Every Star Is Different

First Week's End

2012-02-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

We made it through our first week and it looks like we're going to continue on this journey. Our oldest son made his final decision tonight to stay at home and do home school with Mommy. I must admit I'm excited! We've had a lot of fun this week. Learning time took place four out of five days this week, just because we had an appointment in Rochester one day. Still, technically the boys are only in preschool, and if they weren't involved in UPK or special education preschool, they would only be going two or three times a week. I feel pretty good about four days, especially since I plan to continue through the summer.

Our last day of the week was a lot of fun! Both had mastered pretty much all of the material, except for being able to consistently identify the lower case letter L. Honestly though I feel that's my fault. Introducing the number 1 and lower case l in the same week wasn't the greatest of plans. We'll continue to review though, so hopefully they'll get it sooner than later.

Here's what we did!

Table Time: I Love Others conversation.

Reading & Writing: Letter L Collages. I gathered a bunch of old magazines together. The older son searched for the letter L on the pages. When he found one, he cut it out and pasted it on his paper. In order to complete the assignment he needed to find, cut, and glue 10 Ls to his paper. To make the assignment more appropriate for our younger son, he practice cutting his paper using beginner scissors while Mommy found Ls and cut them out. It was then his job to glue them onto his paper.

Science & Exploration: Workbook pg. 229

Numbers & Math: We played this game, using numbers 1-20. The boys took turns fishing for their favorite sea creatures. When they caught one, they had to identify the number on the creature, and then we counted to the number together. Both boys LOVED this game! I learned a lot as well. We definitely need to work on numbers 11-20!

Music Time: Introduced a drum set to the boys. They took turns playing and dancing to the beats.

Community & History: Each boy made a specific plan to do something nice for someone else in the family for Valentine's Day.

Health & Exercise: Played Wii Sports

Story Time: Somebody Loves You, Mr Hatch by Eileen Spinelli

Adjusting

2012-02-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

We've had two days of "learning time" at home and I do believe they've been quite successful. My son seems to think so and I'm having a lot of fun teaching him. There have been a few adjustments we've had to make. Learning time lasts about 90 minutes. The kids can't take more than that and it's quite hard to come up with more material than that for preschoolers.

Planning has been quite the venture. I'm sure once I get used to all of this it will go much faster. I find myself spending about 2 hours each night planning and preparing activities. Most of the planning is searching the internet looking for ideas of how to present information in a way the kids will understand. My goal is to spend no more than 45 minutes each day planning.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I want to record my lesson plans in a place I won't lose them for my benefit. That's what this blog will be used for. Feel free to read, make comments, and share ideas if you'd like. If not, I won't be offended!

So here's what we've done!

Week 1:
Concentration: Valentine's Day
Letter: L
Number: 1
Shape: Heart
Color: Pink
Songs: "Love One Another," and "Jesus Said Love Everyone"

Day 1: I Am Loved

Table Time: Read and Discussed Scipture John 13:34

Reading & Writing: Introduced Letter L, Brain Quest Pre-K Workbook pgs. 30-31

Science & Exploration: Made vanilla cupcake batter and experimented with dyes to find out what color we needed to add to white to make pink.

Numbers & Math: Introduced Number 1, Brain Quest Pre-K Workbook pgs. 124-125

Music Time: Learned first two lines of song, creating visuals along the way.emphasizing themes of the week.

1st Phrase: "As I have loved you"-Picture of self in heart. 2nd Phrase: "Love one another"-Heart Puzzle

3rd Phrase: "This new commandment"-Picture of Moses with 10 Commandments, 4th Phrase: "Love One Another" -Heart with words

Community & History: Discussed and identified people that help us take care of ourselves-doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, etc...

Health & History: Identified heart location in body, Listened to heart beat, exercised and listened to heart beat again to hear increased speed.

Story Time: You Are Special by Max Lucado

The day went fabulous. My son complained that he wanted to do more pages out of his workbook, which I thought was hilarious. He became a little anxious as we started our experiment, worried that it would be too hard. Once he realized he was going to be okay, he had a blast. The only thing I would change would be the introduction of L and the number 1 on the same day. Lower case Ls and number ones look very much alike. My younger son could not distinguish between them.

