"BOB" and his bubble gum

I'd seen this adorable bubble gum idea here.


While I loved the idea, I didn't want to make a completely new guy so I decided to do a little makeover on Bob instead.  He's kind of fulfilled his purpose this year in our singing time so I thought he deserved some bubble gum for all his hard work. :)

I just cut a dime-size hole in his mouth.

  

then inserted a pink balloon.

 I had one of the teachers come up and stand behind the poster where he blew the bubble for Bob.  As the kids sang the song, the teacher would blow it larger, and larger the better they sang.   I stepped aside at one point because I thought the balloon was going to pop, they were singing so well.

I inserted a new balloon for Sr. primary and had a new teacher blow the balloon for them.

To go along with the bubble gum idea, I also found this bubble gum machine in one of my F.H.E. kits that I did ages ago (those kits sure have come in handy with this calling).  I just put the name of each of the program songs on the back.  I invited a child who was participating very well to come up and pull a bubble gum off to see what song we'd sing next.   Turned out to be a very fun singing time but we were able to accomplish a lot in the process.  I love it when we can do those two things simultaneously.

The Song Hospital

I had pinned this idea a while back and figured now was a good time to put it to use as we have a few songs that need to take a trip to the "Song Hospital" for some minor surgery.  

What you will need:
*White Lab Coat, Tongue Depressor, Stethoscope, Otoscope, RX pills

I had to adapt this idea as I only have a child size Dr. coat so I will be utilizing the children a little more than myself for this activity.


To begin, I will explain that we have a few songs that need to make a trip to the Singing Hospital where a doctor will evaluate our songs.  I will choose a child that sang the opening song very well, come up and put on the dr. gear.  I will explain to the dr. that they will be observing our song to see what needs to be done to make our song healthy and well.

Once the doctor is ready for the evaluation, I will explain to the children that there are three things we will be working on that day.

1-  When I hold up the Otoscope (I'm actually just using a little flashlight), they were to open their ears and listen to the words and message of the song.  This is where we will fix any tricky wording spots in the songs.  This will probably be our main focus as it's the second verses in a couple songs that we are still struggling with.

2- Once we've repaired the words, we will move on to the Tongue depressor.  When I hold it up, that is their cue to open their mouths and throat nice and wide to project as much volume and clarity as possible.

3- When I hold up the Stethoscope, that means I want them to feel the song in their hearts.  How does it make them feel?  How does the song make the Dr. feel?

As soon as we begin singing, I will let the dr. walk around the room with her stethoscope for observation out toward the children so that he/she can get a really good listen.  I am assuming that when the dr. is in a particular section, that section will really give it their all.  They love it when someone focuses in on them in particular. 

After we finish the song, the Dr. will give us their professional opinion as to diagnosis and treatment options.  Each time we sing the song, I will call on another child who has been very good about participating to come up and be the dr.

As the dr. is speaking, I will take notes of any parts of songs that still may need some extra attention.

Here's the dr. costume which I just so happen to have on hand from my son's preschool graduation program this year.  It's so cute!

 

If the kids do a great job with repairing our songs, they will get a little RX pill from the Song Hospital before they are discharged to help keep the injuries from returning. Whatever works, right? :)  

here's the song hospital label I made, if you want to right click and save it to your computer:

College Football Kickoff

 With this being the kickoff week for college sports (it also seemed to be the kickoff for all of my kids sports as well-busy week), :) I thought it would be fun to pull our football field back out for a little friendly competition between the "Moroni's Musettes" (girls) and the "Army of Helaman Harmonics" (boys). We will continue to work on the program songs, as well as I may throw a few other songs in there as well to give a little variety.

This game worked wonders with the boys earlier in the year.  Some of the oldest boys are my biggest challenge in Sr. Primary (challenge meaning that they don't love to sing, they are REALLY great kids though).  I was lamenting over this with one of the teachers.  She has a son who falls into that same age group.  She suggested that it wasn't that the boys didn't like to sing but that the biggest issue is that the songs are so high.  Light bulb moment!  Truth be told, I even have a hard time with some of the higher songs as I am very much an alto.   I remember my brother not loving to sing at that same age for the same reason, his voice was trying to get a little deeper and so it cracked at any given moment.  I'm sure that's uncomfortable and embarrassing for those boys.  Oh the joys of getting older! :)  I will say that these boys sit so reverently though so at least they aren't disruptive in any way. Hopefully pulling the football field back out may encourage a little more participation tomorrow.


To give credit where it is due...long ago, I got the football field idea here.


here's the clip art I made for the teams if anyone wants them.  Just right click on the images and you can save them to your computer. They are nothing special but they work.

I have a ref shirt that I will have one of the teachers put on.  The girls will sing the song and the ref will determine how far to move them down the field.  We'll do the same thing with the boys.  Each time we sing the song, the ref will move the football further up the field, depending on how well the kids sing it.  When someone score a touchdown, mission accomplished!

BOB is fully armored!

Remember this guy that I presented at the first of the year? Go here for more info. on Bob.

Well, here we are at the end of August and Bob is sporting his full armor.  Yeah!  We've "learned" all of the songs for the Primary program so each piece of armor that corresponds with each song is on him BUT we definitely have many areas of different songs that still need work. 

I was trying to figure out how we could keep working on Bob even though he is already fully geared.  Then, the other day, I saw my little 5-year old playing with a rubber shield and a plastic sword and I had a light bulb moment.  YES, Bob has on all of his armor BUT some of his armor is not as strong as it needs to be...just like my son's rubber shield (a lot of good that's going to do him if he goes to battle). :)  I decided that we would review all of the songs we are doing for the program and determine the strength of each piece of armor. 

