Italian fun

This post is an idea submitted by Trisha...

Thanks for the great idea!

(If anyone else has an idea, to share, let me know!)

Because most music words are Italian, I decided to teach the children some common Italian music words while reviewing songs for the program.

I used the following pairs of words:

* Forte (loud) and Piano (soft)

* Allegro (fast) and Largo (slow)

* Staccato (crisp, detached) and Legato (smooth, connected)

* A capella (without music) and Con musica (with music)

* Regazze (girls), Ragazzi (boys), and Insegnanti (teachers)

I used an online translation site to find the translations for girls, boys, and teachers. The site also says the words for you so that you can hear the correct pronunciation (http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_tran_example.php?). It works for other languages too. Want to learn Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes in another langugage? This site is extremely helpful for that. There are other such sites out there, but this is one of my favorites.

I dressed in a trench coat, with a hat, and big sunglasses. I was a detective and I invited the children to play detective with me to figure out some Italian words that have to do with music and singing.

For Junior Primary, I hid the pairs of words in numbered envelopes under their chairs so that they could help me find the missing Italian words.

Then, I had the children with the number one words come up to the front and hold their words.

I had a "magic wand" (a digital drumstick with the power off). I told the children my wand could read Italian, so they had to guess what each word meant based on how my wand responsed. I'd read each word by running the tip of the wand across each word. Then, my wand would respond in a corresponding way. I'd then ask them what they thought that word meant in English.

* Forte (very large movements)

* Piano (very small)

* Allegro (very fast)

* Largo (very slow)

* Staccato (robot-like, sharp)

* Legato (flowing, almost dancing)

* A capella (sharp, cut off motion towards pianist)

* Con musica (pick up/include motion towards pianist)

* Ragazze, Ragazzi, and Insegnanti (point towards girls, boys, or teachers, or point to pictures on the board or on a poster, or walk around tapping a few gently on the head)

For Senior Primary, I also put "How?," "Who?," and "When?" wordstrips on the board. For each set of words, they helped me deduce if that pair of Italian words helped us know WHO shoudl sing, WHEN we should sing (or sing with accompaniment), or HOW we should sing.

We sang through several songs in the program with a different set of words for each song. The children had to watch the wand carefully to know how to sing the song at any given moment because the wand would switch back and forth between each word in a pair. If they needed extra practice with a song, a helper got to come up and direct the wand with the appropriate motions for the Italian words used with that song.

At the end, we sang through a couple songs using all of the Italian words together. They really had to watch me and my wand then!

I also sent home a straw with each child. The straw had a little paper flag taped to the end of it. The "flag" listed all of the Italian words we learned that day. I told them they could practice their Italian and music with their families.

Hit or Miss Game

This Sunday is the fifth sunday, and I have the entire singing/sharing time. I wanted a game where we could sing like crazy and review songs, but also have fun.


This idea was inspired by someone with the idea of "musicship"...but I can't remember who.

****I just got a comment referring me to the correct site. The Crazy Chorister was the one I got the original idea from. Thanks to Dana who sent this information!****

I tweaked it a little to make it work for our primary and what we needed to get accomplished.

On a poster board, I made a grid: 1-6 across the top and A-G going down the sides. I cut out 3x3 squares of cardstock to fill in the blank spaces. The children will come up (for Juniors) and pick a square and the older kids can just call out coordinates (A2) for example. Behind the square will either be a symbol or blank. If it's blank, we don't do anything, and have someone else pick another square.


I have 3 different symbols on different colors of cardstock; a 4 stars, 11 ships, and 6 flowers. On each of the symbols, I penciled in a song title.


All of the cards will be faced down, as so:



The ships represent the program songs. (I divided up the verses, so one ship would represent "How Firm a Foundation (verse 1)" and another ship would have "How Firm a Foundation (verse 3)".



The flowers represent songs we will be singing at the retirement center in two weeks. These are "non-denominational songs". We have our Father's day songs, one of our mother's day songs, I am a Child of God, Wise and Foolish Man, etc. You could just do wiggle songs for these.



The stars represent "free choice", where the child can pick any primary song he wants.