Day 2: I Love Myself

Table Time: Discussion about liking ourselves.

Reading & Writing: Workbook pgs. 90-91

Science & Exploration: Be My Valentine Animal Lover Cards, creating an elephant using hearts. We drew the eyes and I cut little pink hearts from paper instead of using googly eyes and heart stickers.

Numbers & Math: Played the Hokey Pokey using "one" instead of left or right. Played Hickory Dickory Dock Game.

Music Time: Learned the rest of "Love One Another" creating visuals.

Community & History: Started All About Me Book.

Health & Exercise: Compared body parts. Identified those we like about ourselves.

Story Time: If Only I Had a Green Nose by Max Lucado

Here are our plans for tomorrow!

Day 3: I Love My Family

Table Time: Discuss why we love members of our family.

Reading & Writing: Workbook pg. 171

Science & Exploration: Finish Be My Valentine Animal Lover Cards

Numbers & Math: Learn how to set the table, emphasizing the use of ONE plate, ONE cup, ONE spoon, etc. Use this guide.

Music Time: Review "Love One Another" by singing it a couple of times and then mixing up the pictures. Child has to rearrange the pictures and put them in the right order.

Community & History: Finish All About Me Books.

Health & Exercise: Wii Fit

Story Time: Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane deGroat

I asked Owen if he wanted to go back to preschool today. He told me no. I asked why. He says,

"Home School is more fun!"

Yay me!

Getting Organized

2012-02-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

My husband and I planned on home schooling officially this summer, after our oldest finished his last year in preschool. However, due to circumstances I won't discuss here, we're starting a bit earlier... Tomorrow in fact. I've been preparing to home school for quite some time in my mind, but not on paper or should I say the computer. Coming up with themes for the week and activities has been pretty easy, but coming up with a daily schedule has been more difficult. There are five children five and under in the house. All three of our own children have special needs, two have high functioning autism. Incentives to move forward and work hard will be important. The schedule itself will be crucial to keeping them focused. Thankfully I have my husband to help me!

7:00 AM Breakfast

7:30 AM Family Scripture Study and Prayer

7:45 AM Morning Routine-Baths, Get Dressed, Brush Teeth, Comb Hair, and Pick Up Rooms

9:45 AM Snack

10:00 AM Therapies/Head Start/Errands

11:00 AM Free Play/Lunch Prep

11:30 AM Lunch

12:00 PM Nap Time/Learning Time Begins

Reading and Writing
Science and Exploration

Numbers and Math

Music Time

Community and History

Health and Exercise

Story Time

2:00 PM Learning Time Ends/Quiet Time

2:30 PM Snack

3:00 PM Chores

3:30 PM Outdoor Play or Other Physical Play

4:30 PM Free Play and Dinner Prep

5:30 PM Dinner

6:00 PM Media Time

6:30 PM Bedtime Routine Begins-Medicine, Pajamas, Brush Teeth, Stories, and Prayer

7:00 Bedtime

Let's hope this works!

Operation Home School

2011-07-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my husband and I decided to go the homeschooling route with our children. Mind you we were as anti-home schooling as a couple could get. Yet there was always a part of me that said, if I ever had a special needs child, I would home school. I had been a one-to-one for a severely autistic boy while taking a break during my college years. The experience has always stayed with me. When my second son was born, I remember the distinct feeling that settled within me one day. I needed to prepare to home school. My husband and I tried to ignore the prompting. Three years later, having received his diagnoses and learning that he is home bound, we have accepted our fate and are initiating Operation Home School! Once we learned about our older son's diagnosis it was quite obvious.

Currently six children reside in our home, ages 16 months to 5 years of age. Three are my own children, two biological sons and one adopted daughter. The three others are foster children. One foster child is very bright. Another has many special needs. Our lesson plans and adventures can be adapted for children ages 2 to 6 years of age, with varying skills and abilities. We try to incorporate every style of learning within a week so that each child can learn the material in the most successful way. My husband and I are big on saving paper so we try to use a minimal amount of worksheets.

