Popcorn Popping

I came across some notes from a singing time I did sometime in the past year. It didn't take the whole singing time, maybe 5 minutes, 10 tops, but was a fun exercise in dynamics and getting the wiggles out. I guess I must have done it when I had a singing time activity that wasn't going to take very long.

For once this is actually all me (I "borrow" ideas from blogs all the time!!). I talked to the kids about dynamics and how they could look at the way I was moving my arms to know whether they should sing loudly or softly. We also talked about how my arms would tell them when to stop singing and when to start again.

We sang through Popcorn Popping (actions included, of course--for the kids anyway, since they were supposed to watch my arms) with differing dynamics. For the first few lines I conducted with tiny movements and crouched down a little, and we almost whispered the song. Then I moved my arms wide, back and forth and up and down and got into it with my body too, and we sang it loudly ("Never Louder Than Lovely" of course...although in my opinion it's hard to be too loud when singing. Screaming is too loud, otherwise the louder the better!). I love getting way into this with my body and the kids respond well to it too. I love watching conductors who really get into it at classical performances. I could never be a real conductor, since I lack all the training and most of the talent, but I always think it looks like so much fun.

Anyway, we did that a few times until we got to the line "A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet," at which point I cut them off and we all pretended to smell our popcorn ball with a deep breath in and out (in through the nose, out through the mouth). Then we sang the rest of the song.

It sounds totally corny (bahaha) but it was very fun and the kids loved it. We still sing "Popcorn" that way sometimes (pausing and smelling the popcorn ball) especially if they need to get wiggles out. I have my kids do deep breaths a lot--my own kids at home as well as the Primary kids--in order to calm down. Just kind of a fun, random way to incorporate it into singing time.

Saturday Pictionary

Well, I'm trying. I think maybe I need to set an alarm on my phone to remind myself to post each week about what I did in singing time.

Have I said that already?

This week I planned to do a Halloween sort of thing, I had these paper jack-o-lanterns left over from last year and thought maybe I would do Spin the Teacher with them. (Spin the Teacher is a big favorite with my kids, an idea I got from The Crazy Chorister long ago.) But then I was checking my blog reader on Sunday morning and saw a new post from Camille's Primary Ideas about teaching the song "Saturday". I thought it sounded perfect so I blatantly copied it. The kids loved it! Some of them were familiar with the song already but practically none of them knew the actual words.

To sum up, I had slips of paper with lines from the song:

clean the house

shop at the store 

brush our clothes

shine our shoes

trim our nails

shampoo our hair

and we basically played Pictionary. For Junior Primary I had the teachers come up and draw. For Senior Primary I had the kids draw. It was really fun.

In Junior Primary we sang the song a little at a time, over and over to really get it into their heads. For example, once we learned the lines about cleaning and shopping, we sang up to that point. Then when we learned the lines about brushing clothes and shining shoes, we sang again from the beginning up to that point. Etc. That took up all of singing time. For Senior Primary I didn't think we needed to sing it quite so many times, so we drew all the pictures before singing the song all the way through. Then we had a little time left over, so I chose kids to make up their own "chores" (they whispered them in my ear first to make sure they were appropriate) and draw them. Then we sang our own made-up verse.

Also, before we started in Senior Primary I asked all the kids who had their own Children's Songbooks to hold them up in the air. Then I pretended to collect them, and kids who didn't have Children's Songbooks also pretended to turn theirs in. It's great sometimes to have the kids have their own songbooks, but for something like Pictionary that kinda ruins the game.

Also, both Junior and Senior Primary got a kick out of pretending to shampoo their hair. That kind of surprised me but it was fun.

I love using the chalkboard because it's so simple and the kids love it. Definitely a successful day.