Song Review Day!

Sunday is going to be Singing Time Review Day.

In Junior Primary, I want to especially work on our new song, "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus," since I didn't have much time to review it.

In Senior Primary, I want to review songs where I know we have the most trouble remembering the lines of the song.

It's time for Helmet Hero, shared here. I might mix it up by associating a different hat with each song, and letting the child choose a hat - and then lyrics (which they can't see of course), to play the game.

In Junior Primary, time pending, I will do Helmet Hero, except I will send two children out of the room and tell the children the missing lines of the song, since they can't all read yet.

This was a popular activity and it's been close to a year since I did it, so I'm excited to do it again. I might also bring back the Singing Elephant for Junior primary.

Our Primary Colors

I just posted what I am teaching this Sunday, but I decided to add a comment about the song I selected for opening exercises ... because I decided to save it for a new Wiggle song in Junior. We can just sing it with a flip chart in Senior.

Although I remember singing many different songs in primary when I was a child, "Our Primary Colors" is the only one that I vaguely remember learning!

I was looking around today for a pre-made flipchart, since I just didn't want to make my own this time, and I ended up reading this cute idea about the song, from Sugar Doodle, buried in the blog comments section!

#1 Guest 2010-02-12 22:12

I use this as a wiggle song. I hope I can explain how we do it. If it is a girls choice she gets to decide if the girls are red or blue. Teachers are always yellow. So if the girls choose red they stand up when you say one and red and when they get to the message of red only the girls stand and sing, the teachers stand when we sing 2 and yellow and stand and sing the yellow message. Then the boys would stand on 3 and blue and stand and sing the blue message. Then everyone stands and sings the last line all together. This is one of the favorites.

So cute!

I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus - Focusing on the Savior

I mentioned earlier that I was waiting until this upcoming Sunday to teach "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus," and that this time, I would like to use the excellent recommendation given in the primary manual, especially since the manual rarely suggests how to teach that month's song. This month's recommendation follows a lot of the music teaching principles I've read about and even learned about in our stake primary chorister training (which hardly anyone attended - it's really a pity because even though I heard a lot of things I was already doing, every tiny small thing I didn't know has been a BIG help in improving how I teach music and the gospel to these children).

I sent people to the PDF online last time but there's a good link that's not in PDF form here:
http://www.lds.org/manual/2012-outline-for-sharing-time/august?lang=eng

To what I've taken a screen shot of here:

I realized the link I posted previously had a link that didn't work so if you want to teach the manual-recommended lesson for this song, you can print the images here:
http://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/08710/08710_000_aug-04-shapes.pdf?lang=eng

It's nice because the images are offered in black and white AND color so you can print according to your print preferences.

I have been having so much fun with elaborate Olympic activities though that I think I need to go back to some basics and keep it simple this week, especially for a song like this where I really want to focus on the Savior.

I will simply put up various pictures of Christ and depending on time, share a couple of short stories of things that Christ did and how we can be like him. I might liken them to at least one modern-day example in the news. I am tempted to ask children to volunteer their own stories but we have done that twice recently just with the regular sharing time, and frankly, it's kind of stressful because the children ramble and throw out really incoherent stories sometimes. I think it might work better if the child is asked in advance and has time to prepare their thoughts with a parent.

I will delve further into the meaning of this song the following week. I also want to play Helmet Hero again soon (a previous post of mine, taken from a great idea that's made the round on various blogs, and that was very effective for reviewing songs before the program last year).

P.S. I had two blog comments mentioning that they incorporated the American Icon singer, David Archuleta, (who is serving a mission right now) by playing a video of him singing this song. I think that's a great example of a way to tie something current that the kids can identify with to the gospel. You can read the comments from Connie and Michelle about this here.  

The Singing Time Olympics, Week 3

** I added a new section called, "Another Idea" if you return to this post after Friday afternoon.

Week 3 of our Singing Time Olympics came much too quickly for me, not in terms of preparing a lesson, but I wish I had more time to practice the feedback from the judges with the children. Sigh.

So, for Week 3, I will do the same thing I did for Week 1 - which is to bring back the Olympic judges to have them judge us on our performance.

The great thing is that if you haven't been following my Olympics theme for the last few weeks, you can just do this on this upcoming Sunday! I had fun with this but the "I didn't plan ahead" version of this activity is to grab a few friends to come be judges, have the kids sing the songs you are preparing for the primary program, and have the judges gives scores on well the kids sang each song, and what they need to improve.

Since I did plan ahead though, my version will be to put up all the decorative props I made for the first week of our Olympic games. The difference is that I will place a black box in the middle of the judge's table with a prize hidden inside (the gold medals that I ordered online). I will let the children know that I have something for them but that they need to score some 10s from the judges to see what's inside. Consider it to be a little mystery and motivation for the classroom, and also, something that to change it up from Week 1. Our kids are smart though, so I assume they'll know its medals. Any suggestions for a different way to handle this? I want them to know they are going through a second round of judging for a reason, and to feel excited and motivated, but not bribed.

