" I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ" (doors)

Click Here to listen

Happy Tuesday Everyone!! I woke up around 5 AM this morning and my mind immediately turned to my primary music. Every time I have thoughts about how to teach our April song of the month, "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ." I have always turned towards more of a belonging, welcoming kind of feeling. With that came pictures in my head of how we belong to the church and "our door is always open" to everyone, So, I decided I would teach this song using the "open door" concept.

I have mentioned many times how my brain is usually way ahead of the rest of me. I get the ideas but they take some time to put together so it usually takes me awhile (Saturday night at midnight lol) to get everything completed. Since we don't have meetings again until April 12th, I figured mine won't be completed until the 11th, therefore, I put together a cute example poster for all of you to take a peek at if you are interested.

For starters you will need 2 posterboards. The top one should be white, but the background board can be any color you wish to use. You will then need pics to go along with the song. The ones I used are as follows:

I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

This pic of the church will be the center of your board and will either need to be drawn on or printed out in a bigger size to glue on your white posterboard. It is the focus of the whole song so the doors and other pics will be smaller and they will all be centered around the Church picture.

I know who I am

I know Gods plan

I'll follow him in Faith

I believe in the Savoir, Jesus Christ

I'll honor his name

I'll do what is right

I'll Follow his light

His Truth I will proclaim

Click Here
For a file of the pics that I used. You can download and print them from the link if you want to use the same ones.


I will then glue these pics onto my background posterboard. I will cut doors in my white posterboard and center it around the pics that are glued onto my background posterboard. Here is a small example board I made today so I could post pics to give you an idea on how this is supposed to look when finished. Keep in mind I will be using full size posterboard and all the pics.

Each door will open to reveal the next part of the song

This is my idea for presenting this song. It may be a bit confusing. Please feel free to post any questions and I will answer as soon as possible. I will post more pictures as I am putting my final poster together. I am usually way behind so I apologize. I just wanted to be able to get the idea out there for those who may be way more organized than I am... Happy Easter to Everyone!!


I have finally finished my board and will be presenting this tomorrow. Here are the pics I promised 2 weeks ago:)

"Bishop, You've been Egged."

I've been seeing this really cute idea on the internet and was thinking it could totally be turned into a singing time/service for the Bishop!!!I was thinking of doing this with Jr primary on Sunday instead of my Easter presentation but I haven't totally made up my mind on this yet. You can take a peek at the idea Here  
You would have to change the tag a bit but no biggie!!

For this I would hide 12 plastic eggs around the room. Some would have songs to sing, others would have fun actions to do with songs and some others would have fill in the blank on some of the songs for review. This would be your basic Egg hunt with the songs included, but the twist is, if they sing their very best, then they can put a lot of candy in the egg, if they don't sing so well, then only one piece of candy in the egg. At this point they will be so excited about adding lots of candy, that they will focus on singing their very best. After each egg is filled it will be put in a cute Easter Basket with the You've been Egged tag attached!!!

At the end of singing time, you will let them in on a secret, (they are going to egg the bishop!) You will have the Bishop come in and tell him HOW wonderful the children sang today and that because of their AWESOME singing, his eggs were filled to the brim with treats and that he has officially been EGGED by Jr primary. We will then close by singing "Our Bishop" and present him with the basket!!!

I will have one candy filled egg for each child to take home and will thank them for singing their very best today and helping me EGG the bishop!

"A Walk in the life of Christ" Easter Presentation

Ok, so here are the ideas I have put together for Sr. primary on Sunday. I am not sure if I will do the same with Jr primary, though it would be easiest with set up, but, like I said in yesterdays post, EASY is not in my vocabulary. No wonder I am CRaZy....
'This is just a basic outline of my ideas. I kept wanting to do something fun and simple but when I think about the atonement, I just feel that it's important to help the children feel the spirit and understand what our Savior did for us. What better way to do that than through music.

To start out I always like to find a theme. Once I have that, I can start to form ideas around it. The theme I have picked will be, "A Walk in the life of Christ." First thing I want to do to build on this is make a pathway in the primary room with stones. This pathway will go by 7 different displays. Remember, this is a rough draft of all my ideas coming together. Just another example of my brain being much farther ahead than the rest of me:) I will take and post pics when I am all finished.

The plan is for each display to be covered by a "Gold" painted box. As the children come into primary that day I will be handing out 7 scripts for them to read. I will start off by having Child #1 come join me on the pathway by display #1. We will take off the box to show the display. The child will then read their part and we will sing the song that goes along with the display piece. Below are my ideas on the displays, the scripts and the songs.

