Monday, July 28, 2014

Silent Singer

Hello everyone! How was your singing time yesterday? I hope all had an AWESOME day! I wanted to share a cute review game that  I tried out with the kiddo's and they absolutely LOVED it! I can not take credit for this. I saw it posted on the Facebook Chorister group and it is a wonderful singing time activity! Thank you "shout out" for whoever posted this idea! It is AWESOME!

You can use this for single song repetition or I used it to review all the songs for the program. To start out you pick a teacher to choose a child to be the 'silent singer." You are the first guesser so you will turn your back to the kids so the teacher can pick who's "it" first. Once someone has been picked you turn around. The children will then start singing the chosen song. The "silent singer" will lip sync the words but not actually sing. After the kids finish singing you have to try and guess who the silent singer was. Play then continues with the last "silent singer" coming up and being the next guesser and the last guesser will tap on someone to be the next "silent singer." I did let the guesser walk around while the children were singing so that they could hear better. I know it sounds so simple, right? It is!! This is perfect for one of those crazy weekends when you need something low prep. Its fun, simple and the kiddo's LOVED it! I just wanted to share!

This week I am hoping to post my S.E.E.K game idea for teaching "I'll Seek  the Lord Early." I'm still working on the idea for that one. I will also be posting my 1,2,3 Blast off Passport idea to use as a measure on our program songs. We're going to send those "puppies" to the moon before the program.  Please check back in on those later this week. Thank you for stopping by and Happy Singing!

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

S'more Singing

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!! I am so excited to share the last of my Summer Singing Series with all of you. I can't believe summer is almost over and the kiddo's will be heading back to school in the next couple of weeks!!
It has been a crazy one for me, I must say. We have been gone quite a bit!!! Thank heavens for my AWESOME co-chorister for covering my behind and keeping everything on track!!! Shout out Miss Julia!! YOUR AWESOME!!!

This Sunday I will be doing the last of my Summer Singing Vacation Series!! It will be a GREAT review for all songs up to this point. We will be starting "Seek the Lord Early" in August and then it will be review, review, review!!! This weeks activity will be my S'more Singing Review!!

I will be making a fake fire similar to this one I found Here. I will arrange the children around the fire in their chairs and we will be singing around the fire. The Children will take a turn coming up and drawing the song and camp game that we will use to review with the song. The games I have chosen to use are: Singing Circle, Mush mouth & winking bandit. I will be using all three on Sunday. I will also be putting a fun "spin" on the Singing chicken pox game I have seen around but mine will be "Mosquito Bites" and trust me,  you don't want to get bit!!!  I have explained how I will do each game below. Please feel free to let me know if you need further explanation.

  Singing Circle: A child will come up and pick a song out of the bucket. If they pick this game then play starts with them. For this one the children will not sing the song until the end of the game. The child that drew the song starts by saying the first word of the song, the next child says the first word and second word of the song, this continues with each child adding on a new word on their turn. If someone messes up then play starts over with them until they can make it through the whole song. Once they have made it and said all the words then they will sing the song and move on to the next song and game. 

Mush Mouth: The children have to sing the song with a large Marshmallow in their mouth!! I have read somewhere that there is a choking hazard with marshmallows so I may do this one with little marshmallows or just pretend they have a large marshmallow in their mouth!! Haven't decided!!

Winking Bandit: Last of all is the Winking Bandit game. If a child picks this one they are it!! They hide their eyes while I tap on someones shoulder. This child will be the winking bandit!! While we are singing the chosen song, the bandit will wink at someone. If you are winked at then you stop singing. The person in the middle has to try and guess who the bandit is before the song is over. If they guess who it is then we finish singing and the Bandit is now IT and stands in the middle to try and guess the next winking bandit. I considered just using this game through all of singing time because I think the kiddo's will really like this one!! Definitely one you can use by itself for a review.

