Where Do You Belong?

I ran across an old Senior Primary singing time which I thought was really successful. "The Church of Jesus Christ" was a program song a few years ago and I got this idea from a blog somewhere--unfortunately I'm really not sure although it's likely it was The Crazy Chorister, who was my muse for at least the first year I was chorister.

Anyway, I printed out the Church logo extra large--I think I enlarged it on the photocopier at church and it was probably on an 11x17 sheet. Then I covered it up with several easily recognizable "worldly" ;) logos which I found on Google Images. Here's the list I have in my files--I won't upload the actual images since that would take too long and I already should be getting ready for church right about now:

Apple

Mercedes

McDonald’s

Disney

Target

Wii

Xbox

Barbie

Bakugan

iCarly

The Suite Life

Hannah Montana

Guitar Hero

High School Musical

Washington Redskins

Halo

Lego

Where the Wild Things Are

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Yu-Gi-Oh!

Anyway, I taped all the logos so that they covered the Church logo. As we sang "The Church of Jesus Christ," I walked around with my poster and offered it to various kids inviting them to take one. Each took one until the Church logo was revealed. We had a nice talk about where we "belong," what we value and how long things of the world last versus things of eternity. I am 99.9% sure that I didn't use this activity for junior Primary, I think we did something else, but it was a nice opportunity to talk about the meaning of the song for the senior kids, who already knew the song anyway.

Paper Instruments

Today is our last singing time before the program, since next week we are practicing in the chapel and the week after that is our program. The songs this year were so easy for the kids that they really have them all down pretty well. So I'm going to do a "game" I did a few years ago which the kids loved. Our ward changes so often with move-ins and move-outs that I'm sure most of the kids in our current Primary either weren't there when I did it before, or won't remember it. It's from Divine Secrets of a Primary Chorister and I put the word "game" in quotes because it isn't really a game. Just sort of a funny, simple activity. Original idea here: Adventures with Paper. I'll copy the text in case she takes her site down in the future.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Adventures With Paper

This is such a simple idea, but it turned out really, really well. I was a bit worried that it would be too simple, but it turned out perfect!

I cut normal 8.5x11" paper in half. I then gave each child one of these. I handed out pencils and told them to write their favorite song on it (the little kids only had to write their name on it). Then we turned the paper into instruments.

I chose a random word from the song we were practicing. Whenever we sang that word, we would do something with the paper. For example, if we were singing "To Think About Jesus", I might choose the word 'still'. So whenever we sang the word 'still', we wouldsnap our papers (grab each end, and quickly pull out to make it 'snap'). Then I'd change it so that if we sang the word 'Jesus', we would flap our paper in the air (this makes more noise than you would think). And so on and so forth.

Somehow this kept the kids' attention and really had them concentrating on the words at the same time. It was amazing. Finally, when we had just a couple of minutes left, I told them to crumple their papers into a ball. Then I told them to throw their papers at me.

It took a second to clear the shock from their minds, and then the paper balls came flying. I hammed it up, pretending to cower and shriek as they pummeled me with their papers. It made it even more fun for them. I chose a crumpled paper at random, and whatever fun song was on their, that's what we sang (for the little kids I called out whoever's name was on their and they got to pick a fun song). This turned out fabulously!!

Side note: When I did this the first time, I kept the papers that the senior Primary threw at me with their favorite songs written on them and put them in a bag. I chose songs from that whenever I had extra time to sing during Primary.