DISPLAY #1

 SCRIPTURE: LUKE 2: 4-12

SONG: AWAY IN A MANGER PG. 42


DISPLAY #2 VIDEO CLIP Here 

SCRIPTURE: LUKE 2: 40

SONG: JESUS ONCE WAS A LITTLE CHILD PG. 55




 DISPLAY #3

SCRIPTURE: MATTHEW 3: 13-17

SONG: BAPTISM PG 100




 DISPLAY #4

SCRIPTURE: LUKE 5: 3-10

SONG: VIDEO Here 
The Miracle by Shawna Edwards
Sing Along


 DISPLAY #5

SCRIPTURE: MATTHEW 26: 36-46

SONG: GETHSEMENE VIDEO Here



DISPLAY #6

SCRIPTURE: LUKE 23: 33,46

SONG: I STAND ALL AMAZED HYMN 193


 
DISPLAY #7 EMPTY TOMB

SCRIPTURE: MARK 16: 6-7

SONG: HE IS RISEN HYMN 199


This is my outline. I will be putting everything together and typing out the scriptures for each display. I will include a Google drive on those when I am done so you can use them if interested. Thank you for stopping by to take a peek. I hope everyone has an AWESOME Easter!!!

You can click Here 
To get a copy of the Scriptures that I used. I printed them out on card stock and laid them by each display. We would have a quick discussion on the display and then a volunteer would come up and read the scripture that went with the display. My pianist would immediately start playing the into for the song following the scripture and we would begin singing. This made it flow beautifully.


Here are a few pics of my Displays:

I had these footprints all over the walls

These are 5 of my displays. I wish I had put some cute curtains up on the chalkboard to fancy it up a bit but I had run out of time
(Yes, that is an oragami Dove sitting on the Pic of Christ's Baptism:) One little girl called it a dragon, so cute!!

I added a few extra items with pictures to help the children get a better fill for what happened in each situation

He is Risen!!! Nothing fancy, but the kids loved looking in the Tomb and seeing that it was empty

I think we are always so afraid of less participation when we do the more serious activities but this really proved me wrong. The kids were so involved the whole time and the spirit was definitely present in the room!! It was all that I hoped for!

Easter????

Wow, I feel like I have been gone forever! I hope everyone is having a GREAT spring break with their families, I know I did! I have been trying to decide how I want to do singing time on Sunday. It is still Spring Break around here so I'm not sure what kind of turn out I am going to have. I looked back on my post from last year and there are a few cute and simple ideas. I keep telling myself to make it simple and just go with one of the ideas I have already posted. My brain is still on vacation so that would be the easiest thing to do. However, I don't usually make things easy for myself so might not be happening. As I type this I really have no idea what I am going to do but I want to make it special. I want to take the children on a "Walk with Christ" and help them to feel the spirit and have a better understanding of the Atonement in their lives. I will be putting together script, props, and songs for this the rest of the week. Like I have said many times, my brain is usually much farther ahead than the rest of me so we shall see how this ends up. In the end I do have my post from last year and many more fun ideas that I could use so......STAY TUNED for the end result!

PS: I will be posting some other fun Easter activities this week as well so check back daily and I will try and KEEP up.

Happy Singing Everyone!

March Madness "Grudgeball Review"

Happy Wednesday!!  I am a little ahead of myself here but since March Madness is this month I thought I would share a review game that I will be doing with my kiddo's in singing time.  I will be finishing off my last two verses of "Follow the Prophet" this week and then we will play this game to review the 3 songs we have learned up to this point.
This is a game that teachers have used in the classroom and I have re arranged it a bit to use as a singing time review.

To play you will need: A ball and basket, tape to make a line on the floor, cards with questions, ways to sing the songs, fill in the blank, etc. chalk and eraser.

To start out: Break your kiddo's into two teams. Write the team names on the board and put 10 x's on each teams side of the board.  Do a sing off or guess the number to see which team will start first. 

Team 1 will then come up and pick a card out of the pile. If they can do whatever is on the card, (answer a question, fill in the blank or sing the song or verse of one of the 3 songs for review) then they have earned the right to erase one of the other teams x's, they also get the chance to shoot and make a basket. If they make it, then they get to erase 2 x's from the other teams side. If they miss the basket then they still get to erase the 1 x that they earned and play passes to the next team.

If a team can not do what is on the card when it is their turn then the other team gets a chance to "steal." In order to do this, they will have to make a basket first, if they make it and can do what the card instructs, then they get to take an x from the other team. If they miss the basket, then play goes back to normal and no one gets to erase from the other team.

Object: Be the team with the most x's left on your side of the board at the end of singing time!!

If a team looses all of their x's before the end of singing time, then they can earn 5 back by making a basket and doing what is on the next card in the pile. With only 20 mins. I don't think we will have to worry about this happening, but you never know. Sometimes I am given more time.

