Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sundays in Primary

Okay...so I'm thinking I am going to start a new thing on Sundays. I am the primary chorister for my ward (which means I teach the music to the children 12 and under) and I really need a place to remember what I did, if it worked, what I'd like to do next week, etc. And what better place than my blog? This is just for me, but if you feel so inclined, you are more than welcome to read along. And if you ever have suggestions, please feel free to pass them my way. I am always on the look out for a new creative game to play to make singing time fun for the kids.

This month we're learning the song "I Know That My Savior Loves Me". I won't recap exactly what I did earlier in the month -I'll just start with today- but basically I am teaching the sign language of the entire song to the kids. You'd be surprised at how well this helps them remember their words. We worked on the first vs. week one, the chorus week 2, the second vs. week 3, and today was review for the entire song.

Today I brought an apron with 8 pockets filled with ways to sing the song.

  • Monkey- sing 00's and ah's instead of words and listen to the melody.
  • Picture of a hand- sign language only, no singing. (This was tough, they really had to mentally concentrate.)
  • Apple- teachers sing vs, kids sing chorus
  • Bouncy Ball- We passed it from person to person each saying one word of the song. We did this a phrase at a time and then sang it. (Worked really well for sr. primary, but jr primary like passing the ball around and it gave them one more chance to hear the song.)
  • A plastic "wiggly" worm- A wiggle song or two
  • Wild Card - choose your favorite song
  • Coin -heads boys sing, tails girls sing (For jr. the choice was for who sang the 1st vs. and who sang the 2nd.) Who ever wasn't singing had to sign.
  • The Letter I - don't sing any words that mean "yourself" i.e. I, me, my.

I can't say this is my original idea, the "primary pockets aprons" have been around since I was a little girl. This was my first time using it in our ward, and all the kids voted that they liked it and want me to bring it back another time. I would call it a success, even though a couple of the 12 year old boys didn't participate, but they refuse to participate just about every week, so nothing new there. Still thinking of a way to get them to love singing time, but it may never happen.

11 comments:

Jewelle said...

Our chorister did this last week, and the kids loved it. It was new to our primary too. You guys must look at the same website ;) It is interesting that the 12 yr old boys won't participate at all. Ours really get into it, but we have a small primary so if they didn't we wouldn't have anyone singing. I can't wait to read more of what you do. I'll have to pass along some of your successes to our chorister. She is always looking for ideas.

Unknown said...

I was JUST hoping you would post this. Thanks for answering my thoughts before they really got past that point even! I want to make one for our ward. LOVE IT...PS....Do you fb? I am going to send you an email on there so go check it!

Deanna said...

LOVED it!!! And those boys can be stinkers. LOL! I thought it went really well. Sr. Primary absolutely did better with the one-word/bouncy ball idea, but the jr. primary didn't do too bad...I thought it held their attention REALLY well! GO ELENA!

stevie kay said...

I know they're good boys and just acting like normal, 12-year-old males, but as a mother I certainly hope Landon is a bit more respectful when he's that age than they are some Sundays.

Feel free to rub that in when he's a snotty, obnoxious tween that sits in the back row of primary and causes distractions.

stevie kay said...

PS - I thought the apron worked well, and ignore my girls when they whine . . . they whine every Sunday about everything :-)

Mom said...

Our chorister had a wrapped box with a whole bunch of ribbons wrapped around it (curling ribbon). They turned one picture over at a time trying to remember the words. If they did a good job, she clipped one of the ribbons. After they were all clipped, a child opened it. Inside was a bunch of smarties that she gave one to each as they left. Oh man, just as I wrote this I remembered you can't do that. Oh well, ours really enjoyed it. And by the way, if you really do have any 12 yr old boys in there, send them to Priesthood. The eleven yr. olds are bad enough.

Jennie said...

Elena, come to my Primary and be our chorister - PLEASE!! That's all I'll say about that!

Tonya said...

Wow... you do such a great job!

Dawnyel said...

This is how I started out...now I get random strangers stalking my blog for Chorister ideas. (*giggle*) :) You do such a good job!!

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

My girls used to be in our church choir...but they both refused to go back this year. And actually for a few years now, they have both been really ambivalent about going. And it's not about the singing. Or the performing. But it's about the hand motions. They just seemed to think that it was babyish to do them. I wonder if that is the issue with your boys...or if they are just being boys :-) Maybe you could get them to participate by having them help lead??

Unknown said...

Man, I miss this calling! It is soooo fun to come up with ideas and act all crazy! I loved having the 11-year old boys lead the song if they didn't want to sing. I would just nonchalanlty (sp?) walk around the room and grab them by the hand while we were singing and help them lead the song. Yeah, they hated it, but I figure if I'm up there looking weird, then they can see what it feels like!