Conducting Music

I had the privilege of going to an Activity Day last week with 18 of the cutest 8-11 year old girls in my ward. The leaders had asked me to come and spend an hour with them teaching them how to conduct music.

 This would help them fulfill one of the requirements in their 'Faith in God'.

(It is under 'Developing Talents' page 10- "Learn to play, sing, or lead a song from the Children's Songbook.")

I put together a slideshow to help with my presentation. It ended up being 28 slides long with everything from downbeat, time signature, preparatory beat, fermata, pick-up beat, to conducting patterns.

Here is an example of some of the slides:

I had my Primary President come with me. She played the piano for us as we sang our way through the slides and learned to lead. 

I made each girl her own conducting baton. I got the idea from Pinterest. I found wooden balls with a hole drilled in the center at Michael's. Then at Zurcher's, I found plastic balloon holders. They are like a very thin plastic straw.

They were 24 inches long so I simply cut them in half. Then I used a little hot glue to make sure they stayed in the wooden hole. It was very simple and very inexpensive.

I gave each girl a handout of the conducting patterns with Primary song suggestions to take home for practice.

At the end, we played a fun little matching game to review what they had learned.

Needless to say, I had a BLAST and I think they did too.

I'm HAPPY to SHARE!

I hope someone else will be able to use what I've created to help their Primary Activity Day Girls. This could even work for FHE or Young Women's. 

Here are the files:

Click HERE to download the slideshow.

Click HERE to download the conducting pattern handout.

Click HERE to download the match game.

Happy CONDUCTING!!