Valentines & How Firm a Foundation, etc.

Conversational Hearts idea: (this is an adaptation of a super cute idea on Sugardoodle. I just changed a few things here and there to suit my primary. Thanks to the Sugardoodle gals who first posted their ideas!)

Cut out a bunch of simple little hearts from pastel colored paper (quarter sheet per heart if you're cheap and lazy like me). Write a cute little phrase like what is normally on conversational hearts that have to do with a primary song. For instance, "LOVED" could be "Love One Another" or "HUG" could be "Daddy's Homecoming" or something. I also added the song's page number so that life will be easier for my chorister and me.

I like to let junior primary keep whatever I've used in my lesson because they're always asleep at 8:30 (yeah, our church just moved to the early one) and they LOVE to take home stuff.

Tape the hearts with phrases and a number on each of them (the number is actually the page number, but I won’t tell them that). Have everyone check under their chairs for a special Valentine from me. Everyone will get one. I have the same phrases/page numbers on a pile of identical hearts so I can choose one from the pile. If I choose the conversational heart with “I DO” written on it, then the person with that Valentine can help me with that song. First, they can guess what song it is that could possibly have that phrase (or one similar to it) within the song. If they can think of a song other than the one I chose, - and our pianist and chorister both know it - , then we can sing either that song or the one I came up with. If they need a hint figuring out the song, the pianist can play the first few notes in “Name that Tune” fashion. Fun stuff. Good news: I can cheat and place the songs I want to do fo’ sho’ on the top of the pile I choose from so we sing those first! Hurray for “How Firm a Foundation” and “I Lived in Heaven”!

Oh, snap! I forgot that tables don't copy to Blogger. Sorry, fellow choristers, if this doesn't help at all. It is literally the 11th hour and I really don't want to reformat all this!

Page
Phrase
Special
Song
4
Choose Me
Hide the note
I Lived in Heaven
281
Wise Up
X
The Wise Man and the Foolish Man
276
Follow Me
O
Do as I’m Doing
61
Heart
X
Jesus Said Love Everyone
95
Promise
O
I Love to See the Temple
266
Happy
X
If You’re Happy
163
URA Star
O
I Am Like a Star
253
Fun
X
Fun to Do
207
I Do
O
Mother, I Love You
245
Cool
X
Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?
136
Loved You
O
Love One Another
H85
Excellent
Hide the Note
How Firm a Foundation
5
Loves Me
X
I Know My Father Lives
208
I Love You
O
The Dearest Names
177
Teach Me
X
Teach Me to Walk in the Light
156
Shhh!
O
The Chapel Doors
103
The Best
Word King
When I am Baptized
210
Big Kiss
Word King
Daddy’s Homecoming
188
4 Ever
Hide the Note
Families Can be Together Forever
198
Help Me
X
When We’re Helping
20
Hug Me
O
Grandmother
198
Love
X
A Happy Family
267
Smiles
O
Smiles (If You Chance to Meet a Frown)

Another Conversational Heart idea that might work better:
Put little crowns on some (word king), X’s on some (tic-tac-toe), O’s on some (tic-tac-toe), notes on some (hide the note), etc. We’ll see. That might not work.

Other cute ideas I may use tomorrow:

Sugardoodle had this cute idea. Senior will love it:
I did this a few weeks ago. Both junior and senior primary enjoyed it. I wrote a song on the board. We sang one verse. They had to think of a song using one of the title words. I wrote down that song. We sang it. As long as you keep it very verbal for pre-readers in junior primary, it works. (Found this on Sugardoodle.)

XOXO Tic-Tac-Toe idea:
Do tic-tac-toe and have the “X” or “kiss” team, and the “O” or “hug” team. Have each team come up with a song that talks about love, then after we sing it, they get to put an X or O on the board. This is my back-up’s back-up idea. I always have multiple back up plans. Nothing ever goes as expected.

