teach the primary and guess which country it comes from. I used the magnetic chalkboard to post the maps and then once they guessed, placed the words under the map (in the order of the song).

Click here to download a PDF link of the languages already typed out.

If anyone else in your primary happens to speak a different language, have them come up and share.  If you can, it might be fun to also find clothing or traditional dress from each country to have the kids put on.

Then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat!

(If you are lucky enough to have members from any one of the countries mentioned in the song, you can have them come in and help say the word, or record it to play for the kids.)

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.

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.

Snowball Fight

January we find ourselves (in some places) covered in snow and shivering in the cold temperatures.  So...why not have an indoor snowball fight?  We did this last week and the kids had a blast. I should have allotted more time, as this went over better than I thought.

For the needs of our primary, I pre-selected 5-7 wiggle/play/review songs and printed them on pieces of paper (just the page number).  Then, I handed a piece to each child in our primary.  I had a rather large red bucket with me in the front of the room and told the kids we were going to have a snowball fight.  But!! You can't forget to share the following rules:

• Snowballs can ONLY be thrown at me (the chorister)
• Snowballs cannot be thrown directly at the face

I had the back rows come around to the front and tried to align everyone so the poor sunbeams/front rows weren't getting hit in the head.  The kids then crumbled up their snowballs and threw them at me (as I held the bucket). I would choose a song to sing from the snowballs that made it in to the bucket.  For the senior primary, I held the bucket and slowly spun around to make the game more difficult.

Depending on the size and needs of your ward, here are a few alternatives to this game you could use:

• Hand out blank papers and let the children write their favorite song.
• Hand out papers with the page number already written, but have the children write their name. If their snowball is selected they can pick a silly way to sing the song (humming, stop/go, or use the cards mentioned here.)

(Thank you to my sister-in-law for sharing this idea with me.)

Do you have ideas? Post your comments below!