"Nephi's Courage" Song Review and Learning "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man"

[Update - added green poster picture for the Wise Man song, and new comments in italics ...]

I would like to continue learning/reviewing "Nephi's Courage" this Sunday, since I just introduced it/reintroduced in last Sunday. I also plan to introduce the July theme song, "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man," since I believe I will have time for both.

Nephi's Courage
I will simply use the same actions as I did last week, which I basically let the children help invent. I only made it through the first two verses for junior primary, so I will have them help me make up the motions for the third verse, too.

To keep things interesting and fresh for this song, for the "I Will Go and Do" part of the song where I have them swing their arms back and forth (a motion I picked up from SugarDoodle), I will have them actually stand up and march back and forth across their own row. I will have them practice marching to the beat to the rhythm of the song though, to get them to thing about how some notes are longer and some are shorter. I think I will have them clap out that part of the song to help them recognize how they will have to march carefully to march to the right beat.

I also plan to talk about President Monson's quote about Nephi's Courage to help the children to further think about this song and what it means to obey the commandments and trust in the Lord.

The Wise Man and the Foolish Man
I found really fun flip charts that a previous chorister had made, where she (or he?) glued cotton balls (for clouds) and other three-dimension objects to boards, and then to paint sticks, depicting the story of the wise man and the foolish man. I want to take advantage of these, even though the children love the motions for this song but there's so much I could do with this song that I will have to be careful about watching the time. Here's the plan:

1. Read the scriptures for this song. (Matthew 7:24-27). Ask the children to identify what song we are singing based on this scripture.


2. Talk about what this scripture means. Have them also read Helaman 5:12. I am considering telling my own story or finding one on LDS.org that might make them relate better to the wise man and the foolish man in their own context, that goes with this scripture. I may do that instead, or in addition to, but right now, I have drawn a picture of a house with a foundation, so that I can talk about how we literally build our houses upon the a rock (and not on a sand) and then talk about the foundations in our own lives.

I ended up switching how I presented the pictures I dug up around the Internet. I talked about how the silhouette in the middle is "YOU" the child, read Helaman 5:12 a second time and asked children who the foundation (the ROCK that the wise man built on) was (answer: our Savior), and pointed out how our foundation helps us combat the storms that the devil throws our way. I then asked them to think about how we are the wise man building our house on a rock, and to sing the song again. I had several teachers comment that they appreciated helping make this song meaningful, beyond it being a fictional story about a wise man with a house.

Use visuals to help the children see the foundations in our own lives. If you comment with your email address below, I'll email you the PDF of these pictures that I gathered around the Internet.

Examples of GOOD foundation:

Examples of a bad foundation:

(The duplicate picture is because I plan to use the silhouette of the child as the "house" and the other pictures as the foundation.)

3. If time, hand out the flip chart pages of the song to children to hold up for the rest of the class, and sing the song.

4. Get the children out of order and see if they get in the right order while we sing the song again.

5. Sing the song again, this time with the standard hand motions for this song.

My Testimony
Ever since our stake primary chorister reminded me, I have been trying to bear my testimony at the end of each sing time lesson. I don't always do it, but I will try to feel the spirit of the Lord and share a heartfelt testimony. I want the children to love the music and love the gospel it teaches them, the way I love it and the way it helps my own testimony of our loving father in heaven and his plans for us.

Next Week ...
Stay tuned. I am super excited about the various singing review activities I have coming up for the next five Sundays. That's right, I already have a whole month planned out. I am trying to time around Pioneer Day, the Olympics, and a general need to review all the songs we have learned since we have not had a chance to sing some of the songs for many Sundays now.

Learning "Nephi's Courage"

February 2020 update:

Hi Friends, 

I first published this post in 2012. Since then, I've served as Primary President for almost six years, and seen this song taught more than once. Because of all the traffic to this post, I wanted to share the best way to teach this song, that pairs well with the below section on learning the lines, or as a week 2 follow-up. See the update here. I still think the introduction below is valuable and important to make sure they understand what they are singing.

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I am finally teaching "Nephi's Courage" this Sunday. I did not have time until now because I wanted to prepare for singing during Sacrament on Father's Day, and then I wanted to do a specific Father's Day singing time activity where we sang other songs. We sang a song that we had not sung in several months yesterday ("Listen with My Heart"), and junior primary had clearly forgotten most of it, so it was a good reminder to try to bring back older songs. I will make a new flip chart for that song to review it too, since I don't have the original flip chart (a different chorister taught it).

