Fill-in-the-blank game

Lame title, I know.  Let me know if you can think of something else to call this...

So, the songs have hopefully all been taught, and now we just need to polish up and review all the songs from the year. 

This is a quick-prep activity that you can use on many songs, or just one song. 

We chose to work on just one song.

Object: 

When the piano stops playing, fill in the words. 

Game: 

1)  Have two players come up to the front of the room.

2)  Roll the dice to find out how many words the kids will need to remember, after the pianis t stops playing.  (For example, I rolled a 5)

3) Start singing the song, and the pianist will pick a spot to stop playing. 

4) Starting with the next word, the kids will need to fill in the next words. Since we rolled a   five, the kids will need to write in the next five words. I love my dry-erase boards for this, but you could also use the chalkboard, or a regular piece of paper.

5) This is NOT a race game, so if BOTH kids get it correct, both teams get a point.

6) In between "rounds," we sang through the whole song/verse. While we were singing, I'd walk around and pick the next two players, and motion them to come up to the front. I like this game, because there is really little "down time" and the kids need to concentrate on the exact words.

7) The "winning team" got to listen to a personal performance of the song/verse, by the losing team. :)

Tips: 

Some primaries may not be able to "handle" competition games, and be so concerned about the losing/winning that reverence becomes an issue. I have a great primary who just enjoys playing the game, so we can do these competition games.

I think this is appropriate for SR primary only, since writing words is involved. You could play a similar game with the juniors, by just having them SAY the words.

Skittles game

on our new facebook page, Annie left this idea just moments after I started up the page. I can tell the facebook page is going to be a great resource for ideas and information! Check it out!

Skittles game:

(As always, be sensitive to food allergies.

Fruity candy is usually safe, but always get approval from the primary presidency first!)

"We take a bag of Skittles and I draw names and the child comes to the front of the room. They close their eyes and put a skittle in their mouth and try to guess the color. If they get it right then the get to pick a song, but if it's wrong then it's my choice. It's a great way to review program songs, the kids love it, and it's super easy...hardly any planning involved. I always give each child 3 or 4 skittles after singing time so there's no fighting."

Some variations I thought of for reviewing ONE song:

• You could use this like I use the magic potion game. Write out the words to a song on a dry-erase board using marker colors to match the colors of skittles you have. If they guess the correct color, you erase that color of a word. If they guess it wrong, you don't erase any words. You can switch this, depending on the tendency of your primary, i.e. they prefer to get them wrong so they don't have to erase any words. :)
• The color of the skittle represents a certain phrase of a song. If they guess it right, they sing just that phrase. If they guess it wrong, you sing the entire song.
• The colors represent different ways to sing the song, if guessed correctly. If guessed wrong, you just sing it normal.
• Do you have any ideas? suggestions?

Love this idea, Annie! Thanks so much!

Lesson plan for Sunday

Here is my "lesson plan" for Sunday

Review song: "Follow the Prophet"

I'm going to bring in a few rhythm instruments:

a triangle

wood agogo (I had to google it to find out what it was called...:)

Guiro

maraca

One at a time, I'll have a child come and play one of the following rhythms while we sing a verse of the song:

For example, on the triangle, the child will play the quarter note, followed by 3 quarter rests. (I'll help them if needed)


For Senior primary, we'll add on each time we sing. So, we'll have the triangle play the first rhythm, the agogo play the second rhythm, the guiro the third rhythm, and the maraca play the rhythm of the melody, all playing simultaneously.

For Junior's, we'll keep it simple, by having just one instrument and one rhythm at a time.

Month's Song:  "Come Follow Me"

I'm going to try the "Balloon-pass"  found on this blog. I'm focusing on the first verse this week, and will learn the 4th verse next week. 

Idea: Pass around a blown-up balloon while singing through the song. Whoever has the balloon when the song ends, will pop it. (For kids that are afraid of the popping, have a pair of sissors to trim off the knot, so it won't "pop". ) 

Inside the balloon, is a paper with a question or scenario. Have the child read and answer the scenario/question. Continue with a new balloon. 

I'm slightly worried about kids holding on to the balloon so they can pop it, instead of passing it on...so I'll try to think of a remedy for this....