For most of the songs, I will have a little bag with papers inside, with different ways to sing the song. I thought about bringing my dice, but it's getting hard enough for me to move around without carrying a ton of stuff. These papers might say "sing staccato, stand on one leg, loud and soft (I have sticks with a lion and a mouse that they can alternate during the song), girls sing, boys sing, don't sing words that begin with "H", etc. If they have a rough time with a verse, we'll probably review a little and sing it again.


****It would be fun to have a picture or phrase or something underneath all of the squares that they slowly uncover. However, leaving it blank, you can use the poster over and over, just rearrange the cards and erase the song titles for different ones as needed****

Teach and Review with Ker-plunk!

So, it's been some time since I've had any ideas for singing time, but I finally came up with one! I've been trying to come up with an idea that would be fun, capture their attention, but also let us learn and review the song. This is my idea...

I am teaching "When He Comes Again" for the April song, but this idea would work for any song and can be used in many different ways.

Ker-plunk is a game I picked up at toys r us for about $12. If you have never seen it, the basic concept is that a bunk of sticks are placed through the middle of two cups, and then marbles are placed on top of the sticks. One by one, the sticks are removed, while trying not to let any of the marbles fall.

There are three colors of sticks. Neon Pink, Neon Orange, and Neon Green.

I have divided my song into three phrases and coordinated them with the color.

Neon Pink: "I wonder when he comes again. Will herald angels sing? Will earth be white with drifted snow, or will the world know spring?"

Neon Orange: "I wonder if one star will shine far brighter than the rest? Will daylight stay the whole night through? Will song birds leave their nest?"

Neon Green: "I'm sure he'll call his little ones, to gather round his kneee, because he said in days gone by, suffer them to come to me."

I'll call up children to remove a stick. If the stick they chose drops marbles, we will sing that color's phrase. How many marbles drop, will determine how many times we will sing the phrase...up to 4 times through. (so if 6 marbles drop, the maximum times we will sing that phrase would still be 4).

In order to keep their attention through the repeating of phrases, I have visuals for the words, about 3 per phrase. I'll pick three kids to hold them up and get them in the right order. If we need to sing it again, they will pick someone else to hold their picture and get it in the right order. Hopefully I'll be able to use all of them at least once, hopefully more.

I'm not sure if I'll do the same thing with the Sr.'s or not, since they pretty much already know the song, but I'm hoping this will help out my Jr's. :)

Reveiw the songs: Face off

The are so many great ideas out there - especially with so many fabulous sisters sharing their ideas online and sometimes I get overwhelmed and want to try so many of them. The other night as I lay in bed ponder the upcoming Sunday (today) I said a prayer asking for help to know what it was that my Primary needed - what would be a good way to review the songs learned so far. The following idea came to mind:

Have two children come to the front and give one of them an object to hold. The one holding the object begins the song, then, whenever they want, they pass the object to the other child and then it is the other child's turn to sing. They keep passing the object back and forth and only the one holding the object sings. Now, if they come to a part of the song where they are unsure of the words the primary kids that are sitting down can raise their hand and sing that part of the song.

The idea was so simple, and didn't require much from me, rather it was putting it all in the hands of the kids. It was fabulous and fun. For the object I used 4 block letters that spelled "home" and used one block at a time, so that each song got sung through 4 times. I used this game to review the three songs we've learned this year. First we sang through the song together as a primary and then I used the popsicle sticks to choose children to come up and sing. We have a combined jr and sr primary and I was nervous about calling on the little kids to come sing, but I shouldn't have worried - they did great, really, some of them knew the songs better than the older kids. When the child who was singing stumbled on some words, the other primary children would raise their hand, I would choose one, and they would "sing" that part of the song and then the child whose turn it was would resing that part and then continue on.
From this little song review I would have to surmise that my Primary likes the "Family is of God" song best. When the two children were taking their turns singing on most of the songs the other kids in the primary were quietly listening, but on the Family is of God, especially on the chorus, almost all of the primary kids were quietly singing along - it sounded really neat.

Our primary is small and almost all the kids had a turn. There were actually a few who didn't want to take their turn and a couple of them I had to encourage to come up and do the best they could, but the majority of them were dying to have another turn. One advantage for me was I was able to assess each child and see where they might need extra help. Like I said, some of the little kids really surprised me and they knew much more of the words than I supposed they did. It is the older kids that I need to figure out how to get them to open their mouths more and sing because they were the ones more unsure of some of the words.