How Firm a Foundation explanation

Okay, here's what I did with the quick idea I threw up on the blog the other day:

Junior: I brought "Pete the Repeat Parakeet" and we would put up one row of bricks at a time, then repeat in our best parakeet voices, then sing it. When we got bored, wiggly, confused, etc. we threw in an additional song too. To teach about what a foundation was, we sang "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man". To teach about "laid" (like a Mason lays a brick), we sang "Once there Was a Snowman" and ended up laying on the floor. We also sang "excellent word" several times because I told them it was cool that we got to stretch "excellent" over so many notes. Actually it was because they were already getting lost in the song and all the bricks. We didn't make it past that row of bricks, we were too out of it to keep going. When we needed a break, we also sang the first verse of "I Lived in Heaven", which they actually knew much better than I thought they would. Also, we sang a couple favorite wiggle songs to break up HFAF as well.

Senior: I laid the brick as if I were a Mason (and we talked a bit about foundations, sang "Wise Man & Foolish Man", talked about how my dad was a Mason when he was young and what I knew about Masonry - not much). As I laid a brick, they read out loud the word so we would have something to do while I put up all the words. Then we sang it one time through. Then I started passing around my bag full of the cards/category questions, etc. around the room. (I made them raise their right hand and vow not to hold it for longer than 2 seconds since a few kids like to be naughty). When the music stopped, they pull out a card and we do what it says.

I'll post about word king and hide the note later, but I'm late to work for now. Sugardoodle or Primusic should have those two games defined...

How Firm a Foundation

Special thanks to Arizona Girl for the awesome brick idea, I loved it and borrowed it. I think I'll use some hard core magnets to keep them on the white board. We're going to build our house up, then I'll toss a paper roof on top once our foundation is laid.

Also thanks to the idea on Primusic (the Yahoo group) (at least I think that's where I read the idea), which tossed out the idea of using Uno Attack to spit out cards to primary kids to get them all involved. I don't have Uno Attack, but I started making cards as if I was going to go buy it. Now that I think about it, I won't since we rarely even use our regular Uno game. So, I'm going to use the following cards as a game once we learn the first verse.

As you can see, I had some trivia cards (thanks to the Primusic group for the first few trivia questions - they came up with those), some "take away" cards (which comes from Arizona Girl's idea of turning around the bricks as the kids learn the words), some "Mix it up" cards, word king, hide-the-note, "music moment" (the repeat signs were another idea by Arizona girl & I thought today would be a good day to teach about those. Also can use the music leading instruction I taught last month for this category), and vocab/spelling (the vocab questions will hopefully help clarify some harder words that have multiple meanings).

1. Trivia: what kind of foundation should we have?
2. Trivia: What sentence is repeated 3 times?
3. trivia: How will Heavenly Father give us aid? (name 1 unnamed of the 3 promises)
4. trivia: how will Heavenly Father give us aid? (name 1 unnamed of the 3 promises)
5. trivia: how will heavenly father give us aid? (name 1 unnamed of 3 promises)
1. Take away 1 word
2. take away 2 words
3. take away 3 words
4. take away 4 words
5. take away 5 words
1. Mix it up!!! Mix up one line and you put it back together while we sing through it.
2. Mix it up!!! Mix up one line and you put it back together while we sing through it.
3. Mix it up!!! Mix up one line and you put it back together while we sing through it.
4. Mix it up!!! Mix up one line and you put it back together while we sing through it.
5. Mix it up!!! Mix up one line and you put it back together while we sing through it.
1. Word King
2. Word King
3. Word King
4. Word King
5. Word King
1. Hide the Note
2. Hide the Note
3. Hide the Note
4. Hide the Note
5. Hide the Note
1. Music moment: draw a repeat sign for me.
2. music moment: guess how many beats per measure?
3. music moment: Show me how to conduct one measure. I’ll draw it on the board.
4. Music moment: you or your teacher gets to lead us in singing the song one time!
5. Music moment: Let’s work on our crescendo and decrescendo. Start every other line <>
1. Vocab time: Define “refuge” as used in this song
2. Vocab time: define “laid” as used in this song
3. vocab time: define what “His excellent word” might be, as used in this song.
4. Spelling time: can you spell the fourth row, 2nd brick word correctly (not like sis. Carp spelled it)
5. Spelling time: can you spell the word used twice with a black background and a yellow number on it (the real way, as used in the song)

6. Vocab time: define "fled" as used in this song

Whew.