This blog was created so we can organize and remember what we've already done and track our failures and successes as we attempt to teach our children. We love comments!

Let the journey begin!

It's Been a While

2009-11-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I updated this blog. My children were sick for a few weeks and I ended up missing church for a few weeks. Throw in General and Stake Conferences and I missed five weeks in total.

I am still chorister. So far after the primary program we've learned 3 songs: "Every Star Is Different," "The Shepherd's Carol," and "The Nativity Song." Actually we're still learning "The Nativity Song," but have three verses down and two to go with plenty of time to spare!

When teaching "Every Star Is Different" to the junior primary I brought in foam stars and had each child decorate their own star with foam stickers. Every time they sang the word "star" or "shining" they raised their stars high in the air. They really liked this. For the first time while teaching a song, I did not use any visuals. Instead we talked about each other as we learned the words. The children loved the attention and in the end they learned the song SO WELL!

While teaching the senior primary the song I did not use visuals either, but did the same thing I had in junior primary, minus the star decorating. Instead I drew a bunch of random stars on the chalkboard. As we learned the song, children took turns coming up connecting the stars, drawing their own constellations. I did have the Big Dipper in there too, but they never found it. It was a great week to match a great song!

I also have started going to nursery to do singing time there. The children in nursery decorated their stars and then we sang as many songs about stars as they could come up with: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" "I Am Like a Star" and then of course the usual nursery songs. The little ones loved it!

As I taught the song "The Shepherd's Carol" I let the junior primary children take turns being Mary and Joseph. Others held a picture of Christ. The Senior Primary children took turns dressing each other which worked very well. They were very creative with their Joseph and Mary costumes. The song was learned well. Now we just have to work on the round.

In nursery I brought in musical instruments from home and let the children play instruments as we sang songs. It was a huge hit!

Finally, last week I started teaching "The Nativity Song." For the junior primary I made visuals for each line of the first three verses. It had originally been my plan to use objects, but I couldn't find what I wanted to use. After making visuals I wrapped each visual in a box, like a Christmas present. Each child was able to open a gift as we learned the song. They loved opening their boxes to find out what picture was inside. Surprisingly they learned the entire three verses.

I had promised Senior Primary that we would use the colored water experiment again since they requested it and had done so well the week before. Each verse of the song was a different color. First we sang the whole song through. Then as they tried to find the explosive water, we sang the verse color that matched the water color. After they had found all of the explosions I let them add explosive material to the colored water of their choice. Which ever color they chose, I took down the verse and they sang it without the words. All went well! Now I just have to come up with an idea for the rest of the song.

Nursery didn't go so well. I brought in different types of music and had the children identify which songs were loud, soft, fast, slow, etc... Some of the songs were songs they knew, so we would sing the whole thing. Afterwards we just sang songs for fun. There were a few children who participated but others did not. I'm struggling because all of the toys are still out when I come into the nursery and none are picked up before singing time. Obviously toddlers are going to want to play. I come about 15 minutes after primary starts, right after opening exercises, so the kids want to play with their toys. I've thought about coming later, towards the end of the two hour block, but fear the kids will be too tired. The nursery leaders have the toys out the entire time, so I'll still have to battle that. Any ideas?

Wish me luck this week!

Music Jeopardy

2009-10-11T17:33:00.001-07:00

After the sacrament meeting presentation, I wanted to be sure to make singing time fun for all of the children. I knew they wouldn't have any desire to learn anything new, or to sing again. So we played Music Jeopardy.

There were six categories: The Gospel, My Heavenly Father, The Savior, Nature & Seasons, Fun & Activity, and Home & Family (titles of sections in the Primary Song Book).

Each category had five questions, ranging from point values of 100 to 500, 500 being the most difficult. I found most questions from other church games I had around our house. Only 7 questions did I make up myself.

