Singing Time Ideas

Stake Primary Leadership Meeting was a huge success (I learned a lot). I got so many great ideas, thing's I had never thought of. Sister Montgomery had a ton of great ideas and she didn't just tell us about them, she really showed us with visual aids, including teaching a song. It was really remarkable, I wish I had taken my camera. At the end though, she gave away some of her props and I do have pictures of the two I got to take home.

I was very flattered that she talked about my relationship with my pianist. Sister Dayton is amazing and she usually goes along with all my crazy ideas. One thing I felt very strongly about was that she and I should be a team. When I wear big ears, she wears big ears. We also have a set of sounds we use as cues. A sound for "they sang great", "not so great" and "terrible" that way she can offer feedback to the kids musically and they love that. We also have sounds for "stand up" and "sit down" that way when we come to program time they have been practicing standing and sitting on cue for a long time.

1. She had a hard had that had BFF on the front which stood for "Building Forever Families" for teaching the builder song. She suggested taking photos of children in the primary serving, being measured, learning (reading the scriptures) to use as visual aids.


2. She played a song on her iPod that the Tabernacle choir did. While she was hanging up the visual aids for the song, you got to hear the choir singing it. She had stretched a clothesline across the room and pinned the pictures to it. (She used those sticky back plastic hooks that you can buy from 3M and then pull off the wall when you're done).


3. Magic Singing Spray. Use a clear spray bottle with lemonade. Label the bottle. Use it to lubricate vocal chords and improve singing. Ingredients should be kept secret. When the primary needs a little incentive to sing out this is a great motivator. Practice squirting into mouths at home and be careful not to soil clothing.


4. Get a big 12x12 box to make a die. Attach clear sheet protectors on all sides. SLide pictures or words to tell how to sing a song, or a title of a song. Just make sure you don't use pictures of the Savior.

Singing leaders brought Ideas to share.

1. For teaching Children all over the World one leader used posterboard and cut out the shape of different costumes, then colored the costumes in. She used ribbon so the outfits could hang around the kids necks like they were wearing that costume.


2. Another leader said to celebrate the end of winter she had the kids write their favorite song on a half sheet of paper, crumple it up and throw their last "snowball" of the year, towards the front of the room. Then they randomly sang songs from the snowballs.


3. I shared my Top Ten idea and showed pictures that the kids drew for visual aids.

It's wonderful to get ideas from other leaders and to use them as sounding boards for ideas. I am really grateful to our Stake Primary presidency for including the music leaders in their meeting. We need ideas too.