I hope to sing through the song 5 times, so here are my 5 questions:

1) My brother hit me, because I wouldn’t let him have a turn playing a game on the computer. What should I do?

  

2) Mom is calling for me, and I know she’s going to ask me to do a chore, but I’m busy doing something. What should I do?

3) I’m bored in sacrament meeting. What should I do?

4) Name one way we can follow the savior.

5) We just did a fun activity for sharing time and my friends are having a hard time remembering how to be reverent. What should I do?

*A special thanks to my own children for the inspiration behind these scenarios....

TIP: We have two singing times, one for Junior, and one for Senior, so I printed out two sets of questions, and have them pre-stuffed in the balloons. I don't want to haul around a bag of blown-up balloons, so I'll blow and tie them up behind the piano, during the opening exercises.

I have a bag for Junior primary, and a bag for Senior primary.

Other song:  "Here Comes the Ox Cart"

I do NOT like to spend a lot of time on visuals, unless I plan on using them over and over.  However, I made an exception for this song.  I am NOT an artist...which might help explain the gigantic cart pulled by the tiny ox....oh well....

The wheel turns with a little handle on the back. 

It's some hardware thing I found in my husband's tool box that is attached to a screw from the other side.

The kids can turn the wheel slowly, as we sing the song.

To introduce the song, I'll ask them to listen to what kind of song the wheel is.

(Sing the song for them)

        I cut the wheel into wedges that can be lifted up, to reveal a question about the song. 

I'll have a child lift a flap, read the question, we'll sing the song, and then have the primary answer the question.

Questions:

1) How many times do we sing "creak"?

2) What is the wheel made of?

3) What kind of animal pulls the cart?

4) How fast does the cart go?

I put a little piece of double-sided tape under the wedges, so they would stay down when I needed them to.

You can easily put actions to this song. Have the kids roll their arms, and then bend from side to side at the waist for the "creak" part. I think this could be a fun "wiggle" song for July.

Potato Head Review

For Mother's day, I wanted to do something motherly-related for singing time.

I got the inspiration from this blog. She had real mom items to dress up with, but I didn't have enough of these things, so I came up with using the Potato-head toy.

This would work well for Father's day, or any day, for that matter.

This IS a "competition" game, which I generally try to stay away from. I did preface this game to the kids, by saying that we are often discouraged by competition games, because sometimes, the kids get too wrapped up in winning the game, instead of just having fun playing the game. Then I told them that I have been watching them for the 2 years that I have had this calling, and felt like it is something they could handle. I knew that THEY knew how to have fun, without making others feel bad, or getting out of control.

They did just fine. :)

Anyway. On to the game:

I had prewritten two posters with blanks on them. Except for the color of marker, the posters are the same.  I used heavy duty magnets, and posted them on the blackboard.

Each team gets a Mrs. Potato Head set.

(I think we had glasses and the purse too, but I forgot about these when I took the picture)

The game:

1) The primary sings the song continually, until the game is over (the poster is filled in).

2) Each person fills in TWO words on the poster, and puts ONE piece on the potato head.

(We had 11 pieces, so that makes 22 words to fill-in on the poster)

3) Once you have played, you can not go again. (I wanted to make sure that not the same 5 people were playing the game.) We let teacher's play as well.

4) First team to complete their poster and have the MOST complete Mrs. Potato head, wins. 

5) If you are caught NOT singing, I will pull off a part from your assembled potato head. I HIGHLY recommend doing this, or they get too caught up in the game, and forget to sing. I DID take off a piece or two during our game...

This was such a big hit, and I know THEY know the words to the song now. When the game was over, I didn't say anything about the "winner", but as soon as the winning team had one, I just stopped the game and said "Great job everyone! you guys did awesome!" and moved on to the next thing in my lesson plan.

April: week 4 (Test)

Hat/Mystery word game

***This is not my original idea. I have no idea the original source, as I have seen it in numerous places...***

Update: I tried this with my junior and Sr. Primary today, and they loved the game....the Hat....no so much. Only one little girl wore it.  :) I just held up the cards so the primary could see. Thanks to a comment left by Dana, who suggested  taping the card to the kids' heads. That could be fun! Also eliminates concerns about lice. Ack! Thanks Dana!!!

