Stump the Primary

A mix of probably a half-dozen ideas from others, squished together and simplified.

I am a simple gal, after all.  I don't do well with scripts or long, detailed directions for games.  So I glean what I can, adjust for the needs of my Primary, quickly (like a tornado) gather any needed props, and pray, pray, pray that it makes sense to those awesome Primary kids.

{A fun(ny) note from yesterday:  The cute 6-year-old girl giving the opening prayer asked that we would 1) have fun/a great time - at least three times, and 2) that we wouldn't fight, get angry with our teachers, whine, cry, or complain.  ;-)  I tried my best to help them have fun and keep the fighting to a minimum.}

Stump the Primary

I made CARDS with questions on the back about the programs songs.  Our Primary could really use some practice reviewing PLUS I really wanted to start teaching Hum Your Favorite Hymn (and I decided to introduce it in Junior Primary, too).

Then I threw some dress-up type items in a large bag.  Things like:

goofy glasses
a jester's hat
a neck pillow
a lei
a flower hair clip
a tie
a Happy New Year crown
a camo hat
a sombrero
a bandana
a winter scarf

Here's how we played:

Each class had a turn.  The selected teacher would send a child to the front to choose a card (face-down on a table, of course).  I would read the question, and the child could answer.  If he/she couldn't answer it on their own, they could ask their class for help, however teachers were NOT allowed to help.  IF the class could answer correctly, the child could choose something from the bag for me to wear for the rest of Singing Time.  IF I "stumped" them, the child would choose an item for their teacher to wear.

{I give some pretty helpful hints along the way, especially to those Junior Primary kids.}

Then we sang the song.  Simple.  Easy.  But effective.
I ended up wearing only 2 items in Junior, and 4 in Senior.  The kids thought it was hilarious.

We didn't make it through all the classes, though, and I will be out of town next Sunday.  I would like to have the sub continue with the game, but will need to put together a few more questions.  Not to mention our ward is having a special adult meeting the third hour (about the mormon.org campaign... do you have a profile yet?), so the YW will be taking over the Primary.  We may need to continue the game in a couple of weeks.  Either way, the kids enjoyed it, and we got some serious practice PLUS a song introduction in.

Can't beat that with a stick.

Hum Your Favorite Hymn

The first month I was called to be the Primary chorister, I sat down and read through the entire 2011 Outline for Sharing Time.  I am an organizer (you wouldn't guess by my house), and ambitiously felt the need to plot out a tentative schedule for Singing Time through December (I was called in May).  I plugged in Reverence songs, Birthday songs, Baptism songs, the works.  It has turned out to be a huge time-saver for me, and gives me a great starting point each week.  So, I was surprised when I recently read this post, because I had planned to teach the children in my Primary Hum Your Favorite Hymn this month also.  I had scheduled to start it a couple of weeks ago (it's a tentative schedule, remember), but The Lord Gave Me a Temple has been super challenging for our Primary to learn (for whatever reason), and I didn't want to try and throw in another tricky optional-not-on-the-program song.  AND last week was our Ward Conference, so I ended up with only 5 minutes of Singing Time in Sr. Primary anyway.

But Di inspired me.

And the Primary counselor responsible for Sharing Time this month called yesterday and asked if I would like more time this week, since I was cut short last week.  Nice.

I'm going for it.  Probably just with Sr. Primary for now.

I'm loving the flip chart (gotta love those old Mormonads!)... I hope the kids will too (-:

Hum Your Favorite Hymn

BTW - being a newbie at flip charts (and NOT tech-savvy), I do not know how to make a complete flip chart layout that is ready-to-print.  You will most likely need to print each page individually (like I do), and manually flip it over to print on the back IF you decide to use the one I made.  And re-print the chorus pages for the second verse.  My apologies for the inconvenience ;-)

Follow the Prophet - President Monson; Hello/Good-bye

FYI- I am not computer savvy. I'm almost computer-illiterate, in fact.

So I thought I would try and add a flip chart or two today. Let's see how it goes :-)

First, I'll try a link.  Follow the Prophet - President Monson Version.

Now I'll try to display a flip chart.  How about the Hello/Good-bye song?

Hmmm.... let's see here....

Ta-da!
That deserves a big pat on the back.
(You can access the PDF here)

I cut the Hello/Good-bye printouts into squares, glue-sticked (is that a word?) around the sides and top edges, and glued the coordinating phrase of the song front-to-back.  Then I laminated the two together, x-acto knifed a slit in the bottom center, and hot-glued a painted paint-stirrer (free at Home Depot) in the middle, like so:

 (front)

(back)

I did glue a little grosgrain ribbon around the bottom, only to cover my extremely messy glue job.
And I had it on hand.
(hahaha).

