3 Sundays and counting.......

We have 3 Sundays left. Two singing times, and the last Sunday is the program review. The Sr. Primary is coming along nicely. The Jr. Primary has a little more work to do.
The idea with the birds is to get all of them into the nest. They all started at the top and have been working their way down. We have two in the nest.
I'm not super huge on endorsing products but these have been wonderful! I have been using the double sided permanent tape to affix the marbles. They stay on and I don't have to make loops of tape during singing time. The removable tape is for the birds - this way I can move them around the board easily. It seems to be about the tackiness of a post-it note and so it's easy to peel and stick where I want them. They made this job easy! All I had to do was sing.
Now, I just have to think of my next trick, for next week.

Have a Very Happy Birthday

I taught a new birthday song this week. I used four pictures to represent the four parts of the song. It's a really short song and since we only did the first verse the kids picked it up really quickly. I also wore the birthday cake hat, so did Shannon, and the kids thought that was wonderful.

I wanted something to conduct with that was a little different so I used a wrapping paper tube and covered it with scrapbooking paper. Then I made a flame out of yellow paper, stapled it all the way around and stuffed it with batting. I made my own giant birthday cake candle so that I could point to the different parts of the song. The Jr. Primary used the candle for conducting. The Sr. Primary wanted to the hide the candle so that we could sing loud/soft while another child found it. That way we sang the song over and over until they had it down really well. We reviewed the other birthday songs and ironed out some kinks that some of them have and overall it was a really nice Sunday. It's good to review the songs they know and just make sure everyone knows them. It was nice to go over Feliz Cumpleanos again, some of the younger ones really benefited from the review.

And now, it's time to get ready for the program.....

It's Almost Time!!!

Today I picked out a few fun songs, and a couple for the program that they are working on that needed a little review, like I'll Seek the Lord Early. I let the kids guest conduct so each song had a different conductor. They absolutely love to conduct the songs and it's fun for me to watch them lead the song.
I was looking at the schedule and realized it's almost time to pull out the chart and prep for the program. So the next few weeks will go quickly.

September 6 - Next Sunday is my birthday so we are going to sing birthday songs and learn a new birthday song "Have a Very Happy Birthday" pg 284. I know I probably shouldn't, but the kids know the songs really well and I don't want them to get too burned out singing those program songs too much.
September 13 - This is the week I pull out the motivational posters and we sing all of the songs to see how well they know them.
September 20 - review week
September 27 - review week
October 4 - General Conference
October 11 - This is the Sunday we don't go to class and spend the two hours rehearsing the program. We might do a few wiggle songs, but we'll only sing the program songs and they need to be perfect by then.
October 18 - PROGRAM

Motivational Charts for the Program

When it's almost time for the program its time to get out some kind of motivator to get the kids prepped for the program. I've seen many different motivators, usually a poster with ice cream cones and the scoops of ice cream are added to the cones as the children improve in their proficiency in a song. When they have added a certain number to each scoop, essentially learning all the songs they are awarded a prize, such as an ice cream party.
Personally, i'm not a huge fan of food as a motivator so the ice cream idea and other "food" related ideas were out for me (like earning toppings for pizza, or fruit toppings for fruit pizza).
This year I traveled over to the local teacher supply store (i'm at my parents this week so it was good old Utah Idaho Supply, but if I had been at home I would have gone to Learning is Fun). I picked up two different kinds of motivators, one for Jr. and one for Sr. I had the marble jar laminated so I can use it again. They only charged $2.00 to laminate a poster, I was really happy about that.

For the Jr. Primary each bird will represent a song, and when the bird lands in the nest they are ready to sing the song for the program so the object is: to get all the birds into the nest.
For Sr. Primary I got the marble jar, although part of me still wishes I had gotten keys and locks, and they had to move the key toward the lock to unlock it. At any rate, There are ten rows/columns which is perfect for the 10 songs we're doing so I'll put a song at the top of each column and as they get better at a song I'll add marbles to that column. Some columns they will fill up the first day and others will take a little longer.

Now for the motivator - what will they get if they get all the birds in the nest and all the marbles in the jar. I didn't want to do food. I thought about trinkets or something from Oriental Trading, I thought about stickers or pencils that say primary from Deseret Book, but I finally settled on a new song in a bag. They loved the last song in a bag so i'll have another one ready when they have completed their charts. We have 10 weeks until the program, one of them General Conference, so only 9 working Sundays. We should be ready.

Families Can Be Together Forever

While reviewing this song Sister Webb made papers listing family members such as:
hoarse uncle
great grandma
humming sister
cowboy cousin
grandpa (sing low)
whistling brother

Sister Carson, who played the piano also played in the style of these family members. It was wonderful, and the kids didn't notice singing the song over and over. They all enjoyed the cowboy cousin best. (And yes i'm visiting family again - aaaaah it's finally our summer).

Review Week

This week we reviewed reverence songs. For the Sr. Primary I put one word clues in the jar and they had to guess the song. For the Jr. Primary I put the songs on the back of the animals on Noah's Ark and we would sing the song that was on the back of each animal. Both of these activities came from the Super Singing Activities book and the Super Little Singers book (Covenant).

I put 10 songs on the list and one of them was If The Savior Stood Beside Me. It has been a while since we sang that song and I had forgotten how much the children like it, they really sang and I was impressed how well they remembered the words considering I messed up a whole bunch of times.

I noticed that the children struggled with the Baptism (100) song and I decided to make a chart that will show them their progress as they get ready for the program so that we can work on the songs that they are still struggling with.

Lift Up Your Voice and Sing

Today I taught a fun song. I spend so much time on program songs it was nice to teach something fun to sing. I told the kids I had a surprise for them if they sang well. This is a really catchy songs and I only used the pictures for about the first four times they sang it. Once they had it down I pulled out my surprise, a song in a bag - see the next post. After Popcorn Popping I used one of the arms that I had made and we sang this song some more by hiding the arm and having a child find it by singing louder when they are close and softer when they are far from it. One child leaves the room and another hides it. One boy pulled his arm into his shirt and stuffed this arm up into it. What a fun singing time. They sang the last three "Lift up your voices" each louder than the last so it was a really great song for a Summer day. We did this about four times so that we ended up singing the song about 20 times, a great way to learn a song is by repetition.
After this I started calming them down with Book of Mormon Stories, I love to See the Temple and Love is Spoken Here. By the time we got to the last song the spirit was back and the room was quiet.