Sunday, November 27, 2011

November - Week 1 - Reverence is Love, Samuel Tells the Story of Baby Jesus, Two Happy Feet

Week 1 focused on learning three new songs:
1. Reverence is Love - p.31
2. Samuel Tells the Story of baby Jesus - p.36
3. Two Happy Feet - p. 270

Reverence is Love

The theme for November was "reverence," so after reading the lesson outlines for the children, I decided to teach them a song that some knew, but most didn't know, called, "Reverence is Love." I was going to make my own pictures to help the children remember the lines of the song, but I actually found two different sets that other primary choristers had prepared, and used theirs.

However, I started off with a game. This was also an idea that the previous primary choristor had printed off so I don't know where she found it, but it was probably someone else's blog. I put hints under giant musical notes, which were then taped to a poster. I let children throw a hacky sack onto the poster, which was on the floor. The notes had hints about the song. This was a fun way to introduce a new song.




I was worried that this would be too easy because the children all knew the song, or too hard, because none of them knew the song, but in both my classes (junior primary and senior primary), the children figured out the song after turning over two-thirds of the notes/hints. It was perfect.

I then used a flip chart to introduce and teach the song. I didn't play any special games with the flip chart, since I want to do different things with the flip charts each time. I was going to make my own flip chart but there were several that were good out there so I thought maybe I should conserve my energy for a different song, later.

I combined these two flip charts, using the pictures I liked best from each version:

1. One that I found on SugarDoodle.net who found it at "The Ordinary Adventures of a Primary Chorister" 
2. One that I found on Jolly Jenn's site, who I guess makes a ton of flip charts.

This was a good lesson. The introduction easily caught the attention of the children, and the flip chart helped them to memorize the song quickly.

Samuel Tells the Story of Baby Jesus

I had so much fun introducing this song. It is a very catchy song. My primary president told me that her son was singing it during the week following primary! I was also going to make my own flip chart but I found one online that was so fabulous that I couldn't pass it up. There are actually several really good ones for this particular song but the one I chose worked really well with the children. I have been Googling for 10 minutes now because I can't find it anymore, but I keep finding other really awesome ones ... so if I find it, I'll post it. The one I found used five sheets of paper.

I played a game where I put all the pictures up on the chalkboard, then scrambled it. I had the children unscramble it a few times. Then, I had them point to the pictures while we sang (still scrambled) to see how well they knew it. This was a lot of fun, and the children really enjoyed the concept. This idea was a modified version that I found on Primary Singing Time Ideas which I used in Week 4 of November.

Two Happy Feet

This song doesn't need much explanation. I made up a bunch of movements for the song, and sang it with Junior Primary to help them get their wiggles out, and they loved it. I just wanted to draw attention to it because it is a fabulous, fun song. 

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