Program Review

We are in full Program Review mode. Our PP is October 15th and my JR needs lots of practice. I want the review to be fun but not too distracting. I also get to take up ALL the sharing and singing time this week. I had a great idea come to me in the middle of the night (that's when I get most of my inspiration lol) I'm calling it 'The Super Singer Game'. 

You play it like 'The QUIET Game'.

It's VERY EASY!

Click HERE to download my directions.

I will also be using Balloon Bugs for a fun way to choose and pass off each song.

I thought I had shared this before but I couldn't find it. So here it is... maybe again!

Click HERE to download the BUGS!

I hope this can be of help to someone.

Happy Singing!

Choose the Right Simplified

As a piano teacher, I like my students to learn to play the Primary songs and Hymns. I love that the Church has their 'I Can Play It' series but sometimes these are still too hard. My students have learned to chord and I've looked all over for some of the hymns with just the melody and chords but they are hard to find. So I arranged some of my own. 

With the Primary program coming up, I thought I'd share the hymn for the year.

Here is 'Choose the Right'.

This uses the I, IV, & V7 chords for the key of C. 

There are 2 versions: 

Just melody with chords

Click HERE to download Melody.

 Or harmony with chords

Click HERE to download with Harmony

My students love these versions until they are skilled enough to play from the hymn book.

I hope this is helpful.

Happy chording!

I'm Trying to be Like Jesus

Beautiful song, Primary classic!

The Senior kiddos know it pretty well except for the 2nd verse but the Junior kids stumble with so many words.

I used the 2017 Sharing Time Outline idea to teach it. You can check it out HERE. But my Junior needs more work. They got a little bored so I wanted to make it a little more engaging this week.

I'm going to springboard off an idea I read on the LDS Chorister's Facebook page and of course I can't find it again to give credit to the original person. 

But THANKS whomever you are!

It's a spin on Hot & Cold. She called it 'Gathering'. You make about 50 little cards (like stars, flowers, or CTR shields, etc). You place them around the room. While everyone sings, one child goes around gathering the cards (one at a time) and brings them up to the front.

So last night as I'm trying to fall asleep, I get my much needed inspiration.

I'm calling it 'SCATTER & GATHER'.

I made cards for the things that the Savior taught. I will scatter them around the room and a child will gather them as we sing. 

Here's my plan with a few rules to keep things orderly.

Click HERE to download the cards and directions.

I hope this will help us learn the song better but most importantly bring the spirit and learn how to be like Jesus.

Happy Gathering!

The Wise Man and the Foolish Man

I know some choristers are NOT singing this song for the program and some are. But regardless, it is a great, fun, popular song with a wonderful message. You all know I'm all about NOT re-inventing the wheel so here is what I've found from other bloggers for teaching this song. I've thrown in my lesson plan too.

Nalani over on 'In the Leafy Treetops the Birds Sing Good Morning has fantastic helps to teach this song. I used most of them in my lesson plan.

Click HERE to link to her blog. 

She took the pictures of the Wise and Foolish Man from THE FRIEND magazine and made them into 3 sizes for us to copy as well as colored or black/white. 

Click HERE to link to the pictures. 

Here is my lesson plan (most of the ideas are from Nalani). 

THANKS Nalani for such wonderful ideas and saving me tons of time!!

Click HERE to download the lesson plan. 

I got the label idea from 'Teaching LDS Children's blog HERE.

I made my own labels and action cards to tape to my blocks. You can download those too.

Click HERE for labels and cards.

Some other great ideas you might want to try:

Camille has a fun idea using paper houses HERE.

Sugardoodle has some great ideas with a 3rd verse as well as using actual rocks and sand HERE.

Terri Hutchings has written a great arrangement for the song with a more reverent option HERE. You can download the sheet music as well as view a video.

I hope this helps having all the resource together in one place.

Happy Singing!

Nephi's Courage

I've been trying to figure out how to teach this great song. My SR knows it well so I will just be reviewing it but most of my JR don't know it at all.

There are sooooo many cute ideas out there for teaching this song. I don't like to 're-invent the wheel' but I do like to put my own spin on it. Here are a few I have added to:

The OCD Primary Chorister made a cute flip chart with pictures that she drew. You can link to it HERE.  I decided to use this with my SR to review but I re-did it and just put one 'key word' with each picture.

There are NO pictures for the chorus.

Click HERE to download a copy.

Camille over on her blog had a darling idea of teaching the first two verses of the song with puppets.

You can check out her post HERE. 

There weren't puppets for the chorus and Camille does the 3rd verse a different way so I made some puppets for them.

Susan Fitch has some really cute puppets on her Etsy Shop. You can check them out HERE.

I used her puppets but on the church's website there are some there too.

Here's how mine turn out.

When the kids know the verse pretty well I'm going to pull out the 'STAGE'. 

I use a shower or curtain rod with a long curtain attached. I have 2 teachers hold the rod. The kids stand behind the curtain and hold the puppets up over the rod as we sing.

Click HERE to download the puppets I added. 

Happy Singing!