I take these nifty signs each week.  We usually have several visitors or new move-ins, and lately have been sending off old friends as they move away, or saying farewell to the kids moving into YM/YW.

Posting and testing, now.  Wish me luck.

"Give," Said the Little Stream

I loved this song as a child, and wanted to share it with the children in my Primary.  I think it's a great "extra" or "fun" song to throw in every now and then.  The bonus with a flip charts is, you can bring it out as a refresher for any song the kids may not sing very often or know as well.

Ya gotta love that.

Here's the link to my humble flip chart:

"Give," Said the Little Stream

Please let me know if you are unable to access the flip chart.  I really don't know what I'm doing.

Sharing Time and Talents

This post is not about Sharing Time.  Or a Sharing Time on Talents.  It's about sharing YOUR time and talents beyond the time you are called as a Primary chorister.  And planning for it.

A few years back I served as the YW President in our ward.  Soon after the call was extended, I met with our Stake YW President for training.  Among the vast amounts of information and guidance given at that meeting was this little tidbit:  Plan now for your release, because it will come.  Magnify your calling, but realize that it is your stewardship only for a season.  I came to understand the wisdom and purpose in that advice, even if the release from that calling wouldn't come for three long and activity-filled years.

I know to SOME Primary chorister lifers, it may seem crazy.  Maybe you are one of the few that have longevity in a particular calling ("I've been in Primary for over 30 years...").  I know people that beg plead demand request to keep a particular calling because they LOVE it.  They are comfortable with it.  They feel it is the best use of their talents.  But, for the most part, I believe that callings aren't always about what we can give, but are frequently about what we can learn, and how we can stretch and grow ourselves.

The calling of Primary Chorister is a hard one for me.  I have to be prepared EVERY week.  Unlike a Primary teacher, I do NOT have a weekly Church-provided-and-approved outline of what specific material to cover, complete with object lessons and attention activities.  I have to appeal to children from age 3 to 12.  I have a LARGE ward.  I was lucky, and was given some very useful visuals and ideas from the past two choristers, however, I was only given visual aids for two of the program songs this year, one of which was missing a few pictures (which I discovered in the midst of Singing Time my first week or so).

With that lengthy introduction, this is what I plan to do to plan for my release
(and help the next Primary chorister out):

Several years back we had a sister in our ward "donate" her personal file collections to the ward.  She had saved Church-related materials for much of her life (I'm a file-hoarder, too, so I can totally relate), and had decided to share her resources with the ward.  At the time, I was serving in Young Women's, and can remember the pile of material she brought for us to keep in our closet at the church.  Some of it was from the 70's.  I went through it, kept what was useful, and threw away that which wasn't.

Fast forward to a few months ago.  I was talking to a Primary presidency member one Sunday after church about needing a small table at the front of the room for Singing Time.  The only small table in the room at the time was in the back, sitting next to the cabinets, used mainly as a place to stash church bags or other sundry items.  Underneath the table were two large plastic file bins.  I asked what they were for, and was told that they were the "donated" files from the sister in our ward, and had been there for several years, unused.  I asked if anyone minded if I take them home, sort through them, keep what was usable, and then reuse the files for Singing Time related materials.  I was given the go-ahead.

I sorted through the files, and threw much of it away (seriously, computers, the internet, and newer Church guidelines have made the need for old, outdated materials, handouts, and hand-drawn clip-art nearly obsolete), which resulted in one completely empty box, and one with only a few files in it.  In an effort to reuse the donated boxes (and all the hanging file folders included with them), I decided that I would make one into a Singing Time file, and give the other one back to the Primary presidency for anything they would like to do with it.  If they end up not needing it, I will continue to fill it with Singing Time materials.  Nice.

All my visuals (flip charts, etc.) will go in the box, which will be given to the next Primary chorister to do with what she/he wishes.  Will I be offended if she doesn't use my stuff?  Goodness, no.  It will no longer be my calling.  But I hope that some may be useful.  If I hold on to it all for years on end, it will most likely be wasted.

Outdated, useless, and old.

After being released, should I be called as Primary chorister again someday, I hope I am given a useful file.  If not, I will be happy to share my time and talents making visuals and learning/attention activities once again.

Best Binding EVER

This may or may not already be out there in bloggerworld, but I haven't seen it, so I'm claiming the idea as my own ingenuity.  (If it's been posted before, I can only say, "Great minds think alike."  Wink, wink.)

This will revolutionize your flip charts.

I have read on several Primary-music-related sites about taking printed and laminated flip charts somewhere to have them bound.  I'm not sure what type of binding is available these days, but I can imagine it might cost a pretty penny after your first dozen flips charts or so.  Not to mention TIME, which happens to be my most valuable commodity.  The office-supply/copy-shop binding I've seen in the past (it's been many years, mind you), was that black plastic spiral-type binding.
I'm not a fan.

