May 25, 2013

Follow the Prophet Fun

I am struggling SO MUCH when it comes to finding the time to sit down and share what I am doing with my primary kids.  Being a wife and a mom to 4 teenagers and a tween, a private piano teacher of 17 students, and the primary chorister, I find it a miracle that I am mostly sane!  MOSTLY :)

Rather than try to catch up on what I HAVEN' T been able to blog, I will just blog when and what I can.  So for tomorrow, the last Sunday of May, we will be playing a review game with this month's song, "Follow the Prophet".  It is a word game.  We are singing 2 verses in the program, so I have made 2 stacks of word cards; one for each verse and a 3rd stack for the chorus.  Each verse stack contains one card for each word I wrote.

Stack 1 contains the following words:  Heavn'ly Father, loves, wants, return, blesses, prophets, help, learn, Pres'dent Monson, humbly, leads, God's, church, today, heed, words, walk, righteous, way

Stack 2 contains the following words:  Now, we, world, where, people, confused, you, don't, believe, go, watch, news, can, direction, along, way, heed, prophets, follow, what, they, say

Stack 3 contains only 5 cards with the following WAYS to sing the verse:  
       Rhythm:  lap, lap, clap, snap, clap
       Sing Popcorn Style (staccato)
       High-Five your neighbor as you sing the word "Follow".
       Rhythm:  Do a rhythm pattern with your neighbor. (nothing silly or too complicated)
       March:  1 row of children will march around the room while everyone else marches in place.
                    (I may get the prophet sticks from my nursery bucket for the row of marchers to hold)

Stack 3 has only 5 cards.  We will shuffle them if we end up re-using them.  

HOW TO PLAY
Place the numbered stacks face down in their own stack.  I have a wooden dice my husband made for me.  I have written only numbers 1, 2, and 3 on it.  A child will be chosen to roll the dice and a card 
will be picked from the corresponding stack of cards.  If it is from stack 1 or 2, I will choose a child to go out into the hall.  When they are out there, I will tell the remaining kids what the word is.  They will be instructed to NOT sing that word.  When the child from the hall comes back in, they will stand up front with me and listen to everyone sing the verse, hopefully guessing correctly which word was left out.  This will require the other kids to WATCH me and hopefully be able to accomplish this task.  I'll have to pull out Snappy Bob.  That's another post I've been wanting to share with you!   If a 3 is rolled, then everyone will participate in the action of singing the chorus. Then we will continue to play as time allows.

The words to verse 1 were published in The Friend in 2010.  
Heavn'ly Father loves us and wants us to return.
He blesses us with prophets who help us all to learn.
Pres'dent Monson humbly leads God's church today.
I we heed his words, we'll walk a righteous way.

Verse 2 is just verse 9 as written in the Children's Songbook.

For Sr. Primary you could have the "guessing" child stand at the front with a headband or hat on with the word card attached for everyone else to see.  I have a fancy flowery fruit hat we could use.  The kids will love wearing it!

Have a safe Memorial Day Weekend!