Preparing for Mother's Day Program

This is our last Sunday before the primary children sing in church. They will be singing two songs:

"Mother Dear" and "I Often Go Walking."

I want to take this week to focus on preparing them to sing, making sure they know the words really well, and getting them to sing "with gusto."

I have three activities prepared, so we can sing the same songs over and over.

Activity #1: Echo Chamber (for repetition to help learn lyrics)
I was originally going to have one side of the room echo the other side of the room, but when I went to stake primary training, our stake music leader had an even better idea ... so I have to think I am receiving inspiration that this is a worthy activity!

Her version is to have the children actually get up out of their seats, and move to the four corners of the room. One corner will sing one verse of the song, and then each subsequent corner will sing it so that we are doing a four-series echo! I am looking forward to this and think it will be a lot of fun.

I think I might even mix it up by changing the direction of the echo fast, or pointing and having the kids responding and making that part of the "game."

Obviously, the benefit here is that the children will learn the song even better by all the repetition.

Activity #2: How Loud Can You Sing? (for gusto to help singing with volume)
This one is deliberately AFTER the echo chamber to help cement the lyrics in their minds before we work on volume.

I printed up a card for each song - one set for junior, one set for senior, so four total. I will tell the children to sing as loudly as possible, and then send someone down the hall to post the card matching that song on the wall representing how far away they were before they couldn't hear us singing.

After church, the children can go see how loudly they sang and if their card made it all the day down the hallway. I made sure to use pictures because not everyone in junior primary can read yet.

I am debating whether to send a child, two children, or one of the counselors. ...

Activity #3: Staccato Song (to practice enunciation) ... or ...? I haven't thought this one through yet ...
Okay, I keep changing my mind about Activity #3 ... so I might do an activity having to do with singing Staccato ...

... or I might just work on other review songs ... or new songs ...

or I might do a class SING.
Sing the whole song but have one child or teacher sing each word of the song ...

or I might work on having Boys sing one vs. Girls in another verse ... something I wanted to do in sacrament but didn't have time to teach the song well enough to practice yet.

Learning "I Often Go Walking" - Mother's Day song

I wanted the children to memorize "I Often Go Walking" today to prepare for Mother's Day. The plan is that after today, they know the song pretty well so I can pull it into practice once in a while. This way, I will have more leisure and less stress to fine-tune this song, as well as to work on introducing other songs, including hopefully a second Mother's Day song and Father's Day songs. 

I also spent a little bit of time on this month's theme song, "Stand for the Right," but I'll talk about that in a separate post.

The activity
Assign each class a line or two of the song from "I Often Go Walking." Give them objects (NOT flat pictures - this makes it more exciting for them) that help represent their line of the song. Have the teachers help them decide how they are going to act out that line of the song. Remind the children that they need to sing while they are performing the line (and then of course, sing with them to help prod them along). Then, have the entire primary sing the line again with them while they act out the line.


Objects you need

• Fake flowers - mostly blue ones for "armfuls of blossoms of blue" but also colored ones for "all blossoms remind me of you"
  
  Cut these up so you have more flowers to pass around without spending too much money. I checked a few stores and finally bought four bunches for $1 each.
  
  I also made a bunch out of origami as that was even cheaper; tutorial for flowers here.
  
                                           
• Drawings of clovers or use fuzzy wire to bend clovers, etc.
  
                                           
• "Mom" items - e.g., apron, mixing bowl and wooden spoon, purse, pearl necklace or other "mom" jewelry
• Green poster board or green plastic table cloth or fabric to represent meadows

Here is how I divided up the song and what information I passed to each teacher. The classes then conferred while I went around the room and talked to each class to help make sure they understood what to do and were prepared. I had each class teach their line, then sing it with the class 1-3 times depending on how well the class was listening. I then sang the song one time through with them and had the class get up very quickly one after the other. In senior primary, I also had time to sing the song through without any props to see how well they had done.

Group 1

v1, line 1. I often go walking in meadows of clover,

Items: meadows, clover

Suggestions:: Choose people to walk, to hold the meadow, and to hold clover.

Group 2

v1, line 2 And I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue.

Items: blue flowers

Suggestions:  Choose people to gather blossoms. Some could hold the flowers and pretend to be part of the meadow.

Group 3

v1, line 3 I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over;

v1, line 4 Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.

Items: meadow, flowers, “mother items” – a purse and a necklace

Suggestions: Choose people to gather blossoms. Some could hold the flowers. Some could be “mother.”

Group 4

v2, line 1. O mother, I give you my love with each flower

Items: flowers, giant heart, “mother items”

Suggestions: Choose someone to be “Mother.” Choose people to hand hearts and flowers to “Mother” (could have all do this and stand in a line)

Group 5

v2, line 2 To give forth sweet fragrance a whole lifetime through;

Items: Perfume bottles, flowers

Hints: Have people act out smelling fragrance

                              

Group 6

v2, line 3 For if I love blossoms and meadows and walking

Items: Blossoms, Meadows

Suggestions: Act out enjoying blossoms, meadows, and walking (a few different people would do each one)

Group 7

v2, line 4 I learn how to love them, dear mother, from you.

Items: Book, Heart, Mother items

Suggestions: “Learn” by reading from book, Hold out hearts, point to someone dressed as “Mother”

Evaluation and tips
Overall, I think this activity was a success and am glad I did it. The children memorized the song pretty well and from all appearances, had a lot of fun. Singing should be fun! Reverent, yes, but also, fun. When I had them sing the song without any of the objects, they sang the song through without any problems, so I feel that I did accomplish my main goal of ingraining the song in their memories.

I did have some worries at first. I wasn't sure if they were truly learning the song until the end. In addition, the noise levels were a bit high for a while, but mostly when children were preparing their lines, which is not surprising. In hindsight, I wish I had asked the teachers to make sure the children were all engaged, and suggested they have the children fold their arms when the class was done discussing what they were going to do. 

The noise level went back down once the classes began coming up to share their lines. I had a small problem with inattentive children playing with their flowers/meadows/etc. for the first line or two in junior primary, but I just made sure the children knew that I would be taking their props away if they didn't pay attention and participate. That generally did the trick. I also specifically asked a couple of children, by name, to turn around and face the front of the class. I made the children sing some of the lines more than once if I felt like I had less than 90% participation (and told them why we were singing it again) for a particular line, at which point they improved. 

Some thoughts around my activity choice

I briefly introduced "I Often Go Walking" last Sunday using a flip chart that I found online. I am not sharing it here because the children complained that the pictures (thought absolutely gorgeous) were too similar to each other (lots of pictures of blue flowers).

I am sure some of them know it but they haven't sung it in sacrament for over two years, since they didn't sing last Mother's Day. I also tried to be sensitive to the fact there may be children in the room that have special situations, for example, an absentee mom, a divorce, a death, etc. I encouraged all children to come up but didn't push it if they didn't.

2018 Update

Hi everyone,
I hope you have been enjoying my blog. I still receive and respond to requests even though I was released as a chorister 4.5 years ago. I still serve in the Primary though! I am excited that our chorister is going to lead this song this year. After years of serving in Primary, I've written a book that is available at Deseret Book and Costco during the Christmas season. Or year round, you can find it online. It's called "My Nativity ABCs." I have a second Primary-oriented children's book coming out this fall. You can pre-order "My Nativity 1-2-3s" on Amazon!


I also recently began sharing my General Conference cards that I make for my Primary kids on Etsy. You can download your own digital copy for $4 and then print as many copies as you want to make for your Primary kids!