"The Family" Paper Bag Puppets

I made these puppets for a sharing time lesson but I realize they can be used effectively during Singing Time as well. I figured out that I can post PDF files directly to my blog if I use WordPress ... so you can download the template for these puppets at my other blog, Ilovetocreatestuff.com

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Some ideas for how to use these puppets:

1. Color the hair different bright colors. Invite the teachers to come up and help you. They will then randomly hold up their puppet during the song, and have their puppet "sing." Whenever a child has on the same clothes colors as the color of the hair (colored in purple, green, blue, yellow, brown ...), they get to sing too.

2. Use a boy puppet and a girl puppet to indicate when boys sing the song vs. when girls sing the song.

3. You can write stuff on the body of the puppet and use the puppets to indicate when the children should sing loudly vs. softly.

4. Integrate this month's song, "The Family is of God," by having six reverent children come up, and then letting them hold up their puppets at appropriate parts of the song. You can add images to the body of the puppet to represent some of the lines of the song, for example, show a father presiding over family home evening, or show a mother helping her child with homework ...

Fun Printable Cards to Use in Singing Time

I found this cute printable on what I believe is a vacation/travel site for the LA/Disneyland area so pardon the random link, but I thought these printable pics would translate easily into a no-fuss primary singing time activity. There are 48 cards in total, with one word and one simple picture, including: princess, giant, bones, ice cream, plane, surfboard ...

Ways to Use These Cards:

1. Fun way to sing a song - they have to figure out how to sing "The Family is of God," for instance, while on a plane, or while pretending to eat ice cream ("The family" - lick - "is of" - lick - ...).

2. Use the colors on the cards - the images are just for fun, but everyone in the room wearing the colors on the card that is drawn has to ... get up and sing the song at the front of the room together ... or pat their heads while they sing, etc. This works because most of the cards only use a few different colors, tops.

3. Us for practicing volume or speed or another "real" singing element, e.g., if they choose the "alligator" card they can practice crescendo and decrescendo. If they choose the "princess" card they can practice enunciation.

4. The object of the game is to find answers to some gospel questions, which are in primary song titles. So, take the blank tiles that come with these templates and write in the songs that you have been teaching, for example, "The Family is of God," "I Stand All Amazed." Then have five questions on the board, like "Which song talks about families?" or "Jesus Christ died for me. What song shares this awe for what he did for us?" Then, use just a few of the more appropriate "fun" tiles and mix them in there with the "right" tiles. The kids have a goal to answer the questions by drawing the right pieces before the end of Singing Time. If they draw the wrong piece, there could be a consequence, like maybe they have to answer a question about a line of the song.

One day when I am feeling more ambitious, I might actually make my own cards and have the kids string together something a little closer to what the site originally suggested the cards were for ... though I could see that getting out of hand, too! I have a small game of dice that uses this exact same concept, and there's a good primary singing time activity there as well.