I Feel My Savior's Love

My song pick for the program for April is "I Feel My Savior's Love". I've been searching the web for a way to teach it to my JR kids. Over on the FB LDS Primary Choristers page, Katie Gibbons had a cute idea. So I made it on my computer and added one more phrase. 

THANKS Katie!

I'm only teaching the 1st verse and chorus, so this is only for that.

Click HERE to download a copy of the pictures.

Happy Singing!

Choose The Right 2

While preparing to teach Choose The Right I decided to put the key words on a picture. I thought this would help my JR kiddos better. So I guess it's like a flip chart but it's only key words. And it's only the 1st verse because that's all we are teaching.

Here's a few of the pictures.

Click HERE to download the pictures.

Happy Singing!

Choose The Right

I'm excited to teach this great hymn. I'm the Sacrament Meeting Chorister too and I love it when the Primary kids know another one of the hymns so they can sing along.

I've decided to use Camille's cute idea to teach it from her blog Camille's Primary Ideas. You can find it HERE.
I'm also making CTR shields for my JR kiddos to hold up every time we sing 'Choose the Right'. I found them HERE from a cute blog called 'In the Leafy Treetops'.

After my kids have learned the song, I want to do Hand bells to practice. I'd also like to do them for the program. This song is very easy for bells. You can do it even if you only have the 8 bell set. Just play high B for the low B.

I want to do it with my JR and they haven't done bells before. I made 4 different versions of charts- one is all chords for the SR and this one we will use for the program, one is melody on every 1st and 3rd beat, one is just bells on 'Choose the Right' (this one I'll start with the JR), and one is harmony just on 'Choose the Right' (I'm hoping JR will be able to do this one too).

This picture is only part of the charts just to give you an idea what they look like. I wanted to make the charts easier to make and print so I made the charts on 8 1/2 x 11 cards and you can tape them together or just put them up separately. My charts are for the 'Kids Play' brand of bells.

Click HERE to download the bells charts.

Happy Ringing!!!

When I Hear the Prophet's Voice

While trying to decide what song to choose for April's choice, I came across this beautiful song. 'When I Hear the Prophet's Voice' by Matthew Neeley. It's from The Friend (Sept 2009) and you can find it HERE. There is even a video of children sing HERE.

As I pondered what to choose for April, I noticed in the outline guide that the song choice should be from the Children's Songbook. So I knew I couldn't use 'When I Hear the Prophet's Voice'. But the words to the song kept coming to my mind and I knew I had to use this song somehow.

Then I looked at the theme's and March is all about living prophets. The song for the month is 'Stand For the Right', which my kiddos know forwards and backwards. But I don't like to eliminated any of the songs that are in the program. And then it hit me. I'll do them both as a medley.

Soooo I put the two songs together and will be teaching it in March.
We start with 'When I Hear the Prophet's Voice'. I wrote a key modulation that connects to 'Stand For the Right' and then we go back to the last line from the first song to end.

I made a flip chart for those that use them.

Click HERE to download flip chart for 'When I Hear the Prophet's Voice'

I also have a flip chart for 'Stand For the Right' key words only in a previous post. HERE

If you'd like my medley of both songs, click HERE.

And if you're wondering what I chose for April--- we are going with 'I Feel My Savior's Love'.

Happy Singing!!

As a Child of God

I'm excited to start teaching this song. I've searched LOTS of sites trying to decide how best to teach it. And let me just say there are some awesome ideas out there.

Here are a few that I have found:

In the Leafy Treetops

Mormon Mama on a Mission

Primarily Singing
The Crazy Chorister

Sharla Dance's blog Teaching Primary Music

Plus lots of ideas on the LDS Chorister Facebook page.

And the LDS Choristers blog has a great flip chart.

(just click on the title and you will be linked over to the site)

And if you want to teach ASL here is a great YouTube video. She simplifies and explains each sign.

I'm still deciding which song to do ASL with this year.

I love when so many share their ideas and talents. It makes this calling much easier.

I decided to go with Sharla Dance's melody maps. LOVE this idea. I haven't tried a melody map with my kiddos yet so I thought I'd take the plunge. She has a file you can copy and enlarge at a copy center but I decided to make my own. (Since it was snowing and I didn't want to venture out in the cold).
I also want to make sure the kids know the meaning of this beautiful song. I like to ask questions and see if they know the answers. Here are the questions I'm asking with scripture references for my SR kiddos. It's my little contribution.

If you'd like a copy of my questions click HERE.

Happy Singing!

5 Year Rotation

Many of you choristers know this but some don't. I didn't until I was called 2 years ago, but the Primary themes rotate every 5 years. So the sharing time lessons and the songs we sang in 2012 are the same lessons and songs we are learning this year in 2017.

Many of you may be planning your year and deciding on what your song choice will be for April. I like to choose songs that are not as familiar to the kids. There are some beautiful songs in the Children's Songbook that we don't have time to teach. 

So I put together an outline of the songs in the 5 year rotation. This lets me know what songs have been taught before (the ones my SR probably already know) and what's coming up so I won't choose a song that we'll be doing in the years to come. It also helps me know what songs I could use for opening and closing that are familiar to my kids.

Click HERE to download the outline.

I hope this helps some of you as you pick your songs for next year's program.

Happy Singing!