Mosquito Bite: This one will be ongoing throughout singing time and will be used to keep the kiddo's on track. If a kiddo is not singing or is misbehaving, they will get a "mosquito bite" Like these Here. At the end of singing time if you are a child with a bite then you have to get in the back of the line when picking a treat out of the treat basket. I will be making up cute bags that will include a graham cracker, small Hershey and a large marshmallow and attaching a S'more Singing tag!!!

This will wrap it up for my Summer Singing series!!! I hope you all had a WONDERFUL summer vacation!!! Happy Singing!!

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

"BOOM" Singing Time Review

Wow, this has been a crazy summer and I am so off schedule!! It seems like just yesterday I promised to post this game and now it is 2 weeks later, UGH!!! Where does the time go? I played this one as a 4th of July activity but it can be used anytime for a review. The kiddo's seemed to enjoy it and it mixes things up a bit!

This is an easy one to put together. To get started you will need:


2 soup cans with labels removed, 2 different colors of construction paper, Mod Podge & 2 copies of the word BOOM: Just click, save and print mine posted above. You will also need to put together some cards with your review ideas on the back. You can click, save and print the bombs I used here:
To prepare, you will Mod Podge a different color construction paper on each can. I did one blue and one red. These will be your teams. Red and Blue or whatever colors you choose to use.
You will have to let this dry before adding the word Boom to each can. This will take about 30 minutes. As this is drying you can cut out your Bomb cards and start writing what you want the kids to do for review on the back. Sing a song, answer a question about a song, fill in the blank, etc. You will need to add in 4-5 cards that just say BOOM as well.





 Once your cans are dry you will then Mod Podge the word BOOM onto each can.
Once this is dry, you are done and ready to PLAY!!!


  


To play: Split your kiddo's into 2 teams. I had a blue team and a red team. Once your teams are established you will decide which team goes first, ( you can pick a number, have a sing off, etc)  Once this is decided you have a child come up from your starting team. They will pick a card from the pile. Their team will then have to do what the card states on the back to win the card. (sing, answer a question, fill in the blank, etc.) If the team does well then they win the card and it goes in their color can. If the children get too loud then their team can loose cards, so let them know this rule before the game begins. If a team picks a BOOM card, all of the cards they have earned go back into the pile and they have to start over.

The object of the game is to be the team with the most cards at the end of singing time!! To finish this one off with a "BOOM" you can give the kiddo's some "POP ROCKS" that pop like FIREWORKS!!!

HAPPY SINGING EVERYONE!!! Thanks for stopping by!

Please check back in for my Singing Summer Vacation Finale: S'MORE SINGING CAMP!! We will be doing this on Sunday July, 27th.







Saturday, July 5, 2014

Stars and Stripes

Happy Fourth! Well, actually,  it is now the 5th, 2 AM and I am wide awake! Since my brain has decided its not ready for bed, I thought I would try some blogging and see if that might do the trick. I wanted to share a couple of simple singing time activities that would work great for JR primary and celebrating Independence Day! I have another activity for Sr and I will post that one tomorrow when I get a chance to put it together. It is the activity I will use for my kiddo's this week.

These are two very basic games you can use and the little ones will absolutely love them. The first is "Pin the Stripes on the Flag" Everyone knows this party favorite and it is sure to be a delight for the little ones. Just write your songs on the red stripes and have your helper come up to the front. They pick their stripe/song, you place the blindfold, spin, and they pin. You then have the children sing the song with the child that pinned, conducting with a flag:) Short, sweet, SIMPLE!!


This next one is another easy prep game that the little ones would love. I would call this one "Stars and Stripes? For prep on this one you would draw a flag on a posterboard but, what? Where are the stars? Someone stole them? The children must find them before the end of singing time or all is lost for the American Flag. It must have its stars!!
 Hide the stars with the songs on them around the room. I would have stars outlined on the flag so the children can measure their progress after each star/song is found and placed. When it is their turn, a helper will find a star. If everyone sings really well then the star gets placed back on the flag. If they find and place all stars before the end of singing time then they get a small reward. (Starburst would work well for this one) BRIBERY!! Always works!!!