Give the bishop a heart attack

We did this to make a Valentine's card for the Bishop, but it could work anytime during the year.

(Sorry, no pictures! Put it together late last night)

Fold poster board in half. Cover says: Bishop: The primary gave you a heart attack!
Inside says: We sang with all of our hearts today!

I had a clear jar filled with cut out paper hearts. I told the kids that as I saw them trying their very best to sing/learn the song, I would ask them to write their name on a heart and put it on our card for the Bishop, because they were trying with all of their hearts to do their best. The kids did seem to try harder, but it was also hard for me to teach and try to call on kids to put their names on hearts at the same time. Next time, I would have a presidency member picking the kids, so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

Verse Review

I used this to review the first verse of How Firm a Foundation, but it could be used with any song.

My visuals for the first verse look like this. . .

The previous week I had introduced the visuals, explained the song and taught the verse. My goal now was to review and cement what they had learned.

I had the oldest class put the visuals in order (as shown above) on a bulletin board before we finished singing through the song twice. When they were done we sang it together as an entire primary (ours is combined Jr & Sr) to check it.

I told the children I was going to trick them by turning over one visual. Then they sang it again--without me singing on the part with the visual turned over. We did this over and over until all the visuals were turned over and I wasn't singing at all. Each time I made a big deal about how NOW I could trick them or said things like, "Oh well, I have only turned over red so far and I KNOW I'll trick you by doing a YELLOW one" etc. As they sang, I would cover my mouth and put my arms out or my hands on my hips with an expression like "I got you now!" on my face. The kids ate it up. They LOVED it. We sang the song repeatedly and they had a lot of fun trying to prove to me that I COULDN'T trick them. After everything was turned over I told them they must have super x-ray vision to see through the paper and I bet if I turn the bulletin board around THEN it would trick them. Even the little sunbeams were singing their hearts out to prove me wrong. The kids had a lot of fun and didn't even realize how many zillion times we sang the verse!

Magic potion; a review for How Firm a Foundation

I have read about this idea several times, but wasn't sure how to adapt it for what I wanted. Thanks to my awesome sister, we came up with a plan! I'm so excited to try this tomorrow and am sure it will be a hit!

They have only learned the first verse of How Firm a Foundation, so I wanted to review it this week before moving on to the third verse.

Preparation: write out verse in different colors on a dry-erase board to match your magic potions. (I got mine at wal-mart for $8!) Gather supplies: vinegar, cups, spoons, baking soda, and food coloring.

How it works:

1) Fill several clear containers (I used plastic drinking cups) with about 3/4 cup water and 1/3 cup vinegar. (the ratio can be varied, but more vinegar= more fiz= more fun! PLACE CONTAINERS on a BAKING SHEET, as this WILL MAKE A MESS!!!!

2) place one small drop of food coloring on a metal spoon (don't use clear, since you can see the color on the other side), then place a heaping teaspoon of baking soda on top, or enough to make sure the food coloring is covered.


3) Have a child come up and pick a spoon to stir in a cup of "water".

It will fiz like crazy and remain clear while fizzing, so make sure they keep stirring.


Once the fiz has settled down, the color will show up.

I will be using 6 different colors. red, green, yellow, blue, orange (one drop yellow and one drop red), and purple (one drop red and one drop blue)



(notice the water on the bottom of the baking sheet? It WILL bubble over and make a mess. Paper towels would be a good idea to bring...)

My plan:
We will review the first verse of How Firm a Foundation, with the picture visuals I taught them with, and tell them that I am looking for a super singer to help me with an experiment. After singing, I'll show them this board:


I'll pick my super singer to come up to the front and pick a spoon to mix into the solution. Once the potion has made its magic color, we'll erase the words on the board with that color. (I didn't have a yellow marker, so black will represent yellow). I'll pick several kids to come up and help erase the words so more kids will be able to participate.

Then we'll sing the verse again, this time with our board with colored words, and again, I'll tell them I am looking for a super singer to help me. Repeat the process as time allows, or until all the words are gone.