So I brainstormed a use-what-you-have solution, and came up with this:

 Packing tape.  Best binding tool ever.

Step 1:  Print and laminate your flip chart.

Step 2:  Start your first strip of tape on the inside of the first page (the title page is on back).  Make your strips slightly longer than the edge you are binding.

Step 3:  Turn the first side over, tape-side-up, and place the next page along the edge, leaving about a 1/8" gap between the laminated edges.  Press firmly.

Step 4:  Fold the second page over, lining it up with the first, and crease the tape at the bottom (there will still be a little sticky edge left).  Carefully trim the outside edges of the overlapping tape off.

Step 5:  Begin the process again, taping along the edge,

then turning it sticky-side-up, carefully placing the next page, folding it back on itself (to it's correct song order), and trimming the edge, until all of your pages have been added (I've bound a flipchart with a dozen pages this way and it still works amazingly well).

Step 6:  To finish the outside binding, use one more piece of packing tape.  Place the tape along one side of the flip chart, then turn it over and carefully fold the sticky side down.  Trim the edges, and voila!
The perfect binding.

Once you get the technique down (there's not much of a learning curve, here), you can bind an entire flip chart in 5 minutes!!  No running to the office store or copy shop.  No big investment needed (you don't even need a tape dispenser).

And the benefits are enormous:

*Your flip chart is completely flat.  It fits perfectly in a file folder and/or your church bag.  You can have 6 flip charts in your church bag and still have room for your scriptures.

(This is my 12 page flip chart -- all three verses.  See how flat it is?  Awesome.)


*Should you mess up while making your binding, that packing tape rips off the lamination without damage.  No problemo.  And should you need to add another verse or change a picture (I had our Bishop's picture on the Fathers flip chart I made, and he was released the next week... I won't be tossing the flip chart OR making another one, just printing a new page for next year - or the next year - and replacing the old page), not only is it doable, it's pretty darn easy.

*Even though replacing a page is easy, once bound with packing tape, your flip charts are amazingly durable AND flexible.  You can flip a page all the way over, if needed.  You can even add a descant page!

Ta-da!  This page is attached, but can be taped up inside the cover should you choose NOT to sing the descant (which may be too tricky for those junior Primary kids).  The top pages can continue to flip:

*The binding possibilities are endless.  Long-side, short-side, edge, bottom, accordion-style...

Try it, you'll like it :-)

UNO Simplified

A good friend of mine, who had recently served as the Primary chorister in her ward, had an UNO board she let me borrow.  She had made it strong and durable, I'm sure in the hopes that she would never need to make another one again.  Her Primary could have played UNO weekly for a year, and it would have stood the test of time.  Lucky me, I totally reaped the benefit of her efforts to make a long-lasting visual.

I checked out other resources (here) to find out how to make the game of UNO work in Primary... most mentioned breaking the Primary into teams, dealing out a given number of cards to each team... and so on.  My Primary is on the LARGE side (65-or-so in junior, 70+ in senior), so I am all for keeping things as simple as possible, lest control be lost to the children.  This is what I did to simplify:

I printed (and laminated... more on my favorite tool another day) the words to the song, keeping each phrase within three lines.  I added pictures for the younger children that can't read yet.

My friend's game board has two sides (wahoo!).  She had applied contact paper over both, so tape works like a charm.  I prepared for both verses of the song today, but we only got through the first verse.

I sorted my UNO cards, pulling out only the 1's, 2's, Wilds, and Skip cards (at least what I think were the Skips cards... we have a different version, called UNO H2O, so I'm not really sure what the cards mean, since I have never played it.  Ever).  And, I'll admit it, I somewhat strategically placed the cards in order in "the pile."

I would choose a helper (from our choosing sticks -- with a Primary as large as ours, I know some kids would get overlooked and NEVER be selected if I didn't use the sticks), and they would come up and draw the top card off the pile.  The Primary would then sing the phrase on the selected color, the number of times shown on the card.  The helper would remain up front to give a thumbs up (or not) if the kids did a good job singing.  (If the helper didn't think it was good enough, we would sing it AGAIN.  Imagine that.)

IF a Skip was selected, the helper would get to remove a line from the phrase on that color before we sang it.

IF a Wild was drawn, the helper got to randomly choose a WILD way of singing (from these fun action cards here), and we would sing the entire song through while in action. Trickier than it sounds, especially if you are also trying to LEAD.

I think it was a success.  Junior Primary is always a little hard to read... occasionally noisy... occasionally inattentive... but feedback from the teachers was positive, so we will continue playing another week.

Senior Primary enjoyed the game (simple as it was), and only got a little wild on the WILDCARD singing.  We will definitely play again next week, but I plan to tame the actions down.