I was a primary teacher several years ago when the primary chorister taught "Nephi's Courage," and I remember really loving this song. I'm honored that I get to teach it again. I can't remember what the previous chorister did to teach it, but since I know that at least the senior primary remembers this song, I will have a "What Song Am I?" game. The children should be able to guess this song, since they have sung it before. I expect Senior Primary will catch on faster since they just need a memory jolt, so in their case, I'll plan to do all three verses and add some more fun to it. :)

What Song Am I? Pop the Balloon game
I will put these clues in each balloon, which the children then get to choose and pop with a pin.
1. A scripture that describes part of the song (1 Nephi 3:7)
2. Play the first few notes of the song
3. Name the "characters" of the song and ask them if they recognize what song features these historical figures
4. Describe what principle the song teaches (following the Lord's commandments and having faith in the Lord)
5. A picture that depicts the song

To Introduce the Words of the Song
1. I will talk about the story of Nephi getting the brass plate (possibly have them read more verses), then quote from this article by President Monson.
2. I will ask anyone that knows it to go ahead and sing it with me.
3. I will sing it with the piano one time through so they can hear the story, holding up pictures that go with the song so that the children also have the visual. I will ask them to listen carefully and see if they can answer three questions. (Ask them upfront)

(I will do one verse at a time and only go to verse 2 and 3 if we finish memorizing verse 1 early. Half the song is the chorus so I'll be happy to have them memorize the first two lines and the chorus initially.)

• What did the Lord ask Nephi to do?
• Where did Nephi have to go to see Laban? (Inside what?)
• Who was afraid?

4. I will sing it again and ask the children to tell me how Nephi responded to the Lord's commandments  I will remind anyone that knows the song to sing it with me.

• Does Nephi say he will obey the Lord's commands or that he won't?
• Why is Nephi 

4. I will sing it again and ask them to count how many different people are mentioned in the story. (By the way, if you don't want to make your own flip charts, there's a great one on SugarDoodle, here. I happen to have some that a previous chorister made - wa-hoo, flip-chart making break so I'm going to use that one this time.)


Skit the Following Sunday
I would like the children to do a skit with this song, but I think I will focus on learning the basic first. Maybe I will show them some motions and tell them that they are learning the motions for a skit that we will do next week. I think I can round up enough "Nephi" clothes from neighbors.

Song Review and Father's Day

Last week, I prepared the kids to sing for Father's Day by doing something very similar to what I did for a Mother's Day song review.

This week, I am going to do a Father's Day activity that I found online at Priming Singing Time. The blogger says, "This year I walked around the building taking pictures of Dad's hands and writing down their favorite primary song.  It's really easy and you can show the pictures on a laptop or tablet, or print them out.  The idea is to have the kids guess who's hands they are, and see if they can recognize their own Dad's hands."

Rather than choosing random fathers in the ward, I took pictures of the primary teachers who are men since I didn't want to worry about primary children being upset that their dad was included in the mix.

This way, I have some fathers, grandfathers, and those who plan to be fathers one day in the mix. I kept a notepad with me and wrote down the name of the favorite song and the name of the teacher so that I could keep all of my pictures in order. 

Since I just took pictures of one hand, in most cases, I encouraged the father to use the hand with a watch or wedding ring so that it was more distinctive. I guess I could have done what the original blogger did, and take pictures of both hands at once, but honestly, it just didn't occur to me at the time.

I asked each teacher their favorite primary song, and then made sure to create flip charts for the songs that were selected that we have not sung in a while, or that I'm not even sure if the children know. I am keeping things fun by presenting each song in different ways.

For example, I drew onto a poster board for "I Wonder When He Comes Again,":

I also cut out a flip chart I found on SugarDoodle and made it into a poster (because I have so many flip charts). This is for "I Lived in Heaven."

There are so many great flip charts online. I sometimes don't particularly love a picture so I'll make my own, or mix mine with someone else's flip chart. In this case, I liked this flip chart for a "Child's Prayer" but I wanted the words on there since I know I won't have time to teach the songs this week. So, I just made some adjustments to add the words. (Thanks to Carrie on SugarDoodle for the original flipchart.)

I already had materials for some of the other songs that fathers selected, so I was able to save time on not having to make those ones again.