This game is similar to the keyword game.

I have 4x6 index cards, that I have written a key word on. 

In primary, pick one of these cards, or have a child pick a card.

Invite another child to come up and wear the hat. 

Once the hat is on, show the card so everyone BUT the child wearing the hat, can see the word. 

For Juniors: you might have the child go out in the hall, and then tell them what the word is.

Then, sing the song, but do NOT sing the word that is on the hat. At the end of the song, the child wearing the hat tries to guess which word is on the hat.

Hint: Help out your primary by putting your finger to your lips as if to "hush" them when the key word comes up in the song...

My key words for "The church of Jesus Christ" are: Know, Believe, Follow, name, right, light, proclaim, etc...

(this is my son. Isn't he handsome?)

March: week 1 & 2 (introduce and reinforce)

Sorry this is getting out so late. I had orginally been planning on doing something completely different, but after I had made it last night, it just didn't seem right. I'll probably use it for something else, so stay tuned!

For our primary, I've decided to teach the entire primary just the 1st verse about Adam, and the verse about President Monson (in the March 2010) friend. Then, I'll have 5 other groups/classes sing verses for 5 other prophets. I'll include those below.

Update: I've been getting lots of questions about if I will do both Monson and Adam in the same week. I think I will do Monson first, and then Adam next week, using the same idea. I just don't see how I can put up another set of footprints without wasting everyone's time. Besides, after introducing the chorus, and working on the new verse, I don't think there will be extra time.

To start off, I'll ask the kids to pretend we are going on a hike in the mountains. It is very dark. What tool could we use to help us see better. When they say "flashlight", I'll show them my flashlight. I'll tell them that the light from the flashlight will help us to stay on the path, and not fall off or to go "astray". I'll tell them that to go astray, means to go off the right path.

Then I'll show them a picture of a President Monson, and ask them who it is. We'll talk about how a prophet is like a flashlight, in that he helps us to stay on the path of righteousness, so we can return to our Heavenly Father. Our Prophet can guide us because he knows the way!

I'll sing the chorus to them once, asking them to count how many times I sing "Follow The Prophet."
(six). Arizona forever, posted a great video of ASL for the chorus.

Then I'll show them the board (I'll use the bulletin board) with footprints all over it. At the Top Left Corner of the board, I will have a picture of a group of people (Go to sugardoodle.net for clipart) and at the Bottom right, I'll have a picture of the Prophet we are singing about.

Each footprint has part of a phrase on it, (i.e. Adam was a prophet, Adam was a Bishop, First one that we know, Fifth one that we know, etc.) You'll notice, some of the phrases are found in the song, and others are slightly different.

I'll tell them that we have to follow the footprints to get to the Prophet, but only some footprints will lead us in the right direction. Some footprints have one word that is not part of the song. When we find a footprint with the wrong words on it, we'll take it down. By the time we are finished, we should be left with a footprint path that leads from us to the Prophet. (see picture below)

To play, I'll have a child come and pick any footprint. I'll ask them if those are the right words, or the wrong words. Some are pretty obvious, but others would make complete sense. If they are not sure, we'll sing the verse together as a primary and have them listen extra carefully. Then I'll ask them again if it belongs or not.

Here are links to footprints with the Adam and Monson verses on them. If you are having problems downloading them, it is probably because I have Microsoft Office 2004 and you have a newer version. For some reason, it's messing up the format.

Follow the prophet footprints .doc


Follow the prophet Adam footprints 1 .doc

You'll want to pre-plan your maze route, and put the footprints up in the right spots, or it won't work! :) (see the example below) Remember, to take down the wrong footprints. You should only be left with the footprints that make the path to the Prophet.

Here is a link to some blank footprints, so you can copy as many as you want and write in your own words.

blank footprint.doc

Here are our other verses, that will be given out to classes later. All these were found in the Friend, and I got approval to sing. I'll probably at least sing through them once in the coming weeks, but we won't spend a lot of time on them.

Nephi: (June, 2001 Friend, Page 46)

Nephi was a prophet, tried to get the plates.

He dressed up as Laban by the city gates

With his brothers waiting, Nephi went inside.

He knew God would help him, and with him abide.