I hope this makes sense to everyone! I will be gone for two Sundays this month due to Spring Break. I will be trying to post a few more review ideas before I go. Thank you all so much for stopping by! Happy Singing and HAPPY SPRING!!!

Hide, Seek and "Follow the Prophet"

Happy Wednesday Everyone! I have been absent the last couple of weeks and feel like everything is so far behind! I know you all get sick of hearing about my craziness but MAN, it just never seems to stop! I have been struggling with some family issues this last month and it has been pretty tough to get back on my feet! I have had numerous arguments with my HF and he has blessed me with the strength and knowledge that I need to move forward yet once again! I am pretty sure I am getting too old for this stuff and he is going to make it all STOP soon, right?
I would like to be honest here for just a minute and say that my spirit has been very weighed down this past few weeks. So heavy that I haven't even been able to focus on my calling. I have prayed continually for my HF to guide  me and help me be strong and once again he has stood by my side and given me strength. I love this gospel and the truths that we have in our lives. I couldn't imagine it any other way!  Watch HERE HF knows each and every one of us and WE are never alone. He is always there! Always!

With that said, I am excited to be starting "Follow the Prophet" this week with my kiddo's. I will do the same introduction for both Sr/Jr. It will go something like this:

Discussion: HF sent us to earth knowing that things would be hard, but he has always had a plan to help us return home to him once again. Who has HF sent to help Guide us on our journey back home? Who can communicate directly with HF and give us instruction on which way to go to live a happy life? Hint: it rhymes with Mophet! Is that even a word? :)
Once the kiddo's have concluded that the Prophet guides us and if we listen to his instruction we can once again return home to live with our HF, I will play this cute game with them that I thought up at 1AM this morning! It will be called Hide, Seek and Guide. I am hoping it will help the kids learn the song on top of grasping the concept that listening to the Prophet very carefully, can guide us to where we need to be in our lives.

Here are the supplies needed to put this together:

Poster Board for each Prophet, markers if your coloring your own, card stock to print out pics and a blindfold!

Velcro Dots from Wal mart $2.50

 To start play you will display your prophet poster on the white board. I drew Adam by hand but I will just blow up and glue Jonah, Daniel and Monson on the other 3 posters to save me some time. For those brave souls who would like to draw their prophets, you can find some great ideas on this blog Here. 

Adam

 I will display Adam on the board and then we will start the game.

To Play: To start out I will have 3 kiddo's come to the front. One will be hiding this pic that goes with the first words to the song,

Adam was a Prophet, 1st one that we know

  The 2nd child will be blind folded and will be seeking to find the hidden pic and the 3rd child is their guide. He/she will instruct the seeker and lead them to the hidden pic. The blind child will have to listen carefully to the guide to get to their destination, just as we have to listen to the Prophet as he instructs and guides us to our Eternal home.

Once a pic is found, it will be placed on the poster in its position and we will sing the words that go with the picture. I placed the velcro dots on the poster like this:

The first Pic for Adam will go on his shirt. There are velcro dots on the pics too. Like this:

Once the pic is found and placed on the poster, we will sing the part that goes with the pic and then game play will continue with the next 3 children and next phrase and picture to be found. I have posted the pics I used for my Adam poster below.

Adam was a Prophet, first one that we know!

In a Place called Eden, He helped things to grow

I drew my feet for this poster. They are for the phrase "Adam served the Lord by following his ways" and they are displayed like this:

 last pic to be found for Adam is:

WE are his descendants in the Latter Days 

This is what your poster will look like once all pics have been found and displayed:

Here is the Poster I am doing for Jonah: I will just do Adam and Jonah tomorrow, Daniel and Monson next week and review the last two weeks.

Jonah was a prophet, tried to run away

But he later learned to listen and obey

When we really try the Lord won't let us fail

That's what Jonah learned deep down inside the Whale

For the Chorus I will be using Sharla Dance's idea using Maori Sticks. You can find her idea HERE My husband will be making these for me out of PVC pipe. Sharla uses these for the Melody, we will only be using them for the Chorus. Tap, Tap, Clap, Clap. I will have the kids tap twice on their chair and then click the sticks together twice and then keep repeating this beat through out the chorus. This is a very repetetive song and I am hoping this will keep it fun and energetic for the kiddo's! I will post pics and a video of this idea when my sticks are done!!

These are my homemade Maori Sticks. PVC pip 10" long and 3/4 inch round

This is how we will be using them for the Chorus:
Here

This is it folks! If you are interested in using my pics you can find them HERE

Please let me know if you have any questions. This was kind of hard to explain and I feel like it makes no sense at all. Thank you for stopping by and having a peek! Happy Singing Everyone!