Choose the Right

If you are teaching the songs in the order of the outline,you have already taught this song to your primary. In February, I we learned "Build An Ark". March's song is "Stand For the Right", which we already know. So we learned "Choose the Right" while reviewing "Stand For the Right".

For the program, only the Jr. Primary will sing "Stand For the Right". Only the Sr. Primary will be singing "Choose the Right", but the Jr. will join in for just the chorus. I think it will work fine.

The Sr. Primary learned verses 1 & 3 plus the chorus while the Jr. Primary learned the chorus only & enjoyed reviewing "Stand For the Right" with the String Bees (Picture of the String Bees is at the bottom of the post). I made a poster (on green, of course!) for the verses. It all fit on a piece I had left over from a piano practicing project. It was about 3/4 of a full size poster board. Perfect!

 For the chorus, I made 4 different pictures for the kids to hold up as we sang (CTR shield for obvious reasons, BOM for wisdom, a sun for its light, and Jesus blessing the children for bless you ever more). These pictures started on popsicle sticks and didn't last 2 minutes!  So we just held the pictures in our hands. As we sang the verse and then the chorus, everyone would hold up their picture at the appropriate time in the chorus. Then they would trade someone else for a different picture and we'd do it all again, making it 4 times of repetitive singing. Jr. Primary struggled a bit with all the switching pictures, but we managed in the end:)

String Bees the Nursery & Jr. Primary use to sing "Stand For the Right". 

We do actions with the song as well.  Actions are posted here.

I Feel My Savior's Love

This is what our primary president & I strongly felt our primary should learn. Strongly. As in we-both-get-goose-bumps-every-time-we-listen-to-it strongly. A couple of weeks ago I searched for a different arrangement than the one in the Children's Songbook and found it here. I purchased it on the chance it would be what I was looking for. JACKPOT!! It is written lower than the original which is ALWAYS a plus. It has all 4 verses. It has one key change and a simple additional ending. And to top it off, verses 2 & 4 have slightly different rhythm patterns than verses 1 & 3. Same thing with the choruses. Verses 1 & 3 along with the chorus are just like the Children's Songbook. The accompaniment is easy, too.  You can listen to the first bit when you go to the link I provided.  You can also look at the first page to check out the accompaniment level.

I have made a flip chart with key words and have uploaded on scrbd. There are 4 pages per verse plus 4 for the chorus. I will be using the Raindrops & Rainbows to teach the rhythm differences of verses 1 & 2. I will be having a small group sing the 1st & 3rd verses for the program and the entire primary will sing all the choruses and the 2nd & 4th verses.  So I will focus mainly on those & leave the small groups to memorize their parts on their own.

If you have any problems getting the flip chart, email me & I'll send it to you.

I'm excited to learn this song with my primary kiddos!

Ideas for Stand For the Right

Did you notice the changes I made on the blog?  I'm anticipating Spring and jelly beans remind me that it's coming soon!  Tuesday, March 20th in fact:)  Which means I have less than 3 weeks to get my girls' Spring Baskets ready.  No Easter Baskets from the bunny at our house.  We totally separate the worldly celebration of Easter from the spiritual and TRUE meaning of the special occasion.  Off my soap box and back to the anticipation of SPRING!  

With March's Primary song, "Stand For the Right" I thought it would be perfect to incorporate Spring in teaching it. Last year I made this visual aid for a singing time.  Click here to read how to make one yourself & the way I used it in primary. 

As I thought about ways to teach "Stand For the Right" (aka BEE True!), this zippin' bee board came to mind.  By placing pictures or symbols underneath each flower, BEE can hover over each flower as your primary sings the song.  

FLOWERS

BLUE- picture of Pres. Monson: Our prophet has some words for you. 

ORANGE- the words "Be True!": And these are the words: "Be true! Be true!"

RED- pictures of a hammer a sports ball: At work or at play,

YELLOW-  pictures of moon and sun : In darkness or light.

WHITE- picture of CTR symbol: Stand for the right.

Notice that I didn't give the 2nd "Be true, be true!" to another flower.  I figure BEE can zip back 2 flowers to the orange one for it and then zip back to the end flower (white) for "stand for the right".  

This bee board might be a bit difficult for the Jr. Primary kids to manipulate.  Sr. Primary would do great with it, though.  And to continue repeating the song, you could always have them sing different ways (ie. staccato, soft, loud).

Now for something the Jr. Primary will enjoy!  