Here are the questions:

The Gospel
100-What song does this phrase come from, "In Judea long ago"?
Answer: "Baptism" (p. 100-101)

200-What song does this phrase come from, "To feel the Holy Spirit, To listen and to pray"?
Answer: "I Love to See the Temple" (p. 95)

300-What book tells about "Lamanites in ancient history"?
Answer: The Book of Mormon ("Book of Mormon Stories," p. 118-119)

400-The following is the last phrase of a favorite Primary song: "Sh, be still." Can anyone tell us the name of the song?
Answer: "The Chapel Doors" (p. 156)

500-How many of the Articles of Faith have a song written about them?
Answer: All thirteen (p. 122-133)

My Heavenly Father
100-"Rev'rently, quietly, lovingly we think of ____."
Answer: "thee" (p. 26)

200-Fill in the blank from the song "I Lived in Heaven." "Then Heavenly Father ____ a beautiful plan"
Answer: "presented" (p. 4)

300-How many parts are these in the song, "A Child's Prayer"?
Answer: two (p. 12)

400-How many verses does the song "I Am a Child of God" have?
Answer: four (p. 2-3)

500-Finish this phrase: "Rev'rence is more than just quietly sitting, It's ...
Answer: "thinking of Father above" (p. 31)

The Savior
100-"Jesus wants me for a ____,"
Answer: "sunbeam" (p. 60)

200-"Away in a manger, no ____ for his bed"
Answer: "crib" (p. 42)

300-In what song do we sing "He knows I will follow him," "Give all my life to him"?
Answer: "I Feel My Savior's Love" (p. 75)

400-"Fair is the ____, Fairer the ____"
Answer: "sunshine," "moonlight" (p. 62)

500-Finish the chorus, "Love one another as Jesus loves you. Try...
Answer: "to show kindness in all that you do. Be gentle & loving in deed and in thought, for these are the things Jesus taught."

Nature & Seasons
100-"Give," said the ____ ____,"
Answer: "little stream," (p. 236)

200-"I looked out the window and what did I see?"
Answer: "popcorn popping on the apricot tree" (p. 242)

300-"What happens to the snowman when the sun comes out in this favorite primary song?
Answer: The snowman melts. (p. 249)

400-Fill in the blanks-"Whenever I ____ the song of a bird or ____ at the blue, blue sky...
Answer: "hear," "look" (p. 228)

500-When do you do the following activities: Fish in a stream, swim in a pool, & march in parades?
Answer: "Summertime" (p. 245)

Fun & Activity
100-"Head, shoulders, ____ and ____"
Answer: "knees," "toes" (p. 275)

200-"Do as I'm doing ____, ____ me."
Answer: "follow, follow" (p. 276)

300-Where did the foolish man build his house?
Answer: "upon the sand" (p. 281)

400-What do the Primary colors stand for?
Answer: Red-courage, yellow-service, blue-truth (p. 258)

500-How many times is the word "hello" sung in the primary song "Hello Song"?
Answer: 13 (p. 260)

Home & Family
100-"I can often feel the Savior near when love is spoken ____."
Answer: "here" (p. 190)

200-How long can a family be together?
Answer: Forever (p. 188)

300-What song does this phrase come from, "Clap my hands and shout for joy"?
Answer: "Daddy's Homecoming" (p. 210)

400-In what Primary song doe we sing "yes siree"?
Answer: "A Happy Family" (p. 198)

500-In "Love is Spoken Here" where is "here"?
Answer: Home (p. 190)

Post Singing Time Comments: The game went very well. All of the kids seemed to enjoy themselves. Both the senior and junior primaries were combined so there was potential for chaos, BUT everyone was able to participate. I'll definitely do this again!

The Day of the Primary Program

2009-10-11T13:42:00.001-07:00

I have not forgotten to post, I just haven't had anything to post for the last month or more. Between review weeks and being sick, I haven't taught the children any new songs, or done any really fun activities. That's just the way Primary Program rehearsals run I guess.

Today was our Primary Program. Words can not express how grateful I am that it's finally over. Being called to be Primary Chorister just two months before the program really hasn't been a picnic. Especially when members of the Primary Presidency were choristers before me. I am so excited to start out fresh next week! During conference I received a lot of great inspirations and promptings. This next year should be LOTS of fun.