For instance, I have had the children sing, "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission," before using these objects:

I am super excited that one of the father selected "I Am Like a Star." This is such a short song that they will learn it fast, with some fun motions, or with sign language. I am debating which to do right now.

There are some other songs on the list as well ... looking forward to a fun Sunday!

Teaching "The Dearest Names" for Father's Day

I taught the primary children "The Dearest Names" for Father's Day. I had children raise their hand as the pianist played the tune, and realized that only about ten children out of the entire primary were familiar with the tune, which was just fine - by the end, they could all sing the song, and I think they had a good time learning the words.

Here's the outline of my lesson if you want to try it - honestly, it worked great and used way less materials than usual for me. In fact, I drew a flipchart for the junior primary and never even used it.

1. I had the pianist play the entire song and asked children to raise their hand as they recognized the tune. This was basically a way for me to play the entire song for them one time.

2. I put a crossword puzzle up on the chalkboard that had answers to questions I wanted to ask them about the song, and then proceeded to ask the question. Children raised their hand as they found the answer to each question on the crossword puzzle. As they found each answer, I sang the line to the song, and then had them sing the line too. This gave me the opportunity to practice repetition with the song, but in a fun way mixed with a game.

Questions I asked were:

a) This song is about a very dear name. What is the dear name? (Father)

b) This song describes the name using three notes to say one word, like "beau-ti-ful" or "won-der-ful." What is that word? (Glorious)

c) This song describes Father with three words. What are those words? (Noble, and brave, and true)

d) What are the special words you say to Father? (I Love You)

(I had to leave out the crossword puzzle for junior primary, but asked the questions anyway. I felt like I lost some of the youngest children a little bit during this part until I got to item #3, but overall, it was still fine.)

3. I taught the children the sign for "name" (which I happened to know but it is pointing your index and middle finger on each hand, and tapping one on top of the other twice, in a "plus" sign - but hold your hand level, it just happens to look like a plus sign when you look down). I then told them to stand up and sign "name" every time they sang that part.

4. I taught the children the sign for "I Love You" and then told them to stand up, turn one way for "I," then turn again for "Love," then turn again for "You." 

5. I also brought my bells, which I didn't have time to use in Junior Primary (I would have modified this and only passed out three bells to play, "I Love You"), but I had time to use them in Senior Primary. I asked each teacher to send up a reverent child from their class, and then drew names for some additional children. I then gave each child a bell, showed them how to read the musical chart I had made for them, and we played it one time through with the bells. They were a little messy the first time, so once they got the hang of it, I let them play the bells again, but this time I reminded the mesmerized children sitting in their seats to sing too. Then, I had time to ask the children to trade their bells with other children that were sitting down so they could try it too. 

I found toward the end that children followed along more easily if I pointed to the word so they knew when to ring their bells, rather than expecting children to follow the words because they were singing them ... although, they did almost as well with the latter.

Credits:

While I made up most of this activity, the idea for #2 above, about the crossword puzzle with the matching questions, came from "A Children's Songbook Companion," by Pat  Graham, Mary Gourley, Trudy Shipp, and Linda Stewart.

Erupting Cups Singing Time Review Game - (A Popular One!)

I highly recommend this Singing Time activity the next time you want to do a song review. The children (and teachers!) seemed to really love it last week. This was one of my favorite Singing Time activities to date because everyone seemed to enjoy themselves so much, and because participation was so high. In fact, I had one primary counselor comment to me that it was the perfect activity for that day because the children had seemed so restless; they needed something exciting that day.

The concept is simple. You call children to the front of the class, and ask them to choose a spoon, which they then stir into a cup of water. The water will either change colors, indicating which song the primary should sing, or will explode (bubbling up and spilling over the sides of the cup), which means the primary sings a song of the child's choosing. The children really seemed to enjoy the anticipation of finding the exploding cup(s).