In response to Kelli's question below, this UNO board is made on a 20x30" foam board.  Colored computer paper was cut to 7-1/2" lengths (2 sheets used per line), then glued in place.  This was done on both sides of the board (room for two verses... oh yeah), then clear contact paper covers both sides of the board, making it super easy to tape whatever words or pictures you need.  It will last for-e-ver.

Meet the Fam

The first thing I did after being sustained was to contact the two previous Primary Choristers to collect anything they would give me:

advice
schedules
materials
lists
visual aids

You know, ANYTHING.

They were both perfectly willing to share the few things that they had.  From one I received a poster of a boy with a wide mouth.  She had used it for motivation for the program practice several years earlier.  The kids would get to throw popcorn in his mouth for singing well, and the whole Primary would get a popcorn party after the program.  She said, "I don't know why I've been holding on to him... he's just so cute I hate to throw him away!"

I decided to repurpose him.  And repurpose him.  And repurpose him.

He became Big Words Bobby (primarily for all those big words in the song Praise to the Man),

New Song Blobby,

(The blobs are for covering up words as kids are learning a new song and needing repetition...)

and Big Voice Robby (dressed in his Pioneer Day clothes).

Triplets.
(I probably get more humor out of it than the kids do.)

I have just applied velcro so I can change from one triplet to another, and so I can change his their clothes.  The kids love it.  They love getting selected (I use choosing sticks, to make it fair) to throw a ball (I have a squishy water ball that glows when it gets jostled around... I think from Michaels) into his mouth when they've accomplished whatever the task is:  singing a song to the end, singing without prompts, singing well, etc.

I don't bring one of the boys every week... the kids like them so much, I have kind of used them for a reward.  Something to look forward to.  Some kids ask every week if I brought one or the other, but I have generally only brought him one of them about once a month.

They also love his their little sister Bubble Gum Bessie.  (With the exception of one cute little Sunbeam, who is terrified that the balloon will pop, because the first week I brought her... it did.  I'm working on easing her back into liking Bessie.)

I just copied the Bobby/Blobby/Robby look, and made a little sister, who blows her bubblegum bubble bigger and BIGGER if they are absolutely singing their best.  The only problem is, whoever is helping blow the bubble (teachers in junior Primary, kids in senior -- and yes, I bring a new balloon for each blower!), can't tell how big the bubble is getting.  Thus, the popping problem of the first week.  But it was only a problem for the one little Sunbeam... everyone else loved it, and popping the bubble has now become "the goal."  The next time I brought Bessie, I cautioned those blowing to be careful NOT to pop the balloon.  Like I said, though, it's tricky to tell when you can't see anything from the back -- one almost got it big enough to pop.

I've told the Primary kids they've met the whole family, now.  
Their response:  "We haven't met their mom and dad yet!"

BTW, I think the idea of using a science project display board is awesome, because it can be folded up -- preserving the condition of the visual aid longer, and making storage easier.  It also stands alone on the floor or a small table, and has extra room on the sides for any other visuals you would like to add.  Tape works great on them, and removes easily without tearing the color off.  Perfect.  I am going to purchase several more when they are 50% off at Hobby Lobby... maybe I'll make one into this UNO gameboard.

Introductions

When I was first called to be the Primary Chorister a few months back, I felt completely out of my element.  I had done it 16 years earlier, in a much smaller primary, when I had three very young children.  It was time-consuming and overwhelming then, too, but I eventually felt comfortable, and made it through ONE Primary program before being released.

I am NOT what you would call "musical."  I had piano lessons for maybe a total of 2 years, and sang with my junior high school choir for 3 years.  When I tried out for choir my junior year in high school, I didn't make the cut (which is totally embarrassing when what seemed like 500 kids were in the multiple school choirs).

When I was called to be the Primary Chorister the first time, I pulled out the hymn book and studied how to lead from the instructions in the back.  Since then I have served as the Ward Music Chairperson TWICE.  It is the calling I feel the least competent in, and with which I struggle the most.  Primary's not so bad.

With that lengthy introduction, I will proceed to share what I am doing/have done to make Primary music an uplifting and enjoyable experience.  I will be honest with my successes AND failures (I am still trying to figure out how to keep the attention of the junior Primary kids!).  All posts will be strictly opinion-based, and are not necessarily the views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for which I serve.  In my short stint so far, I have had the opportunity to reap the blessings of being with the children in our ward.  They are awesome.  I love the Primary songs, and have remembered many from my own Primary days, which were long enough ago to be midweek, for goodness sake.  I am grateful for the wonderful resources available to us through technology-- it makes it much easier than it was years ago-- and I truly appreciate others who have diligently posted their thoughts and ideas for years as they have served in this calling.  Thank you!