About the program today... The children did well, although half way through they were ready to be finished. It showed in their speaking parts and especially in their singing, BUT we made it through. For the most part the music ran smoothly, except for one constant disruption, my two and a half year old son.

I have a 1 year old and 2 1/2 year old. It was my husband's responsibility to find someone to help him with the children during the program, while I conducted the music. He neglected to do this. Instead he sat in the front row with me (we have no stage or raised seating), right in front of the primary children. When it came time to conduct the opening hymn, my older son started crying, scared by the organ played too loudly. He wanted his Mommy. My younger son was already squirming and ready to leave the chapel area. So, I picked up the older son and began to conduct the opening hymn while holding him. Fortunately he did stop crying.

After the first hymn, he appeared to be calm. During the sacrament hymn, he stood next to me as I conducted and was fine. I thought I was in the clear. WRONG. The boy was unpredictable with his whines, cries, and screams. Some songs he was a perfect angel, and others he was NOT. For the most part I was able to focus well on the primary children, but there were a couple songs in particular that I was unable to do my job accurately, and there were mishaps.

This will NOT happen next year, even if I have to call my mother to come and visit for the day, so that she can watch the children during the program. My older toddler will still be in nursery with his younger brother then, because of when his birthday falls during the year. Oh well.

To close I don't want to forget to mention a special moment during the program where I definitely felt the spirit strongly as the children sang their hearts out. The first two verses of the song "Baptism" were solos, performed by two girls in the primary. The third verse was song by all of the primary children. After the touching solos, as all of the children joined in, singing their little hearts out, the room radiated with warmth and the spirit. All of the rehearsing was definitely worth that special moment!

How Firm A Foundation

2009-08-23T17:00:00.001-07:00

The primary children are singing the first verse of "How Firm A Foundation" for the primary presentation. As of last week they had not learned it yet. So this week it was my goal to teach the kids the first verse of the hymn.

My first task was finding pictures to go along with the words to the song. None of the junior primary kids can read. Here are the pictures I came up with.

The Gospel Art Picture # 502 Salt Lake Temple represented, "How firm a foundation." I explained the story about the cracked foundation and how long it took to build the temple.

The Gospel Art Picture #410 Exodus from Nauvoo, February-May 1846 represented, "ye Saints of the Lord."

A picture of a child praying from one of the Ensign magazines represented "Is laid for your faith."

Another picture from an Ensign magazine, someone reading a set of scriptures, represented "in his excellent word!"

Then for the phrase, "What more can he say than to you he hath said," I used Gospel Art Picture #216 Christ and the Children.

The three repeated phrases, 'Who unto the Savior," were represented by Gospel Art Picture #239 The Resurrected Jesus Christ.

And finally, I used Gospel Art Picture #409 Saving the Book of Commandments to represent, "for refuge have fled?" To help the children understand the word "refuge" I explained the story that went along with the picture.

Once I had my visual aids ready, which I used for both junior and senior primary, I prepared fun activities for each group of kids to do while learning the hymn.

Junior Primary

In junior primary I gave each child (and teacher) a large cardboard block. (Our nursery has a whole set.) It was their responsibility to be reverent and not play with the block. When they sang well and were reverent they would get a turn to help build a foundation. As we learned the phrases of the song I would select children that were singing and being reverent to place their block down and add to the foundation.

Post Primary Comments: This activity was a huge success. The children loved building with the blocks and fully participated in singing the new hymn. They identified with the pictures too which was wonderful! At one point the tower they were building did fall as a child but his block on top, but we just started rebuilding again like the workers on the Salt Lake Temple did.

Senior Primary

In senior primary we did something a little different. To teach the children just how important a firm foundation is, we played the game Jenga as we learned the phrases of the hymn. Based on reverence and participation the children each received turns at the game. When someone did knock over the tower, I taped the words to the first verse of the hymn on each of the pieces and it was their responsibility to put the words in order from start to finish.