                                         

You'll need:

- 3-8 clear cups

- food coloring in several different colors

- as many spoons as you have cups

- baking soda (enough to fill each spoon)

- vinegar (enough to fill several cups)

- water (I used a pitcher and filled the water at the drinking fountain before sharing time began)

- trays in which to place the cups, and which to capture any liquids that ooze out of the cups

- songs written in colors that correspond to the food coloring (don't forget that if you want, you can make additional colors by mixing two food coloring drops)

- paper towels / napkins - something you don't mind potentially staining in case you need to clean up a mess

Directions:

1. Place a drop of food coloring on each spoon.
2. Cover each spoon with baking soda.
3. Fill each cup with water except for the exploding cup(s), which should be filled with vinegar instead. (When the baking soda comes in contact with one of the cups of vinegar, it becomes an exploding cup, as the baking soda reacts to the vinegar.)
4. You can make a note to yourself which colors go with which songs. I opted to write the songs on a piece of paper in colors that matched the food coloring. I wrote two songs for each color since I didn't know which spoon would end up in an exploding cup. Then, I let the child choose which of the songs of that color they wanted to sing.

This activity lasted the entire singing time, and was super fun.

September 9, 2017 News: Hi everyone, I just want to thank you for all of your years of interest and support for my blog. I was released as Primary chorister four years ago but I still get a lot of questions and requests, and it's still fun for me to brainstorm ideas for you! One of the results of all of my years in Primary is (and I should mention first that I'm a writer with a journalism/English degree) I wrote a season book for the Primary kids! My Nativity ABCs is available for pre-order now on Amazon and will be hitting stores in mid-October.

Credits: I have seen this activity online on many other singing time blogs so I don't even know who to fairly credit. I will say that our stake primary chorister also shared this idea during our stake primary training a couple months ago (Megan T.), and said that she does this activity quarterly because it is so popular. In fact, I think she said it was her children's favorite singing time activity.

Mrs. Potato Head Singing Time

I have been wanting to make some sort of Singing Time activity where children build a face or clothe someone (e.g., the armor of God) for some time now so creating a Mrs. Potato Head for Mother's Day seemed perfect. The best part is that this isn't a Mother's Day only activity. In fact, later, I can create some seasonal clothing ... and when I am not using it for primary, it makes a nice activity for children that doesn't take up much space :)

This was a very easy activity to create, but it did take some time to cut everything out and color everything in.

I would be happy to share the artwork for this if you want to post your email address (so that I can send the attachments to you). Otherwise, to create the pieces yourself, I simply drew a rough potato shape onto a piece of white paper, using a dark permanent marker. I then drew a variety of accurately-sized hairstyles, hats, dresses, hands, eyes, noses, and mouths, by placing a new white piece of paper over the potato outline. It was that easy! The time-consuming part was taking the time to color, cut, and laminate the pieces. I then attached Velcro stickers to everything so that the children could attach the parts to the potato head. You can find Velcro stickers at craft stories, fabric stores, and even in the sewing section of Wal-Mart.

There are so many ways to integrate Mrs. Potato Head, or something similar, into a primary music activity but here are just a few ways:

Potato Head Activity #1
I only had time for this version in junior and senior primary today.

Call children up to select a part to add to the potato head. (I pulled their name out of a jar.) Each part has a song number written on the back. Then, find the song in the book, and read a line from the song. I asked children to raise their hand as they recognized the song to which the line was written. We sang the song once children correctly guessed it. Where possible, I tried to add something "fun" to sing with the song.

Potato Head Activity #2
Place all the potato head pieces into a bag so that children cannot see the parts. They reach into the bag and select a part. The object of the game is to put together a complete Mrs. Potato Head before class ends. If a child selects a part that has already been placed on the Potato Head, they can then switch out the piece for the new piece.

Add a fun rule for switching out a piece. For example:
a) They can switch out the piece, but then they have to answer a trivia question about a song (then prepare questions like, "what is the line of the song that goes after  ..." or "In 'Stand for the Right,' what does it mean to be 'be true'?")
b) If children pull a duplicate piece, we can sing a song of their choice before switching out the new part.
c) If children pull a duplicate piece, we switch the piece out on the Potato but don't sing another song.
d) etc.

Potato Head Activity #3
Hide potato head pieces under chairs. Describe the Potato Head piece, and if the child is holding up, they get to come up and add it to the potato head. This could be done with a spinner that points to "skirt," "hat" "eyes," etc., and then another selection process that indicates which description of each to pick. This way, children have the opportunity to change the skirt, or change the eyes, etc,

- or -

Attach answers to various questions to the Potato Head pieces. This way, children can be involved with trying to figure out which of them has the right answer on their Potato Head piece. They can change out eyes, clothing, etc., while they are listening for answers to questions, which lead to the singing of songs, too.

I would love to hear your other ideas about how to use Mrs. Potato Head in Singing Time.

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.