I thought about the bees & butterflies on strings I made last summer for the Nursery.  By just using the BEE's, we could hold the strings in one hand while we do actions for the song lyrics.  These bees are used for the same purpose I made the leaves on strings. I just changed the lyrics to a summer time song:)  

For "Stand For the Right", each child will stand up & sway their bee string back and forth to the feel of the music.  

1. Teach "Our prophet has some words for you and these are the words" as you "fly" the bee back & forth.  
2. When you sing "Be true! Be true!", raise your string hand above your head in a fist.  Then pump it 4 times as you sing "Be true! Be true!". Keep your string hand in a fist for the rest of the song.
3. For the phrase "At work or at play", act out shoveling dirt and then throwing a ball. 
4. "In darkness or light", put both fists over your eyes to make it "dark" and then pop your eyes open for light and move your fists to the sides away from your eyes.  
5. As you move your fists away, prepare the string fist to pump to "Be true, be true"
6. As you sing "And stand", place the string fist firmly on your chest over your heart.
7. As you sing "for", stomp one foot firmly on the ground.
8. As you sing "the", stomp the other foot firmly on the ground right next to the first foot.   
9. As you sing "right", you can either do a firm nod of your head OR you could raise those string fists firmly in the air & hold them there until Chorister cuts off the singing. I'm liking the picture in my head of them holding up their string fists until the cut off.  I can imagine battle swords in those little fists representing their choice in standing for truth & righteousness in this world:)

Slow the song down at the end so that you have enough time to do the actions to emphasize the lyrics.

This last idea is what I actually did to teach the Jr. Primary this song LAST year.  

These are just some ideas I had and I wanted to share.  If you're looking for some inspiration, maybe these with spark a little something for you!

Build An Ark Helps

The first week, we were only able to learn the first half of the first verse. With the complexity of this song, it was to be expected. The kids all enjoyed learning about the raindrops and rainbows as they learned the melody. They especially liked the frozen raindrops!

On week 2 we reviewed what we had learned the previous week and learned the rest of verse 1. To make things a bit more visual for them, I printed out pictures to go with the song. I cut them out in the shape of a cloud, outlining them with a black marker. I placed the main picture cloud at the beginning of the line of each part (A, B, C, D). I also wrote in some key lyrics with chalk above or below the raindrops/rainbows as needed. And since we were past the "short-long" chanting, we were able to have kids come up to be the "pointer" of the 'drops & 'bows as we sang repetitively. The Sr. Primary kids were competitive! Each child wanted to point EXACTLY perfect to each raindrop & rainbow. They definitely understand the concept much better than the Jr. Primary. But each level did a great job and more importantly, they learned the whole 1st verse!

This is the only picture I have from week 2. I forgot my camera again! Luckily, our secretary has a cool phone AND the know how to use it. Thanks, Tina!

For week 3, our goal was to learn the 1st half of verse 2 for Jr. and the entire verse 2 for Sr. But I wanted to change it up a bit. So instead of placing the 'drops & 'bows on the board as I'd done previously, I wanted the kids to do it. In order to do this, I wanted more visuals (pictures) for them. I decided to make my own "flip chart". I know that I posted a link on my last post of a beautiful chart that Mary put together last year, but I needed MORE pictures. I'm such a literal thinker that I NEEDED more pictures for the abundant lyrics involved in this song. I'm also a visual learner. As I visualized each part of the song, I quickly realized that I would end up with A LOT of pictures to flip. There's no way I could flip them fast enough. That's when I thought about the TOTALLY AWESOME birthday present my hubby gave me the week before. My iPad 2! I am a MAC lover. I will never go back to a PC. NEVER. EVER. I can sync all my iPhotos from my MAC to my iPad. Then I have the "Doodle Buddy" app where I can create my own iPad flip chart. 

By sliding my finger across the screen, I can easily keep up my "flipping" with the pace of the song. SO COOL! The kids thought it was fabulous:) And now I can upload these pics onto my MAC, convert them to PDF form and have them available for anyone who wants them! 

For Sr. Primary, we went through each part, learning the lyrics. As we were singing, I had 2 kids come up to the board to work together on figuring out the pattern of the raindrops & rainbows. We would sing that part over and over again, checking if the pattern was correct. If it was, we went on to the next part, choosing 2 different kids to put up the next pattern. If the pattern wasn't quite right, we sang it again as needed until the correct changes were made. They would then add repeat signs and fermatas where needed. The kids would need to look at the pics I was sliding across my screen and learn them quickly & well enough that they could transfer that knowledge to the raindrop & rainbow method they had learned. They did great and learned the entire 2nd verse!

