Program Progress

· CELESTIAL CHALLENGE – This idea is from The Primary Page. It has a gold sun, silver moon, and white stars all on a black board. Each is labeled accordingly – celestial kingdom, terrestrial kingdom, and telestial kingdom. On little squares of poster board, I have made up “icons” for each program song – a picture and the name of the song, for both the younger and the older children’s benefit. They are taped in “Outer Darkness” at the beginning of the year. Then once a month, we have our “Celestial Challenge”. I have them sing each song and the presidency tells them whether or not they have sung it well enough for the program (Celestial Kingdom/sun) or maybe it needs some more work. The goal is to get them all on the sun (Son).

· COOKING UP A SONG – Take kitchen containers, a mixing bowl, a spoon and an apron. Tell the kids that we are cooking up a song. I had a volunteer put on the apron and choose a container (empty Cool Whip, etc.) and add the “ingredient” to our mixing bowl. Each container has a slip of paper that says either line 1, 2, 3 or 4. While they are stirring, we have to sing that line 5 times to help it cook. Believe it or not, this really worked. They all wanted a turn, and I told them lots of stuff about how their singing helps it to cook. You decide which order to put the ingredients into the mix!

· CROSSWORD PUZZLE 2 (Okay, my pride says I have to take credit for this one!) – This one works better for Senior Primary, but you could have teachers help in Junior Primary. You can review multiple songs at a time and still keep their attention with this one. Pick out the key words to multiple songs, say 4 songs, 5 words from each. Keep a list of which word comes from which song. Create your crossword puzzle. Color code your clues so that the kids know which clues come from which song. Clues are then written as “the missing letter”. For instance: If you chose “lived” from “I Lived in Heaven” and “foundation” from “How Firm a Foundation” you would write the clue for 1 DOWN – I_IH and 1 ACROSS – HFA_. The blanks represent the key words. Just make sure that all your words from each song are the same color or it will be too hard. Sing each song. Tell the kids what color clues go with the song. You will most likely have to sing each song a couple of times through for them to figure out what line all the blanks come from.

· GET THE BUGS OUT – I went to a Party/Dollar Store and bought real looking plastic bugs. (I think they cost me 8 for $1.) The kids got a real kick out of it. I put them in a paper bag and had attached a small piece of tape to the bottom of each bug. I had a number written on each so I could control which songs we sang. The kids pulled one bug out or “caught” one and then had to hold it while we sang the song. We then decided if the bug had been “caught” so we could put it in the BUG JAR (a big Miracle Whip plastic jar that I had decorated with bug stickers). If not, the bug went back into the bag. Great for reviewing CSMP songs!