Post Primary Comments: The pictures combined with the Jenga game were a HUGE success. They loved learning the stories from the pictures and sang the hymn so well. When it would come time for a turn at the Jenga game the room became silent as everyone watched. There were some kids who wanted help from others and so the game became such a team effort. Surprisingly they did not knock down the tower. We never did have to put all the words together. Even so they learned the entire song and can sing it extremely well!

I am absolutely loving my calling! This week was the first week that I felt both junior and senior sharing time went equally well!

Learning

2009-08-20T12:22:00.001-07:00

This week I have learned much about my new calling. I'm so surprised about how much has changed since I had this calling before. Most of the changes I believe are coming from a stake level, although I can not be sure. I'm looking for documentation presented by the General Primary Presidency and/or Prophet. Until something changes, I have been asked to follow the following guidelines:

1. No food, unless being used as an object lesson. Ex: Fruit, etc... for song about Word of Wisdom.
2. No cartoon figures or drawings of people. Visual aids must be photographs or pictures from the Distribution Center and/or put out by the church itself.
3. No cartoon figures or drawings of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and especially the Holy Ghost.
4. No use of primary help books such as: Primary Partners, Sunday Savers Singing Fun, etc...
5. No replacing words with pictures that are the same but mean different things. Ex: Picture of a Bumblebee instead for the word "be" or a picture of the sun for the word "son."

I definitely agree with the first and last guidelines AND no cartoons of the Holy Ghost, but the others I feel are quite restricting, especially when so many help products are available out there. But every stake is different and I want to follow the rules and guidelines I have been given. If anyone reading this does know of documentation out there that would be of help, please pass it on! Wish me luck!

Week 1

2009-08-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

The first week I taught primary singing time I was asked to teach, "A Child's Prayer." This is no easy task! To add more excitement to the picture junior and senior singing time was combined. Yikes! How in the world do I pull this off? Well, this is what I came up with.

I printed out blank sheets of white paper with phrases of the song at the top of each page. The senior primary children would each draw a picture to represent the phrase they had. While the senior primary children were drawing their pictures, the junior primary received pictures to color with words like: Loud, Reverent, Slow, Fast, Dance, Jump, Stand Up, etc... There were ten action words in all. The children had three minutes to draw and color.

Once all the crayons and papers were collected we started learning the song. The child that drew the picture to match the phrase would come up and teach that line of music. Once we had sung through the phrase once, a junior primary child would come up with their picture and tell us HOW we were to sing the song. We would then sing the phrase again in the proper way. After the first phrase, we kept adding phrases and would choose a different action each time we sang.

Post Primary Comments: This activity went well. I felt bad about the coloring, just because I was unaware that sharing time was also a coloring activity. Fortunately the children didn't seem to mind. Using the action words turned out to be a great way to involve the junior primary. Each week we still play games with the action words. We will be using the visual aids that the senior primary children made, as part of the primary presentation.

Sorry there are no pictures. All of my papers are at church in the primary closet.

Week 2

2009-08-16T14:48:00.001-07:00

I'm working backwards, please forgive me. I started this calling three weeks ago, and have only recorded this week's activities. Last week's activities were completely different.

In junior primary singing time we played musical chairs while learning to sing the first verse of "I Lived In Heaven." I was able to find word strips with pictures for the song from Sugardoodle. I cut up the strips so that each strip had a picture word and taped them to the primary chairs. Then I printed out another copy of the word strips, cut them up and put them in a bag. The chorister played until she wanted to stop, then all the kids would find a seat, except for one of course. That child would then select a picture word strip from the bag to determine what chair we would get rid of. We continued this until all of the word strips were gone.

Post Primary Comments: This worked well, except that the children who were out became bored. We ended up starting a second circle on the outside of the chairs, so that those kids could still participate. The only other difficulty I had with this activity was that some children kept taking the word strips off the chairs.

For Senior primary singing time we played a game called Magic Potion as we learned the first verse of "I Lived In Heaven." This game can be found on this website!

Post Primary Comments: Senior primary singing time went FABULOUS. I don't know how I'm going to top this activity. I know we will do it again. The children sang SO well! Definitely will recommend this to anyone!

Sorry there are no pictures. My props are at church.

