Turkey, Turkey, who has the Turkey

 Happy Thursday everyone!! Wow, can you believe how fast this month is going. How can it already be the 20th. Christmas will be here before you know it and I am just not ready at all! Where has the year gone! I find myself reflecting on life this past week and how fast it seems to fly these days. I look around when I go into stores, on the internet, and everywhere and Thanksgiving has just disappeared before our very eyes. Time is flying and people are just jumping right along with it. I'm sorry but I can't keep up with the craziness of these times. I have to slow down. Things are getting crazy in this world around us. Traditions are going away, the importance of the family unit. I just can't accept this. Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful for all of the blessings our father has given us, a time to slow down, take a breath and reflect on our lives and where we are going. If the world stops being grateful and forgets whats truly important, then we are all in trouble!!

I am grateful to my HF for all of the blessings in my life. For my beautiful family and for this gospel and the peace that it brings each and everyday! I am grateful for my Wonderful husband, who loves me and puts up with my craziness always, he goes to work and provides for his family so that I can stay home and take care of the needs that are there. I am grateful for my home for the food on my table each and every day/night. I am grateful that my children are all healthy, that we are all healthy. I am grateful to be able to pay my bills and help others in need. I am grateful for the beautiful world in which we live. I am grateful for all of my friends that love and support me always, I am grateful for the scriptures that guide me through my life, I am grateful for my calling, for music and the spirit that it brings......

That is my two cents for the week. Its so hard sometimes to live in this craziness and remember to slow down. To reflect and remember why we are here and whats really important!  I just wanted to take some time to share my thoughts with all of you before I share my ideas for the week. Thanks for letting me share:)

Ok, this has nothing to do with the game at all but I thought it was cute and FUNNY!!

I have a couple of cute ideas I found online this week. The first one I will be using in Jr. singing time. It is one you will all know and I took the idea from this AWESOME blog I found here. 
I thought this could be turned into a cute singing time and she has really adorable print outs you can download and use. Once on the site, you can scroll down until you come to the game, Turkey, Turkey, who has the Turkey. She also has cute print outs for Pin the waddle on the Turkey, you could adjust and use that one as well by just putting your songs on the waddles. I know my Jr kiddo's would love it.
 For the other game on her site I thought you could just have the kiddo's sit in a circle while someone is it and stands in the middle. While the kiddo's sing a song they pass the Turkey token around the circle while the child in the middle keeps their eyes closed. When the song ends, whoever has the token holds it really still and keeps it hidden. The person who is it in the middle then opens their eyes and tries to guess who has the Turkey. If they are right then they trade places with the child holding the token, if they are not right then they go one more time singing the same song. You can either use this to review one song or if you look on the blog she has leaves you could also print out and put your different songs on for your song choices.

This next one would be GREAT for Sr.  I did a similar activity for Mothers Day and the kids loved it so I know this one would be a big hit!! This one is called Roll A Turkey.

To start, I will split the kiddo's into two teams. I will print out and post the pic above as a reference.  I will actually cut out all body parts so that I can label each one with a different song.

As a team comes up on their turn they will roll. If they roll a one then they will grab their face part and sing the song on the back in order to earn the body part. Turn will then go to the next team. They will continue play to see which team can get their turkey built the fastest. (They have to sing well and participate to earn the part. Remember parts can be taken away if they aren't being reverent as well.)
Keep in mind, if they roll a one and have already rolled that on a previous turn then play automatically goes to the next team. I will be narrowing the feathers down to 4 and hoping we can make it through in our 20 short minutes.

I hope this makes sense. Please feel free to comment with any questions you may have and I will get back to you as soon as possible. 

Thank you  for stopping by and taking a peek!  I hope that this helps anyone that might be in need this week. I am so GRATEFUL for all of you and your sweet words of encouragement! Happy Singing Everyone and HAVE an AWESOME THANKSGIVING!!!

Gratitude Charades/Turkey Hunt

Happy Thursday, yah, that's not right is it? Oh my, it is FRIDAY and my brain is still a day behind... LOL, sometimes we just have to laugh at ourselves, or maybe I'm the only one that does that. It seems to be getting more frequent these days. I am TOTALLY loosing it...

I have been having a few sleepless nights this past week and my mind has been whirling with idea's for singing time. I thought I would post a couple today and then save a couple for next week.

This first one would be good for Sr. Singing time. Its way simple, no prep! Woo Hooo, we all like those days, right? This one is just your basic charades but with a Gratitude twist to it.

For starters, you will have the kiddo's write a primary song that they are grateful for on a small slip of paper. You will then collect those in a cute basket and then the game begins.

You will pick a child to come up, draw a gratitude song out of your basket, and try to do actions so the kiddo's can guess the song. You can bring a basket of simple props they can use if needed and they can choose one helper from the group to help them out. Once the song is guessed then they sing it.

I don't know about you but my kiddo's like a challenge so I am going to put a spin on this and say they have to guess and sing at least 6 songs before the end of singing time. I will probably give a small reward at the end if they can make the challenge. (a hershey kiss, starburst, etc)

Click, Save and Print

This next one is PERFECT for Jr. singing time and very low prep as well:)  We will be having a Turkey Hunt. Turkey Lurkey and his fellow, feathered friends have all escaped and the dinner crowd will soon arrive. You must find them before it is tooo late.