Samuel: (June, 2001 Friend, Page 46)

Samuel the prophet, Lamanite by birth,

Prophesied the time when Christ would come to Earth.

Cried to all, "Repentence!", shouted from the wall.

Wicked would not listen, tried to make him fall.

Joseph: (June, 2001 Friend, Page 46)

Joseph was a prophet, first one in our day.

He saw God and Jesus when we went to pray.

he prayed with great faith to know which church was true,

Jesus said to "Join none. Truth shall come through you."

Monson: March 2010 Friend, page 25 written on the picture of president Monson in bottom Right Hand corner)

Heavenly Father loves us, and wants us to return,

he blesses us with peophets who help us to learn.

President Monson humbly leads God's church today.

As we heed his words, we'll walk a righteous way

We will also be doing Daniel, and Noah from the song book.

January week 5: Game

I wanted desperately to get this posted before today, but it just didn't happen. However, I am SO happy to report from personal experience, that this worked AWESOME for our primary!

I have the entire primary time for singing time on 5th Sundays, so I took the opportunity to play a game with the kids.

FOOTBALL! 

I got the idea from the primary music group on yahoo groups. (If you are not a member, SIGN UP!) There are some awesome ideas and helps! Thanks Angie Rhodes, for the awesome ideas and questions! (I don't know if you check this blog or not, but I wanted to make sure I give you the credit for this great idea!)

I probably put in way too much time on this, but I love how it turned out. You could just draw one out on the chalk board when you get to church, and keep it simple. The kids will still have fun!

I printed off three footballs from the internet onto card stock. One ball was used for the 1st verse, another for the chorus, and the third for the 2nd verse.

On the back of each football, I wrote a "Wiggle song". (see examples below)

To play, I first chose someone to come pick our game ball, and set it on the 20 yard line. 

Then we sang through the verse/chorus, and I told them to pay special attention to the words. Then I asked them some questions (posted below). If they answered correctly, which of course they did, I would move the ball to the next yard line...or so. I tried to move the ball so that by the time they answered the last question, they would make a touch down.

We had fun raising both our arms in the air to say "GOAL!" when we made it. 

After every 3 or 4 questions, we would sing through the verse, to keep it "fresh" in our minds. 

The wiggle songs I chose, were to really give them a break and get up and m.o.v.e!

 Here's what we did:

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes:  We all stood up, and did the actions, like normal. The next time through, we stood still except for the last word (nose) and pointed to it, but didn't sing the word. The next time, we added the action to the next to last word (point to mouth) and did not sing it as well.  So every time you sing the song, you add another word to be left off and point to that body part in its place. By the final time through, there will be no singing, and only pointing to the body parts. (Is that completely confusing?!) Sorry! I actually only tried this with Sr. primary and they loved it. I think Jr.'s would like it too)

Give Said the Little Stream: You can read about how to do this here. This is one of our favorite wiggle songs, and I LOVE to see the concentration on their faces!

Popcorn popping: I got this idea from another blog...but can't remember who. (Ugh, I'm so bad about that! SORRY!) Anyway, the tuba section of the BYU marching band, will sometime play "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree". They only do this when we're winning (I was a member of the band for 3 years while at BYU). When they play, the fans will randomly jump out of their seats, like popcorn popping.  When we do this with the primary, there's not so much singing happening, but they love it and it helps to get the wiggles out! 

Questions used: Again, these are Angie's questions, so I take NO credit for them! I loved the more thought provoking questions such as "What does it mean to "Give My Heart to Him." I was really impressed with the answers that even the sunbeams gave. It was an awesome experience.

**for the fill-in-the-blank questions, I raised a finger for each blank instead of saying "A blank blank blank in a beautiful place. I told them to listen for the missing words. They got it.

Verse 1:

1) A __ __ __ in a beautiful place 

2) Who was gathered 'round Jesus? a) people b) children c) apostles

3) He __ and __ as they felt of His love.

4) Each saw the (what) on His face? a) lines b) beard c) tears

5) The __ that He __ for His __ ones

6) I know He feels for (who)? a) me b) you c) us

7) I did not __ __ or __ on His __

__, Jesus is real to me.

8) What scripture story could the first verse be talking about?

9) How can Jesus be real to you if you didn't see him in person?

