Miscellaneous...

I just had a couple of random things I wanted to share with you.

First of all, I wanted something to help the kids track their progress in learning the program songs.

You may remember this post, which I used for last year's program to help motivate them to sing out.

           I loved the "grading chart" that I have seen in other places, but wanted to simplify it for the younger kids. After all, my 1st grader doesn't really understand what an A+ verses a C- means. So, I kept with the same theme, and used the same smiley faces.

            I plan on bringing it out on the 4th Sunday, when we are "testing" the song. I played around with just posting the smiley that they are on, or to keep all the smileys up as they earn them. Still not sure about that, but for now, all of the smiley's are going up. I am leaning toward just posting one smiley per song. So, if they are doing "great" then, that Smiley will be the only one on the row.  (The Extra songs are songs our presidency has picked out that we would like to use, in addition to the others, for the primary program)

            I like to figure out what songs we are singing for the entire month. I made this chart on in excel, and just update it for each month. Before the first sunday of each month, I'll e-mail the file to the pianist and presidency members.  Ironically, I was the one that could never find the paper after I printed it out, so I finally taped it to the inside of my primary songbook. This has been working great for me! I always know where it is!

Here is a close up of the chart: 

         I mainly pick an opening song, list the songs I plan on using during singing time, a closing song, a birthday song (I get stuck in a rut and can't remember which songs we have sung), a welcome song and then I list a handful of wiggle songs that we can jump too if needed. 

        Lastly, we are doing the songs of the heart idea. I can't remember where I read about it, but thought it was a great idea. I just cut out a bunch of papers with hearts on them, and asked the kids to write down their favorite primary song. We keep the jar in the closet in the primary room, and I get it out each week. If we have extra time (HA!) we'll pull it out and draw out a song or too. 

       I went through all the cards and wrote down a list for the pianist with the page numbers. There are a few more "unfamiliar" songs that were written down, at least for our primary, such as "We'll Bring His World His Truth" so I'll make copies of that so we can have that for the kids who don't know the song so well. 

New year's resolution (s?)

I love New Year's because of "resolutions" I make. I know I won't end up following through with most of them (how pathetic is that to admit?), but I love how it motivates me to TRY and be a better person. :)

So, I'd like to share three of my resolutions with you:

Number 1:  Have regular posts on this blog. IDEALY, I'd like to plan out a whole month at a time. I will basically be posting my lesson plan and ideas for each Sunday. Mainly this is for a selfish purpose: to help me plan ahead so I'm not fumbling around Saturday night trying to come up with something to do in the morning. However, I do hope you find something YOU can use in your primary. This blog used to have several authors, but they have now all been released, and it is only me now. If any of you want to contribute, LET ME KNOW! :)

I will probably use a lot of the same ideas as last year, since it has been a year since the kids have seen them, and why stress out about always trying to come up with something new?

Number 2: And because I like to contradict myself (just ask hubby) I'd also like to try to come up with more original (aka, ideas from my OWN brain) ideas. I may not post many, but It's not very helpful to go from blog to blog and find the same idea reposted (okay, so I'm mainly the one found guilty of this...hence the resolution to be better....)

Number 3: Help you guys out with "flipcharts". I seem to get a lot of requests for the ones I made, so I'll try to find a more efficient way of getting them to you, instead of you having to leave an e-mail. (Although it was really fun to see how many of you wanted them!)

So, to start, I decided I needed to get organized. When I was called as chorister, I inherited a box full of "visuals". I went through every envelope to see if the contents were something I would use, and if so, I packaged them up, and labeled them with the song title.

Then I placed them in my box (wasn't trying too hard to find a nice container for them, and this box fit perfectly...) and put them in alphabetically, according to the song's title.

I don't use a lot of poster boards  (I find them a pain to store) and when I do need a "poster" I usually use my dry-eraser board.  I also put in my game and review contents, such as the keywords, puzzle pieces, hit-or-miss game pieces,  mystery word covers, etc.

Inside the song envelopes are anything I used to teach those songs. I use a lot of small visuals that the kids can hold and move around on a chalkboard, and then the 81/2 x 11 pages that I put in my "song book." (see below)

Now my "songbook" is empty and ready to go for the new year. I hope to have my plans ready for Sunday in the next day or two, so check back soon!

As always,

visual story book

I bought a book at a church bookstore, that contained visuals for all of the 2009 program songs. I colored them, cut them out, and laminated them. We played games with them as we learned the song, so I liked having them seaparated. However, I'm done with them now, and since the kids pretty much know the song, I didn't know what to do with them.





I got the idea of putting together a book from this site, to put them in a book, along with the lyrics. This way, if we're singing the song as opening or closing, or a quick review, I don't have to fumble through a bunch of pictures. I plan on doing this with all of the "program" songs, to keep them in one book. The pictures are laminated, so I can just pull them off of the paper and use them without the book again. I LOVE LAMINATING! :)