During yesterday's singing time I wanted to review our songs from January and February, while having some fun songs and activities thrown in. I used
this idea from Crazy Chorister, altered a little to suit my purposes.
I put each item in a paper lunch sack and lined them up on the chalkboard tray. These are the items I used, and the songs that went with them:
Small Slinky (I Know that My Savior Loves Me): When the child pulls it out (louder but not too loud). When it is pushed together we go soft.Small Stuffed animal monkey (The Fourth Article of Faith): Sing the song in Oohs and Aahs. When the child held the monkey heads up we sang oohs. When the child flipped it bottoms-up, we sang aahs. They LOVED this - both jr and sr primary! (This helps them memorize the beat and melody of the music without the distraction of words. I always give a gentle reminder when we do something like this to take it easy and not change so fast that we lose the beauty of the song)
An Apple (He Sent His Son): Have the teachers sing the questions and then the children sing the answers.
Small Toy Mallet (The Third Article of Faith): Have them “hammer” the beat with their fists on their palms (not hard) and do this while singing Staccato.
Paper Streamer (The First Article of Faith - jr primary): Have the child lead the music by waving the streamer to the time of the music
Glass Stone (Give said the Little Stream): Starting from a sitting position, tell the kids to stand up and sit down, evertime they hear the word “Give”.
The next time, stand up and sit down on the word “Give”, but also clap on any word that starts with the letter “S”.
The third time through, stand up and sit down on every word that begins with “G” and clap on the words that begin with “S”.
Cookie Cutter Letters (To Think About Jesus): Have the child pick a letter. Skip whatever words in the song start with that letter. This was perfectly challenging for sr. primary. I didn't do this with jr.
A Quarter (The First Article of Faith - sr primary): Heads boys sing, Tails girls sing (have the child who came up flip it)
Eye Patch (The Books in the Book of Mormon): sing pirate style. (This got way too rowdy for my primary. I won't do it again.)
If I use my chimes, I will pass out 1 chime per child, and continue to sing the song as many times as it takes for every child to get a chance to play a chime. We will only play a chime on the note that goes with a key word of the song (belong, know, follow, etc.). That would give us 6 chimes, and allow us to repeat the song 3 or 4 times.
I took this hat image from Primary Singing Ideas. I like her idea of having a child wear a word from the song, without knowing what it is, then having the children omit that word while singing. The child with the hat then guesses what word was left out. The Silly Singing Lady describes it better here.
We will also be reviewing the Articles of Faith songs that we have learned so far this year. I made a concentration game with the key words. When the children make a match, we will sing that song.