When they are done answering these questions, they should have made a touch-down and are now ready to take a break and do the wiggle song listed on the back of the ball. A NEW game-ball is chosen and placed on the 20 yard line. 

Chorus:

1) I know He (what)? a) gives b) loves c) lives

2) I will follow __

3) __ __ I give to Him

4) I know that (who) loves me? a) Heavenly Father b) my Savior c) my

mommy (I emphasized that although all three of these individuals love us, the answer is the one sung about in 

the song)

5) What does "My heart I give to Him" mean?

6) When we sing about something we know, it is the same as what?

(bearing testimony)

Verse 2:

1) Now __ __ __ in a beautiful place

2) (what) the teachings of Jesus? a) teaching b) hearing c) learning

3) Parents and teachers will __ __ the __

4) (what) my path every day? a) lighting b) righting c) fighting

5) __ in the __ of my Savior's love

6) I feel His (what) touch. a) tender b) gentle c) loving

7) __ each day, I will __ His way

8) Home to my (what) above. a) Father b) Savior c) heaven

9) Living __ __, I will follow __ __

10) How do parents and teachers help guide the way?

11) We sing "Living each day I will follow His way." How does that lead us  "home to [our] Father above?"

Pumpkin song pick

OOPS! I thought I had this one posted! Pumpkins are still in season though, right?! 

Our program is over! YAY! I don't normally get teary in public, but those kids definitely made it hard to keep the tears from flowing as we sang Families can be Together Forever with the congregation. They did absolutely fantastic. AND, I didn't even need the motivational chart!

For primary, after the program, we gave the kids a little break and just sang some of the fun "wiggle" songs. I wanted a fun way to choose the songs though, so I found this idea on sugardoodle posted by Amanda Fennema.

I took a pumpkin and printed our various facial features for our Mr. Pumpkin. I cut them out, and wrote a song title on the back. I chose a child to come up and pick a feature and put it on the pumpkin. I put double sided sticky tape on the back of the features and it worked ok. However, next time I will probably do it like ChicoandJo.com (the pictures below came from their site.)

For the eyes, I just wrote down one song title on one, and had them put up in pairs. You could write the same title twice, or you could just have them pick one eye at at time, so each eye has a different title. The kids really had fun making their own pumpkin face, and getting to do all those action songs.

I found templates for face features here:

Primary song hospital

This seems to be a very popular idea, as I read lots of "Versions" on it at sugardoodle and yahoogroups

I read through them all and mixed and matched ideas to fit what I thought would work for our primary.

Before hand, I asked a brother in our ward to be our Doctor. I picked this brother in particular, because he has a background in music, which is helpful for "diagnosing" our primary.

I made this board from a tri-fold display bought at target. I spent WAY too much time drawing my "floating" hospital (I think I still need some lessons in art and drawing 2 dimensional figures...) So hopefully you can think of something MUCH simpler.

The inside is pretty boring. I ran out of time to decorate it more...which may be a good thing. :)



The inside says "Primary Song Hospital."

On each of the three sections, I taped the edges of a file folder together, and taped that on to each section. The sections were labeled "waiting room", "Emergency Room" and "Discharge".

I printed out forms for each of the songs, with a separate sheet for each verse. I was worried that we would run out of time. After having done it, I would recommend having one sheet per song, despite the number of verses. We weren't able to get through all of the songs.

I placed all of the sheets in the folder labeled "Waiting Room"



I did this on the 5th Sunday, on which I have the entire singing/sharing time for just singing.

I introduced our Doctor, outfitted with a white lab coat, stethoscope around his neck, and a clipboard. Then we had a volunteer "nurse" pick out a patient to be diagnosed. The nurse gave the paper to the Doctor, and we sang the song, then had the Dr. tell us our diagnosis. Our Doctor did a fantastic job in telling them "good news" and "bad news".

If the song got below a 4 in any category (words, smiles, watching chorister, melody, etc.) then it was sent to the emergency room. For Juniors, I'd pick an "ambulance driver" to drive the paper to the emergency room, and we all made siren noises.

If the song was discharged (meaning only 4 or 5's) then the entire primary received a squirt of "Miracle Spray". This is just lemon crystal light in a spray bottle. I told the kids to say "AHHH" if they wanted some, and if they didn't to just keep their mouths closed. THIS was a HUGE hit.