Post Primary Remarks

2009-08-16T12:20:00.001-07:00

Junior singing time went extremely well today. The children LOVED the Noah's Ark game. I was able to definitely tell which songs are ready for the presentation and which songs were not ready.

Senior singing time didn't go as well. The children really didn't get into the baseball game which really surprised me. My umpire was WAY too easy on them too. As a result they didn't sing as well as I knew they could. There were some other distractions too. Sadly we only made it through 6 songs. I don't think I'll use this one again.

Primary Presentation Review/What do they really know?

2009-08-15T12:43:00.001-07:00

I was called to be primary chorister 8 weeks before the primary presentation. This is NOT the most relaxed time to receive this calling, especially when I have no idea what the kids know and what they don't know. Both junior and senior singing times this week are review games.

In senior primary we're playing a baseball game. May I just mention that our primary is mostly boys. Senior primary consists of 8 boys and 2 girls on a regular Sunday. Junior Primary is a little more evened out. The baseball review game came from this website. The only change I've made is the reward. The kids will get reward stickers instead of taffy and flags.

In junior primary we're playing a Noah's Ark game that I invented myself or at least didn't see anywhere else. My children have the Fisher Price Little People's Noah's Ark, but if you don't have one, you can draw an ark on a poster board and then have little animal cut outs.

There are four sets of matching animals that come with the ark. Each of the animals is labeled with a number that corresponds to one of the primary presentation songs. The children will each get a turn selecting an animal from a bag, based on how well they are being reverent as they sing accurately and appropriately. We will sing the song corresponding the the animal that the individual children select on their turn.

The object of the game is to gather the animals two by two and put them in Noah's Ark. As the children select their animals they will place them next to the ark until their match is found. Once the match is found and both primary songs have been reviewed, the child who found the matching animal will select a primary song of his/her choice to sing. We will then sing the selected primary song as we move like the animal pair that has been matched. After the song is finished, the child will put the animals in the ark. We will continue until all the animals are in the ark, or until junior singing time is over.

Look forward to post activity comments!

Why A Blog About Primary Singing Time?

2009-08-15T12:15:00.001-07:00

Perhaps I should say, why another blog about primary singing time when there are a million of them out there? Well, this is purely an organizational log for myself. I have been primary chorister for two weeks now and have realized that I have no where to store my ideas, props, visiual aids and so forth. Yes, I know I can't store props on a computer, but I can log about what I have used for future reference. My brain is working much faster than it used to, continually processing out new ideas for junior and senior singing time. I've been trying to write them all down on paper, but am notorious for losing sheets of paper with important information on them. No lie, I have started making my holiday shopping list of ideas and purchases on the computer so I don't lose it.

This is the blog where I will record all of my ideas, activities, and successes for junior and senior singing time. Along the side of the blog will be the websites that I get some of my ideas from. I want to be sure to give full credit to other's great ideas that I use. After all they save me lots of time and brain energy!

Now a little about me as a musician and music teacher. I have taught children music in private and classroom settings for over 10 years now. Though classically trained I have a different persective on music than most music teachers. My philosophies are part of my motto above. Every child is different. Every child learns in different ways. Not every child likes music. Not every child likes coming to church. I understand these statements. I am a classically trained musician but I, myself quit piano 3 different times growing up, because I didn't like it. So, I do what I can to help children like and then love music. If it means playing games, we play games. If it means moving the entire time, we'll move. As a private piano instructor with many school aged students, I accomodate the student in their learning needs and interest. If I need to teach them piano through songs from Harry Potter, then that's how they learn! Many teachers may not agree with this method, but it works! My students love coming to lessons and they practice!!! The same goes for primary.

I am a strong believer that different age groups have different learning needs. Therefore I prepare separate singing times for junior and senior primary almost every week. Of course there are exceptions. Lastly, none of my singing time ideas will involve food. It is banned from our primary on Sundays by the Stake Primary Presidency. I don't necessarily agree with this, when food can be an object lesson, but will support it, especially since my boys both have food allergies, and want my desires as a mother, respected in the same way. Hope you enjoy!