For this one, I will hide 7 Turkeys around the room before the kiddo's come in. Each Turkey will have a song and page number on the back. For props I will use a large foil baking pan, a chefs hat and a large spoon.

To begin, I will tell the kiddo's that it is almost time for our HUGE Thanksgiving feast and our Turkey's have all escaped. They have to help me find them before the end of singing time.

I will then choose one helper at a time to find a Turkey. Once a Turkey is found we will place it in the foil pan and then sing the song on the back while another helper puts on the Chef's hat and directs the music with the BIG spoon!!

I think this is one they are going to LOVE and it's so, so,  SIMPLE!!!! I LOVE Jr singing time. They are so cute and EASY to please.

I hope this is helpful to anyone in need. Thank you so much for stopping by and Happy Singing Everyone!!!

Turkey Races/Mayflower Races

Happy Wednesday!!! I  have a couple of cute Thanksgiving Singing Time activities to share today. We won't be having meetings this week due to Temple dedication but I wanted to get these posted before time gets away from me. It seems with school activities, church activities and just plain simple life, I live in a whirlwind of craziness anymore. I am sure most of you can relate!!

Anyhow, I wanted to share these before it gets too late in the week. This first one (Mayflower Races)  would be fun for either Jr. or Sr. The prep is really, pretty simple. The hardest part is putting together your Mayflower paper boats, and even those are simple with the You Tube video I found today. You can find it on this site HERE

I would probably make about 12 of these for this activity. Here is the pic of the 2 I put together today. You can make these different colors and sizes if you prefer.

For this activity, you will want to make about 12 boats and put different page numbers on the flag. You can see that I did this in the pic above.

To start out, you will call up two children to race. They will each go to the dock and pick a boat and a straw. You will then have them put their boat down on the table to get ready to race.

At go, they will blow their Mayflower boat with their straw, whichever boat crosses the finish line first is your winner and song to be sung.

I will then put the loosing boat aside and if there is extra time you can race the loosing boats against each other at the end!!

This next activity can be used in a few different ways. I started teaching "Could I Hold the Baby" for our Christmas program on the 14th, so I will be using this as a motivator for my kiddos. This one is "Turkey Racing" and can be used for Jr. or Sr. primary.

To start out I made this board here:

I will have the Jr. primary race against me to see who can get to the finish line first. To do this, they just have to sing well and participate and they will get to roll a dice and move their turkey along throughout singing time.  If they get to where they are not being reverent and not participating, then I get to roll and move my turkey along. The turkey who makes it the farthest is the fastest at the end and wins the race. (they love this stuff and totally win every time)
For Sr, I will have the boys racing the girls. If the boys do well, then they roll, if the girls do well then they roll. If they get irreverent, then I roll and move them backward.
So simple yet the kids really love it and it keeps them focused and I have full participation the whole time!!! To me, that is music to my ears!! Nothing feels better, than leaving church on a Sunday and knowing the kids LOVED singing time that day!!

I hope this helps anyone in need of some ideas. I have a few more to share and hope to get to those in the next few days. Happy Singing this week!!

Turkey Shoot Motivator

Happy Saturday!!! I have been so slow getting things done lately! We had stake conference last week and it has totally thrown off my schedule! Next week we will be having the Phoenix temple dedication so I will have another week of no primary! Ugh, it's so hard for my brain to get back on track these days. I think I am getting OLD!!!
 Anyhow, I did come up with a few cute ideas for the month. I will be sharing the activity I am using tomorrow as a motivator to actually begin teaching the Christmas song the kiddo''s will be singing in Sacrament meeting on the 14th of December. I really can't believe I am starting Christmas anything at this point but I know it will be here quickly and since we will not be having meetings next week due to the dedication,  I have decided to jump the gun here a bit and get started.

I will be teaching the song "Could I Hold the Baby" off of the LDS.ORG site. It is a beautiful song and I am so excited to teach it. I am going to add some simple actions to help the kids remember the words. I will also be using a flip chart that was shared on the Facebook Chorister site as well.

Ok, so, since it is November, and I totally dislike how the stores have skipped over Thanksgiving and jumped right into Christmas, I now find myself doing the same thing starting our Christmas song already. I have decided for my activity/motivator tomorrow,  I will be adding some Thanksgiving to the mix. A little Christmas, a little Thanksgiving:) I will be having a good ole "Turkey Shoot" to keep the kiddo's motivated while learning a new song this soon after the program.(I don't like doing that to them)

For this Motivator I will be hanging Turkey Tom on one end of the room. This is the one I made:

Inside Tom is a small piece of paper naming a location in the room where a small treat has been hidden. I also made this Arrow.

I hot glued a needle to the tip. This arrow will start on the opposite side of the room from Tom. As the kiddo's sing and participate, the arrow will gradually make its way across the room towards the Turkey. If they are not reverent and not participating, then I will move the arrow back a few inches. The object of course, is to get the arrow all the way to the Turkey and "Shoot, or "POP" him before the end of singing time so that the treat location is revealed.

These are the cute little treats they will then be receiving for their hard work and dedication:TURKEY TOES!!

I have a couple other cute Thanksgiving Ideas I will be sharing later in the week. These ideas will include, a Musical Pie Eating Contest for Sr. and Turkey races for Jr. Please stop by and check these out. I am hoping to have them done and posted by Wednesday or Thursday. Thank you all so much for stopping by. I am so grateful for all of you and for this calling in the church! I LOVE it, Happy Singing Everyone and have a GREAT week!