There's my general lesson plan. I'll refine and rerefine about a thousand times before tomorrow, but I thought I'd toss it up real quick with the general idea.

I Lived in Heaven: week 2

Junior Primary:
Got a call from the presidency member who’s in charge of sharing time tomorrow and she’d like to combine both sharing and singing this week, as we’re supposed to be doing. Hopefully singing and sharing time will be all together the whole time, so I won’t have to do much singing time by itself. During sharing time, we are to sing “I Will Follow God’s Plan” (164) and “I Lived in Heaven” (4). Also, we’re to sing a missionary song (“I Hope They Call Me on a Mission” 169), a family song (“Families Can be Together Forever” 188 or “Love is Spoken Here” 190), and a service song (“Called to Serve” 174). I’ll be getting a cheat sheet for “IWFGP” since I don’t know how well we know it. (Thanks, Jolly Jenn: http://www.jollyjenn.com/IWillFollow.pdf)
If we do have additional singing time, we can continue with verse 2 since junior sort of went over it, though I doubt they will remember any of it. We did the “play” last week, but I thought we could sing the verse a few times with some games and then do the play again, but ask the questions to the group every now and then and see if they know the next line.
Activities to review verse 2:
Pass out one line to each class and have them learn their line really well. Then hopefully each class can sing their line by themselves at least one time through. Maybe we’ll have one class stand up in front and the rest of the groups will sing all the other lines except the class’s line. So if class 6 has the line about “There was another who sought for the honor divine,” we’ll sing the first, second, and fourth lines around it while that class only sings the third.
As we sing through the verse each time and pass off the line that the class is to sing, I’ll let them place a note on a musical staff (only one measure) I’ll draw on the board. If we can get all four lines, we can have a whole measure of music for our pianist to play! Our awesome composition ought to be very interesting…

Senior Primary:
We’ll just work on memorizing verse 2 and then start on 3 if we have lots of time. So, we can use the “skit” from last week since we only got to do the first verse. We can also do the blue/black back-n-forth game with the word strips from the “skit” thing. If that’s not fun, we can try out the notes/measure activity.
Also wanted to review 6/8 time… that’s a fun one. I thought I’d have the kids listen as Sis. Lofgren plays the song (I Lived in Heaven #4) through and I’d ask how many beats they can hear in each measure. (We might want to do this after the measure/note game above so they can see what a measure is and stuff. Unfortunately, I just did two quarter notes, a half note, and a whole note, so the board’s measure will be 6/4 time instead – that’s hard to explain, so I might just skip it, I’m not sure what I’ll do.) Anyway, I’m sure someone will hear that there’s 6 beats per measure, then we can try to learn a bit about conducting 6/8 time, then some helpers who’re interested can do the leading so I can have a break every once in a while. Whew, a break sounds nice.

Resolution Tic-Tac-Toe

I called in sick last week to primary, as everyone at work decided to pass around some sort of stomach flu or something. However, I had a lesson ready to go. Sharing time went over, so they didn't need to use it, but it's still a fairly simple idea and I LOVE simple ideas after years of primary chorister-ing!

Chop up a bunch of X's and a bunch of O's and number 9 squares 1 through 9. Behind the squares goes the different page numbers to songs and one little phrase from that song that could be really great goals (or resolutions) for the new year. I wanted to do a "top ten" songs chosen by the primary kids for the year, but basically the kids just choose whatever we sang last week when I ask them their favorites, so I just wrote down several they chose from the snow ball day a few weeks ago. Here was our songs and phrases that could pass as resolutions:

1. A Child's Prayer, p. 12: "In prayer, I'm coming now to thee"
2. Sunbeam p. 60: "Shine for Him each day" or "...try to please Him"
3. Once There Was a Sonwman, p. 249: stand "tall, tall, tall"
4. Book of Mormon Stories, p. 118: "We must brother's be..."
5. My Hands, p. 273: "Just see how quet they can be"
6. I Am a Child of God, p. 2: "Learn to do His will"
7. Armies of Helaman, p. 172: "...we understand, that we must do as the Lord commands"
8. Scripture Power: "...I'm changing what I'll be..."
9. Your teacher's favorite song

When X or O chooses a number, then I read off the "resolution phrase" and if they can figure out the song they get to place their X or O in the square. If not, we move on or whatever. When they guess the right one, we sing it and then hopefully talk about the resolution/goal and how to achieve that goal of being a little bit better. Fun stuff.