I wish we had been able to go through all the songs and then had time to work on getting the Emergency Room patients discharged...but maybe next time.

Little People review

Hi! I'm back! I'm sorry for the lack of posts, but we've recently moved...took forever to get the internet hooked up...went on vacation...blah blah blah...

Anyway, I've been anxious to post this idea I used a few weeks back. It worked surprisingly well!

We had learned the verses to Families are together forever the previous week. So, this week, I reminded them about the song we had learned about "families". Then I brought out a family of "little people". I had a Dad, Mom, Brother, Sister, and Baby.

I told the kids to look at them very carefully. After a few seconds, I covered them up, and we sang through one of the verses.
When we finished singing, I took away one of the figures (all still covered up), then had them guess which one I took. They had no problems figuring it out.

but then...

we added the family "pets".

For junior primary I added them two at a time. For Senior primary, I just stuck them all out at once. After adding the figures, we'd cover them up, sing a verse, then I'd call a volunteer to take one away, then they'd guess which one was missing.

We played this Over and over and over, so they didn't notice how many times we sang through the verses! At the end, I told them I was going to try to make it harder, by having the sing BOTH verses...giving them more time to forget! They loved the challenge. My own kids begged to play the game when we got home from church.

Can you tell which one is missing?

When I do this again, I plan on bringing in "extended" family, i.e. aunts, uncles, cousins, etc! :)

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****

Teaching scramble game

I'm excited to share something that worked AWESOME for me today. This can be used with ANY song, but worked particularly well with this one, since it wasn't "wordy" and on the slow side.


(This was for SENIOR primary. I'm working much more slowly with the Jr'.s and have been doing more basic activities with simple visuals. I think Jr.'s could do this if there were pictures, rather than words)


Last week I introduced this song with this awesome idea from this blog
Some changes I did were: My pictures were on half a sheet of colored paper, I didn't use Popsicle sticks (just the picture backed on colored paper), and I changed some of the words that were colored to fit the visuals I could find...not change the words themselves of course, but which words were colored. :) For example, I didn't color the word "Obedience" as that was a visual I found hard to find, but colored "Father" instead. I tried to have the same amount of colored words per verse. I hope that wasn't too confusing! :)

Anyway, I felt this song was simple enough to introduce ALL three verses at once. Then I could work on individual verses as needed.

This week, I wanted to focus on the 2ND verse of Baptism.

I cut out 2 1/4" in. strips from a poster board (4 of them) and wrote the four phrases on them, like this:


I took the four strips to church with me. We sang through the 3 verses, using the idea from last week, where the kids stand up on the words of the picture. Then I posted the four strips on the blackboard with magnets, in a mixed up order. I called on a volunteer to put the strips in order while the rest of the primary sang with the poster.

She was able to do it, no problem. So then I challenged them to do something harder. I took a pair of scissors and chopped a few of the phrases up like this:
Then the first volunteer and I mixed up the phrases again and called on another volunteer to come up and put the phrases together and in the right order. They started rearranging the pieces the same time we started singing the verse.

If they were unable to put the pieces back together before we finished singing the "round" was not mastered. I would let them finish putting the pieces back together while we waited (usually just a few seconds), we'd mix them up and call on another person to try. If they DID succeed in putting the phrases back together before we finished singing, it was too "easy" so I chopped a paper or two to make 1 or 2 more pieces.


We have more than 20 kids in Sr. primary and everyone who wanted to have a turn (which was all but one or two) got to have a chance at unscrambling the phrases. They loved it! Sometimes I had to remind the others to keep singing as they were caught up in the volunteer's efforts. I held up the poster with all the words until I noticed that the kids were singing, but no longer looking at the words. YAY! :)

This is how the pieces looked on the board after every turn. I'd have the volunteer who just finished rearranging the pieces, help me mix them up again.

***Towards the end, when there were the most pieces, I brought out my conducting baton (I never use this...I still have it from my band directing days...) and they could just point to the scattered pieces as we sang them. I've heard of people using fly swatters and swatting the phrases...but as this is a more reverent song, I didn't feel that was appropriate.****