More Motivators!

MOTIVATORS: (Can be used to keep singing the same song over and over while keeping it fun.)

· CLAP, SNAP, STOMP – Use it individually or with partners. “Can your hands follow my hands?” Or use body rhythm pattern such as clap, clap snap, snap, stomp stomp. Partner Rhythm pattern such as patsch (pat thighs), clap, cross touch to elbows.

· DANCING SINGERS – Have a group of about 8 children come up to the front. Make a circle. Go around in a circle, stepping up tall on one beat and down low on the next and so on. Really fun for “Truth of Elijah”.

· DRESS THE MISSIONARY – Bring two sets of each item – suit coat, name tag, shoes, Book of Mormon, etc. Select two helpers. The team that sang the best got to “dress” their missionary. Then the team that had their missionary dressed the most when time ran out got to sing their favorite song.

· HOT & COLD – Make a note out of black poster board. Send one child out of the room. Hide the note. Then the children are to sing loudly if the “seeker” is “HOT” (near the note) or softly if the seeker is “COLD” or far away.

· MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS – The children love to play the tambourine, maracas, cymbals, rhythm sticks, etc. I love to pick them up at tag sales, thrift stores, etc. Or make your own. They’ll sing the same song 5 times in a row and not even notice.

· PAPER ORCHESTRA – This is so much fun! Everyone gets a piece of paper and you make different noises with the paper. You can roll it and sing through it, you can blow on it and make a squeaking noise, tap it for “raining” sound, use your imagination! Time is your only limit. At the end of our time, I have them tear them into little pieces and see how quietly they can sing to see if they can hear all the pieces hit the bottom of the trash can as everyone walks quietly by it.

· SCARF MOVEMENT – I bought a bolt of material at a sale really cheap! I cut it into squares. Each child gets a square or scarf. You “paint” with the scarf by moving them through the air. Such as: move it gently, it’s so gentle just like this song and just like Jesus.

· SHAKERS – (toilet paper tubes with rice) – I made shakers out of toilet paper tubes filled with uncooked rice. I wrapped them with wallpaper that I got free from a yard sale. The kids love to keep time or match the rhythm to the songs. Make sure the paper you wrap them in is pretty sturdy or you’ll have rice everywhere!

· SINGING IN A CAN – Cover a Pringles/peanut can with cute paper or musical notes. Make papers that give directions to sing such as: Sing with your eyes closed, Humming only, Sing with your favorite accent, Sing standing up, Sing with your nosed plugged, If you have a gerbil don’t sing, Sing every other word, Sing with your mouth closed, etc.

· SQUIRT GUN/CRYING MOTHER POSTER – I use this poster for Mother’s Day and for after the program. I drew a picture of a mother’s face, big on a poster board. I cut out her eyeballs and hold (usually ask for help) two squirt guns in the holes. As the children sing beautifully, the mother “cries” as she is touched by the beauty. This can get out of hand easily, but each time I have used it, the Spirit is strong and the kids try really hard to sing beautifully. I tell them they bring tears to my eyes sometimes. (This has to be done in “good taste”.)

· STOP & GO – Make a traffic light out of 2 black poster boards. Cut out 2 traffic lights and put red, yellow, and green cellophane in between where the lights should be. I let the children come up and shine a flashlight through the colors. We sang on green, stopped singing on red and did something different every time on yellow (girls, boys, clap to rhythm, hum, etc.)

· UMBRELLA/RAIN – I use a real umbrella and a mist bottle (squirt bottle) with plain water in it. I use the finest mist so no one really gets wet. As we are learning a song, the better they get the words and melody, the more it “rains”. I spray on top of the umbrella and the child is holding the umbrella. Once in a while I get a little crazy and spray toward the audience…oops!