The Jr. Primary was a bit different:) Starting with part A, I pulled out those raindrops & rainbows. I called up enough kids to the front to each hold a raindrop or rainbow for the lyrics. I placed them in the correct order. As we sang, I would put my hand over the child, according to the rhythm. In other words, instead of the 'drops & 'bows being on the board and me pointing to them as we sang, the kids held their piece and I placed my hand over their heads as we sang. Whew! When we learned that part, I just let the kids put their pieces on the chalkboard wherever they wanted, as they went back to their seats. We did get the first half of the 2nd verse learned. We also sang the parts after the pieces were randomly on the board by watching my cool flip chart:)

I have 3 separate flip charts. They are all the same pictures, but they have varying amounts of the lyrics on each picture. One flip chart has every lyric on the pictures.

Another flip chart has only key words on the pictures.

The last one is pictures only, no lyrics at all.

Each flip chart has 29 pictures. I told you I NEEDED a lot of pictures! But you can eliminate any pictures you feel you don't need, OR you can cut them out and make a poster with them instead.

If you could use any of the pictures/flip charts, email me to make your request.

Ping Pong Fun

Ping Pong Fun with "As a Child of God"

We memorized all 3 verses playing this game.  A child would bounce the ping pong ball once onto the table to get it to land in the container within the box.  However many balls made it into (and stayed in!) the container represented the verse we were to sing.  For example:
1 ball= Verse 1
2 balls= Verse 2
3 balls= Verse 3
3 balls IN A ROW= Child Chooses Song
4 balls (not in a row)= One of the following songs: BOM Stories, Nephi's Courage, I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ, ...........

Before we start to sing the designated verse, another child would roll the dice to determine how many times the verse was to be sung BEFORE singing the chorus.  This dice was cut out by my husband.  I used a sharpie marker to write numbers 1, 2, & 3 TWICE on it.  (I also needed this kind of dice for the Choose the Right game we were going to play on the 5th Sunday.)

By the end of Singing Time, both Jr. & Sr. had all 3 verses & chorus totally memorized!  We no longer need to even use the flip chart.  WAHOO!!!

The ping pong container is just the lid to the apricots I bought at Costco months ago.  The box is merely to help contain the missed ping pong balls so that we didn't have to shag them from all over the Primary Room.  It help keep the chaos level to a minimum.  When I first explained what we were going to do, nearly all the kids exclaimed, "That's going to be SO EASY!"   Ha!  They quickly learned that those ping pong balls weren't as cooperative as they assumed they'd be:)  

It was a fun way to memorize the song!  AND this activity can be used for ANY song, which is even better:)

Build An Ark & When I Am Baptized

In my last post, I mentioned that I'm teaching my primary the song "Build An Ark" for the month of February.  I was contacted via email by Mary Judy who taught this song to her primary last year.  She has graciously offered all of her visuals to share with you on my blog.

THANK YOU MARY!!

I have copied and pasted the following email from Mary that explains what she did for both "Build An Ark" and "When I Am Baptized" (which is a program song this year):

We sang "Build an Ark" in our program last year and it was one of my kids favorites. I made a flip chart that I would love to share with anyone interested. I also downloaded both versions of the music files (singing/accompaniment). I am attaching the sheet music, too. We also, sang "When I am Baptized."

For one of our reviews I brought a yellow umbrella and put laminated raindrops on it that matched the flip chart phrases. When I taught "When I am Baptized" I made rainbow ribbon wands for our primary. I did not give them as gifts but kept them so we could use them many times. I would choose a child to lead the music with me and all the other children followed our patterns. We would make large rainbows over our head or figure eights and then when we came to the fermata  on the word "Can" we would point our wands to the floor and twirl it in a spiral like a large whirlpool. We talked about how reverent the song is and that our wands should be reverent (no loud snapping noises). I bought dowels at Lowes or Home Depot and they chopped them for me. I bought fishing swivels at Walmart that I inserted into the dowel then tied the ribbon through. We will use them again this year. We did not use them in the Sacrament Program. I also brought a large rainstick that my friend gave me. I would let a child turn it over very slowly to make the rain sound. Chimes are also nice.

I have uploaded these visuals to my scribd account.  This will make them easy for you to access.  However, if you have any problems or questions, email me & I can send the pdf documents to you via email.

I can't say it enough:  THANKS MARY!