These are two simple and sweet activities that would work well for Jr. I will be doing a game I am going to call "BOOM" with Sr. I will post that one later today after I get the prep put together.

Happy Birthday America and Happy Singing Everyone!!

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Singing Circus Jubilee

Singing Circus Jubilee Review

Today I want to share with you the 1st of my Summer Series! I did this on Sunday and it was a HUGE hit! It was a lot of prep so this isn't an easy activity for those looking for simple. I actually lucked out because this fell on a 5th Sunday so I was given the whole hour. This is one that could definitely be used a couple weeks in a row and the kids will LOVE it!!
 This first one in the series is called the "Singing Circus Jubilee." It is a review activity of all the program songs up to this point. I will do one more in the series in July. It will be the "S'more Singing" camp. Details to come soon on that one. Both are review activities for the kiddo's and a GREAT monitor for me, so I can see where things stand on all the program songs.

To begin, I picked 3 circus/carnival games that I would use for my activity! Bean bag toss, ping pong ball toss, and balloon juggling. Everything you will need is pictured here. I did purchase two plastic red tablecloths at the dollar tree that I hung on the chalkboard and tied back to look like curtains. I'm sorry, I do not have a pic of that but it was very simple to do and was pretty much the only hanging decor that I used.
To begin the activity, each child was given 1 ticket. You can purchase a pack of 250 of these at the Dollar tree. The goal for this activity is for each child to have collected 10 tickets before singing time is over. I did the games so that when a child comes up to play, they are earning tickets for everyone on their turn. If you are short on time, you can make it so they earn a lower number of tickets before the end of singing time. Another thing to consider is having a leader to be in charge of helping hand out earned tickets or on ping pong, kids can loose tickets. So, it helps to have someone walking around and doing this part for you.


For the Bean Bag Toss, I just took an old box and painted it like pictured below. I used a cup to trace my circles. You may want to go a little bigger. This proved to be harder than I thought. I gave each child 3 tries to get it through a hole.
 I did 3 balloons, Red: was worth 1 ticket, If they made it through this one then the kids would sing a song to earn the ticket, the next one was Blue: it was worth 2 tickets. If they made it through this one then they played name that tune. They rolled a dice to see how many notes they would get and if they guessed it then they earned 2 tickets. The last one was Yellow: It was worth 3 tickets. If they could answer a question about one of the songs for the program they got their 3 tickets.

 
Next, I did the Ping Pong Ball Toss. For this one I hot glued clear cups onto a painted piece of cardboard. I added white circles to some of the cups. On the circles there was a song to sing and the number of tickets to win. Some of the circles had TAKE 1 TICKET. If they made it into one of these cups they could steal a ticket from someone. If they made it into a cup without a circle, everyone lost a ticket. Again, I gave the child 3 tries to get the ball into a cup.


 The last game was balloon juggling. I would have a child come up and wear the clown nose and hat if they wanted to. They could choose to juggle one balloon or two while we sang a song. If they could juggle through the song without dropping a balloon, then they would win the amount of tickets, according to the amount of balloons they juggled. So, if they picked one balloon and juggled it while we sang the song, then everyone would get 1 ticket. If they juggled 2 and made it through a whole song without dropping it, then they earned 2 tickets for everyone. 




Cotton Candy
 At the end of singing time, the children cashed in their tickets for a baggie of Cotton Candy. You can find this at the Dollar Tree as well!!!

This was tons of FUN, and the children did an AWESOME job. They didn't even seem to realize that they sang for a whole hour. Please let me know if you have any questions. I know I kind of rambled on. I will be posting my "S'more Singing Campout" review in the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, check back in for more singing review and memorization games. Thank you for stopping by and Happy Singing Everyone!