I chose three different armor strengths:
Rubber-meaning that the song is very weak and needs a lot of work to make it as strong as possible
Sterling Silver-We're getting there but we definitely could be stronger
Titanium-Couldn't possibly get any stronger.  Nailed it!

Last Sunday I presented this idea to the kids and showed them the little rubber shield.  They totally caught on to what we needed to do to help Bob and they worked hard to ensure we had him covered.  We definitely still need work on some of the second and third verses of songs (thus the Sterling Silver).

Here's how Bob looked after Sr. Primary this last week:

This week (tomorrow) we will focus on some of those weaker songs (especially the Rubber song-yikes!)  As a whole though, I am very happy with the kid's efforts and I think we will be just fine by the time the program rolls around.  

Spin the Singer

I saw this idea here and thought it would be a great way to make the repetitiveness of fine tuning our program songs more enjoyable for the kids.  While we've learned them all, there's still lots of problem spots that need some work.  Anybody else with me on that one?  We still have two month but the sooner we have them polished, the better.

Anyway,  the idea is to place papers in a circle on the floor with lots of different styles of singing a song.  In the center of the circle is a spinning chair (which my husband happens to have at the church as he's the ward clerk-so glad I don't have to haul a chair to church). :)

Then you pick 2 kids-a spinner and the person who will act as the spinee in the chair.  

After the spinner gives the spinee a whirl, wherever the spinee's feet are pointing when the chair stops, that's the way we will sing the song.  Should be simple and easy!

Here's the layout, minus the chair... 

 

Here are the actions I created.   If you want me to send you a copy of the PDF I created, just let me know.  I'd be happy to do it! 

UPDATE:  A big THANK YOU to Kerri who posted the actions on Scribd for me.  Looks like it's not as difficult as I was thinking it was going to be to get them into a PDF form on here.  I will try to go that route from now on.  Here's the link to them there:  Spin-the-Singer-Actions  Thanks Kerri!

"Getting the Bugs out" music time idea

Oh this sad neglected blog. We had such a busy summer (can't believe it's already over).  I'm trying to get back into the swing of things now.  All four of my kiddos are off to school this year so that should leave me a little more time.  First time in 13 1/2 years that I haven't had a little one in tow with me every day.  It's going to be strange...and sad...and way too quiet around this place. :)   

As the primary program nears, we have "learned" all of the songs, yet many of them leave much to be desired.  As a Child of God is definitely one of those.  I'm not sure why the kids didn't take to this song as well as it's such a beautiful song.

I decided that we needed to do some fine tuning.  One of the teachers suggested that her kids weren't singing it because they didn't remember the words.  Sometimes we learn the songs but then we move on and don't practice it again for awhile (my bad).  I decided that if that class was struggling with the words, maybe there were others as well.  I figured we might as well start back at square 1.  

I made a poster with all of the verses (we have the chorus polished so I didn't put that one on the poster).  I added a bunch of detachable bugs to the poster.  Tomorrow we will focus on "getting the bugs" out of this song, whether it be learning the words, or working on dynamics.  I am bringing a fly swatter (clean of course). :)  As we polish the different verses, I will let the kids come and swat one of the bugs.  The goal is to be "bug free" by the end of singing time.

Another fun idea I had for this as I have an adorable bee costume lying around...I will have one of the children wear the costume and buzz around the room as the children are singing.  If the bee spots a child singing "BEE-autifully" he/she will sting them.   Every person that gets a sting will get a little candy bug after sharing time.  I don't think I will need to do the candy bug with Jr. as they just LOVE to sing for me but Senior may need a little added incentive.

Should be an enjoyable day and hopefully we can finally master this song!  The program is sneaking up quickly.

***If anyone would like the poster, I have it saved as a pdf, and I'd be happy to email it to you. You would just have to take it into FedEx/kinkos to have it enlarged (or you can do what I did and just enlarge it at home on the printer and piece it all together-a trickier route but definitely cheaper).

I also created a pdf of the bug clipart if you would like that.  Just let me know.  

Good luck polishing up songs for the program everyone! :)

 

This is my cute little guy who "stung" the kids.  I failed to mention that the "sting" was just a dot sticker. That's how I knew who got the bug candy at the end of singing time.  Turns out the kids sang FANTASTIC in both Jr. and Sr. so they all got stung.  Love it when that happens. :)

Feeling the Savior's love through music

It was a very difficult summer for our Primary.  Senior primary in particular, as we lost two boys (brothers) from our ward who were killed in a horrible boating accident on the lake.  The sadness and the senselessness of this accident (caused by a drunk boater) left the children, and all of us leaders brokenhearted. One of the boys was in our Senior primary.  To put him into words, if there was ever such a thing as a living, breathing cartoon character, it would be him.  He was the life of primary.

The Sunday after the accident I didn't know what to do.  I didn't even want to do music time.  I didn't think I'd make it through even a verse, let alone a whole singing time without breaking down.  I kept praying trying to know what I should do.  My husband had bought me some flowers a few days earlier and they'd cheered me up on many occasion.  I woke up one morning and saw these flowers and felt prompted to make a bouquet of "love" for the kids.  Death is such a confusing thing for children to understand (sometimes for us adults as well) but I wanted them to understand that even though sad things happen sometimes, we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and is watching over us.  

To the bouquet my husband gave me, I added a bunch of hearts with songs that bore witness of that truth-Our Heavenly Father loves us. I had children come up and pull out a heart (that had the names of the songs on the back), we talked about how that song helped us to know that our Heavenly Father loves us, and then we sang the song.

One thing that I want the kids to understand as I serve in this calling is that good music can comfort, uplift, teach, and strengthen us.    The spirit was very strong and I think that it brought comfort to the children.  I know that it did to me at least.