2012 Primary Program Songs

I love how we are given a bit of freedom with 2 of the 8 months!  After much pondering & prayer, this is the final list of our program songs:

January- As a Child of God, 2012 Outline (3 verses)

February- Build An Ark, Sept. 2010 "Friend" (2 verses)

March- *Stand For the Right, CS 159 (1 Verse) [Jr. Primary Only]
           Choose the Right, Hymn 239 (Verses 1 & 3 Only)
            [Sr. Primary Only, with Jr. Primary joining for the chorus only]
              EASTER SONGS: 
                         *Jesus Has Risen, CS 70
                         *Hosanna!, CS 66

April- I Feel My Savior's Love, CS 74 (4 verses)
               [All kids sing vss. 1 & 4, small group or solo sing 
                           vss 2 & 3, All kids sing chorus]
          MOTHER'S DAY SONGS:
                   Mother Dear I Love You So, CS 206a (3 verses)
                   An Angel To Watch Over Me, by Sally DeFord (3 Verses)
                             [All primary vss. 1 & 3, YW vss. 2 & 3]

May- "Give", Said the Little Stream, CS 236 (3+ verses)
            [other lyrics will be added & the song will be arranged by myself]
            FATHER'S DAY SONGS:
                  *Daddy's Homecoming, CS 210
                  *The Family is Of God, (Verse 2 only)
                  *When I Hear My Father Pray, Mar. Ensign '83

June- Nephi's Courage, CS 120 (3 verses) *[They know verse 1!]
              PATRIOTIC SONGS: TBD

July- *When I Am Baptized, CS 103 (2 verses)
              PIONEER SONGS:  TBD


August- *I'm Trying To Be Like Jesus, CS 78 (verse 1 only)
                          [Jr. Primary Only]
           *Scripture Medley (Scripture Power/Hand In Hand)
                         [Small Group Only]


*NOTE: Songs our primary kids already know!


I am not teaching the songs in the same order as in the Outline.  I try to teach the more difficult songs the first 6 months of the year.  So many families are gone for the entire summer that learning songs those months is pointless.  Why work twice as hard when you can plan ahead & make your life a bit easier:)  My motto:  "Planning allows you to be lazy".  We have always held our program at the end of October.  So by September, I'm already working on brushing up the program songs during Singing Times.  There's no time to LEARN a new song by then.

Also, don't forget that you always need to add holiday songs for Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, & Pioneer Day.  I included those holiday songs with the monthly song list.  That way I can plan my Singing Times accordingly.

What songs are your Primary kids doing this year?  Please share!

As a Child of God

Happy New Year!

On to a new year of primary program songs!  This month's song is "As a Child of God" by Janice Kapp Perry.  It's in the outline on page 28.  It's a simple song for many reasons:  

1- it's short.  (Compared to last years' January song anyway.)  

2- The chorus is just over half of the length of the song.  

3- The 3 verses are short.  

4- The melody flows beautifully.

I'm sure there's more reasons that can be listed, but I'll stop there.  

I don't know about your primary, but every first Sunday of the year for ours is a bit chaotic.  Everyone is meeting their new teacher & finding their new classrooms.  New Sunbeams become traumatized at the realization that Nursery no longer is their classroom and strive to be brave.  Naturally, Singing & Sharing Time tend to be a bit shorter.  There are 5 Sundays this month, so that will help in planning how to teach this song.  But for tomorrow, my plan is just to introduce the first verse & chorus to them.  I have made a flip chart for all 3 verses & chorus and have posted it on my scribd account for you.  

"As a child of God

I have also made the chorus pictures onto Vellum Paper (Walmart, who knew?) in the 4x6 picture size.  I put them into a simple 3 frame collage frame I bought for $3 at Walmart.  I cut the entire backing of the frame off & taped each vellum picture to the glass (which doesn't come out anyway).

I receive special light: The Holy Ghost

For the "I receive special light:" portion, I downloaded a kaleidoscope image & printed it onto the Vellum Paper as well.  I didn't do this image as part of the flip chart, though.  Just for this project.  The can of finish you see is simply to hold up the frame while I shine the flashlight & take pictures:)

helps me to know what is right." 

Once the 3 Vellum pictures are in the frame, I'll shine a flashlight from behind each picture as I sing (Christ & child, special light, baptism) the chorus.  I will place verse 1  of my flip chart on the board.  I'll shine the flashlight on them as I sing, then move it to shine from behind the framed chorus Vellum pictures I'll have in my other hand. 

Simple enough, huh?  But you can just use the flip chart pages for the chorus, too and still use the flashlight to shine on each picture as you sing.  Have the kids take turns with the flashlight as they sing.  I think they'll like it!