· VOICES – I.e. Cowboy voice, opera voice, MoTab voice, mouse voice, boy voice, girl voice, etc… ***Note from Wendy: Be careful when using “voices”! The first time I used them, I made the mistake of using them while we were singing program songs and we ended up with “cowboy voice” on “I Know that My Redeemer Lives”. Not good! When singing reverent songs, I think it is best to stay away from “voices”. Instead, I prefer to teach the children to follow my hands dynamically – we can even crescendo and diminuendo now!***

· YARN SINGERS – I took 3 colors of yarn, cut them in different lengths and tied them all back together in no particular order. I wound them up and put them in a paper sack decorated really cute. As the children sang a child pulled the string between their hands. Each color determined who would sing. One color was for boys, one for girls, one for everyone. As the string was different lengths of colors, it was fun to see the “change”.

New Song Teaching/Review Ideas

· CROSSWORD PUZZLE 1 – Make up a crossword puzzle for the song you’re learning. The clues would be the key words to the song. (I had the key words to vs.1 all going across and vs.2 all going down.)

· DETECTIVE CLUELESS – Make up a question for each phrase of a song. Reduce font to smallest size possible. Label a large envelope “Classified Files”. Place the questions inside. Dress as Detective with trench coat/hat/sunglasses… Bring a magnifying glass. Make five question marks labeled with the five W’s – laminate, stick magnetic tape on back to place on chalkboard. Five important W’s. All detectives (or reporters) know that they need to ask these questions when looking for clues to solve a case. WHO-- WHAT-- WHEN-- WHERE-- WHY. For each question, call up a child (assistant detective) to read a question with the magnifying glass.

· ENVELOPE GAME – Print out the words to the song and cut them out. Make enough envelopes with song lyrics for groups of 3-4 children. I use pictures for Jr. Primary since they can’t read. As you all sing the song, they put the words (or pictures) in the correct order. Good way to learn a song!

· ERASURE PASS – Preparation: On the board is a list of words in groups of three. Each distinct group includes one word from the song being taught and two words that mean the same or opposite. Example: The song being taught is Seek the Lord Early. I would choose SEEK as my first word and with it place the words LOOK and SEARCH. My next group might be for the word YOUTH. With it CHILDHOOD and ADOLESCENCE. Another group might be FATHER, MOTHER and HOLY GHOST. Stand in front of the children and state the rules: 1 – No talking, 2 – No throwing the eraser, 3 – Give the eraser to someone who hasn’t had it, 4 – Erase only the words NOT in the song. (We want the words that remain on the board to be the words in the song in the order they appear in the song) and 5 - DO NOT STOP SINGING! (You may go through the song 10+ times before all the wrong words are erased.) The children then come up one at a time and erase one word not in the song. Teachers may help non-readers or you may need to prompt when few words are left. Make sure you keep the rules in effect. If a child erases a wrong word, be prepared to write it back on without stopping your singing. After all the wrong words are erased, have the children sing only the words on the boar. Then switch and have them sing all the words except the ones on the board. (This may take a while for them to catch on to. Especially since they don’t know the song to start with. Plan accordingly for time. Don’t use this with a long song!)

· LEPRECHAUNS & SHAMROCKS – This is a poster to help us learn songs. In each of the leprechauns hands are shamrocks that have phrases from the new song. I have also had the letter from each word on the shamrocks and they have to put them in the right order.

Miscellaneous

OTHER IDEAS:

· QUICK-DRAW SONG – When the attention is wandering or I just need to bring them back, I tell them we are going to do a “quick draw”. Everyone think of your favorite song. Put both hands on your knees. When I say, “Go!” raise your hand. The first one I see gets to pick the song, “On your mark. Get Set. Go!” This can also be like Pictionary where they draw a picture on the chalkboard of the song they want to sing.

· ROCKET – BLAST FROM THE PAST – (I am so going to do this for 2009!) – To incorporate past songs that the children have learned into weekly singing without always picking the same ones over and over, I am going to make a rocket out of a tall empty cheese ball or Pringles can with a lid. Decorate it to look like a rocket. Put all of the songs from the last several programs and any songs they already know from the book in it. Add the new songs as we learn them. This would also be good for substitutes or to hand over to a new chorister so they will be up on what songs the kids know.

· STAND UP, SIT DOWN – Print the key words to the song out. As you pull out the key words, you stand up and sit down when those words come in the song.

· YOU BE THE CHORISTER TODAY – I walk around and touch the children being most reverent and best examples. They get to lead the music in Primary that day. I’m still up there teaching but they get to lead.