I don't know if it works well, but thought I'd put it on the blog for those of us who occasionally wait until the eleventh hour to plan a lesson! Shoot, it's still the first month of the year, it's not too late to make 2009 resolutions... I am the queen of celebrating holidays/etc. after the actual holiday!

I Lived in Heaven

CS 4

Contributors to ePrimary had the cutest ideas, and I will borrow big time from this one:
http://www.eprimary.dk/index_uk.htm

This gal wrote up a little skit of sorts that asks all the questions answered in the song "I Lived in Heaven". I'm sure the kids know much of this song, but really listening to the words is probably a good idea since we don't always hear what we're singing if we sung it a thousand times! Each class that sings/is reverent will be chosen and their teachers will play "ME" and "Friend" in the little play. I think it'll be cute.

Then, as the questions are answered, I'll tape the word strips up on the whiteboard. I have them colored 2 colors, just alternating so that we can play games where we mix it up after we sing it a few times. I'll probably have the west half of the room sing the blue lines and the eastern half sing black or whatev. We'll take "intermission" breaks after each verse answered in the skit so then more teachers can act and we can sing it a couple times in between each third of the play. I'll probably stretch it out over 2 weeks unless I have a ton of time. We'll see.

Here's her (Jenny on ePrimary) cute skit thing:

ME
Did you know that " I lived in heaven" ?
Friend
You did? When?
ME
"A long time ago"
Friend
No way......really?
ME
"It is true" (I shared that this statement would be a bold one, not said with a soft tone but a firm conviction)
Friend
What did you do there?
ME
"Lived there and loved there "
Friend
With who?
ME
"With people I know, so did you!"
Friend
What happened there?
ME
Then Heavenly Father presented a beautiful plan
Friend
What about?
ME
All about earth
Friend
Anything else?
ME
and eternal salvation for man.
Friend
How could we live with God forever again?
ME
Father said he needed someone who had enough love
Friend
To do what?
ME
To give his life
Friend
Why?
ME
so we all could return there above
Friend
What a great blessing!
ME
There was another
Friend
Who? Satan?
ME
who sought for the honor divine
Friend
Oh no! What happened?
ME (nod head yes)
Jesus said, "Father, send me, and the glory be thine."
Friend
Was Jesus chosen?
ME
Jesus was chosen
Friend
Then what did he do?
ME
As the Messiah he came
Friend
What does a Messiah do?
ME
Conquering evil and death,
Friend
Wow! How did he do that?
ME
Through his glorious name
Friend
What did His sacrifice do for us?
ME
Giving us hope
Friend
Hope for what?
ME
of a wonderful life yet to be
Friend
What life is that?
ME
Home in that heaven
Friend
Is anyone we know in heaven?
ME
where Father is waiting for me.
Friend
Wow! I hope to return there someday too!

Stuffing Stockings

Thought this was super cute, we'll try it tomorrow.

Thank you, Sugardoodle:

http://www.sugardoodle.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1811&Itemid=405

Have a stocking filled with little tiny presents and a tag attached stating a gift that Heavenly Father and Jesus have given to us. Also have a white stocking for Jesus and when a child drew out a gift, they in turn had to write on a piece of paper something they could give Jesus for Christmas and try to do throughout the year, then they put it in the white stocking. Then the child that drew out the tiny gift, hid it and we did the hot and cold game while singing a song. Keep all the slips from that year still in Jesus' stocking and take them out the next year and see how the children did over the last year. Also passed slips out to all of them so the stocking is full of gifts for Jesus from the whole Primary.