Spaghetti Eddie

Audience: Both Jr & Sr

Preperation: Make a Speghettie Eddie poster. Put a hole in the mouth and string yellow yarn (speghetti). Laminate (I used clear contact paper).
In Action: I talked up my friend "Spaghetti Eddie" for two weeks. I told the kids that he loved music and when kids sing REALLY well, it makes him want to eat spaghetti and he LOVES spaghetti so they needed to learn the song. The second week, Eddie and I had a little talk and he didn't feel like they knew the song well enough for him to come, but he sent me with a coded message to help them better learn a verse that was giving them trouble. They were very motivated to really learn the song and sang their hearts out. Now he will come to church and the better they sing, the faster he'll slurp up his spaghetti. They will try to get him to finish the ENTIRE bowl before the end of singing time. You could incorporate other activities with Eddie (such as Don't Forget the Words or Keywords) at the same time.

Keyword Game

This is an idea found on sugardoodle that I plan to use with my Jr's tomorrow.

preparation: Print out or draw, many images of a key. I found a clipart one, copy and pasted it to word, and adjusted it to the size I wanted. Cut them out and LAMINATE, so you can use them again. Write, with a dry-erase marker, key words to a song. I am only doing the verse we are working on.

Put into action: Ask a child to leave the room. Invite another child to draw out a key word. (I'll place a sandwhich bag with the keys inside, in a hat.) Have the child tell the rest of the primary what the word is. For example, "Father". Invite the other child back into the primary room and to come up to the front. They can put on the hat if they want. Have the primary sing the song/verse but leave out the "keyword". The child with the hat will try to guess which word is the keyword.

Because it's JR primary, and many of them may not understand the concept or have the ability to leave out the word, I'll have a stop sign on a stick, that I'll hold up for the "hat child" on the keyword, then put down again, so they'll know which word we were supposed to leave out. :)

Rain, Rain

Audience: Junior and Senior Primary
Preparation:: Bring a squirt bottle with water and an umbrella

Details:Use this activity to review a song they already know. Invite a child or primary leader to come up to the front (pick someone you know will ENJOY this and not get upset if they get wet). Have them hold the umbrella and tell the group that the better they sing the more it rains. . . and if they sing REALLY well, the storm just might blow under the umbrella. As they sing, squirt the umbrella and if they are doing super well, sneak a few squirts underneath on the child. It is also fun to surprise the kids by occasionally squirting those sitting down.

Mystery poster

Audience: Junior and Senior Primary
Preparation: On posterboard, write out words to a verse of a song. Then, prepare blank strips to cover up specific words. On one side, put a question mark, on the other, write the word it is to cover up, lightly in pencil. Tape the blank strip with the question mark over the word.



Put into Action:
For Junior primary, we reviewed the verse we learned last week. Then, I challenged them to see who really knew the song. We went in order of the words, but when we got to the question strip, I would ask who knew what word should go there. I had the sunbeams take off the strip, to keep them involved. After we uncovered a line, we would sing the entire verse. Then we would uncover more words.

For Senior primary, we did the opposite. I had 3 or 4 children come up at a time and pick up the question strips. They looked at the pencil word, then covered up that word on the poster board. Then we sang the verse, covered up more words, sang again, etc. We didn't cover up all the words, but you could certainly do that!

Singing Dice

I made these blocks from 8x8 boxes I got at a mail & packing store, for about $1 each. I covered the sides with card stock paper in different colors. Then, I put contact paper over that, with clea packing tape on the edges to seal it. Now, I can use them for practically anything! You just tape on whatever you want, and take it off when you're done.

Today I put the different verses on one. Each side was labeled either Verse 1 or Verse 2. (You can use as many verses as you want..well, up to 6 that is...)

on the other box, I labeled each side with a different way to sing the song. These include:
Girls Sing
Boys sing
Stand up
Eyes Closed
Stand on one foot
March in place
Hum
Sing standing backwards
Clap Pattern (You can make these up, but today I did a 3/4 pattern. Slap the knees on beat one, then clap twice for beats 2 and 3)

There are more than 6 ideas, so I can change them out and add new ones, thanks to the laminated box.

You can also put dots on each side, to resemble a giant dice.