Another idea:
I decided not to do this for various reason but I'll still share that:
The Idea Door had some great idea on the Olympics, that may have given me the solution for how I want to handle keeping children motivated and making the second round of judging seem especially different from the first. Her idea is about singling out three medalists to sing in the front of the room. I love that idea of how to single them out with the medals, but from there, I would bend it to this activity, which is: I might start handing out medals early, by having the judges each pick a gold medalist (or three, since I don't have any silver and bronze medals) to come up to the front of the room and receive their medal early after each song.  We can have surprise categories for the singled out medals for each song, like, "For this song, the judges picked 'most improved' or 'reverent.' The three surprise medalists are ..." Then, at the end, everyone else gets a medal, too so ultimately, nobody is left out.

(P.S. I really had four weeks of Olympics since I sneaked some of into singing time on July 18, when I invented the game of participating in an Olympic sport while you sing a song, e.g., be an Olympic archer and pretend to shoot an arrow while you sing. I've noticed at least one popular blogger copied this idea so this is a proud moment for me ... although of course, I am sad I wasn't given a credit, especially because I have seen other bloggers crediting her for my idea! I can't tell you how exciting it is for me when someone becomes a follower of this blog or leaves a nice comment. It keeps me blogging!)

I'm Trying To Be Like Jesus

I am working on reviewing songs for the first two Sundays of this month (see previous post), so I will not be teaching "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus," until Week 3. However, I want to remind Singing Time choristers that the primary manual has some great suggestions this month for how to teach this song, if you want to go ahead and teach it this Sunday.

This takes little advance preparation time, too:

http://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/08710_eng.pdf

Go to Page 17.

Primary Singing Time Olympics, Week 2

Updates to this post (activities better defined) on August 3 (Friday).

Our 2012 Singing Time Olympic Sunday on July 29 was super fun, and we came away with really great feedback on how we could sing each song even better. I am using that feedback to plan next Sunday's activity, around an Olympics-themed training session to get ready for our next judging ceremony (which will be on August 12, to coincide as closely as possible with the closing of the 2012 Summer Games).

I'll just focus on a few of our weakest songs, since the time will be tight to judge every song anyway.I highly recommend taking advantage of the Olympics theme in primary. It's not that much preparation time, is a fun twist for the primary, and totally worth all the great feedback.

                                   
(I took down the judge name plates before I took this picture. It made it look even cooler. Oh well.)

I want to make some comments about our judges. While I don't think a ton of musical knowledge is a necessary prerequisite to being a judge for this type of activity, I did feel like it was a great benefit. They gave great constructive feedback, which I was sure to tell the children is the same type of feedback that our adults hear in ward choir (all three have had choir-related callings). In addition, two of these judges have children in the primary. I was particularly pleased to see how proud the children were that had a parent as a judge, and how they took it up a notch for their parents. (I am privileged to work with an amazing group of children, and I know that in part, I have some amazing parents to thank for showering their children with love, support, and the knowledge that they are children of our Father in Heaven. )

So now ... Singing Time Olympics, Week 2

Based on the judge's feedback, I want to work on one or more of the following elements, with different bullet points going to different songs, since none of these problems perpetuated across every song.

• Not singing in sync with their neighbor
• Not singing words clearly
• Not singing loudly
• Not singing reverently (too many wiggling bodies before or after the song ends)
• Not watching the choir director (me) so that we all started at the same time
• Forgetting some of the words
• Not all signing or all singing (for CTR song)
• Not showing emotion/enthusiasm for a particular song

I want to start with this story called "Day of Delight" from the 1993 New Era. It talks about music, the Sabbath day, and a Christian Olympian who in 1924 chose to not run in the race in which he was supposed to win gold because it was on the Sabbath Day. He instead ran a race length that was not his strength (the 400m instead of the 100m), that was not on the Sabbath day, and he won gold. This story is about faith, about good examples in his life, about turning to God, and also about Olympics and music. :)

I love the story too that an American handed him a note before his race that was from 1 Samuel 2:30, which read, "Those who honor me I will honor."

The Game - Choosing a Song and Activity with Archery.

I think I may bring a bow and arrows into primary and have the children try to hit a target that has the activity we are going to do on certain panels of the target. I will see if I can pick one up at a dollar store today. I have seen them in the toy section of grocery stores too. However, if you that doesn't work out, back up Plan B will be to let them toss balls into baskets or some other little game. I prefer archery though, since it is an Olympic event. Also, we had a member of the ward bring in his ancestor's homemade bow during Pioneer Day, so it will tie in past lessons for our ward.

Target #1 - Singing in Sync for Nephi's Courage

I spoke with one of the judges afterward, and he recommended singing staccato, and then legato, to work on singing in sync. That was the one I was most worried about fixing since they know the words and they know the tune - why are they not singing at the same time?! We will do this for "Nephi's Courage," where I could hear children starting the words just a millisecond off from each other, but enough that you could hear it they were not totally in sync. I will also have them sing while clapping to the tune, something I have seen another one of the judges that I invited do to help the children (and to help adult choir members) sing better.

What's the Olympic tie-in?

I will call this the horse trot and have them envision the horse prancing around the room for the staccato part, and then gliding around the room for the legato part. I will make up a different horse race for the clapping part. I think for Junior Primary I will make a little visual where we can watch the horse move across the board. Ping-pong would also be a good one for this song. I might have them pretend to be ping-pong balls for the staccato part of the song, and even have the two sides of the room ping-pong back and forth on each of the words of the song.

Target #2 - Singing Words Clearly for Choose the Right

I will have children make funny faces to exaggerate the words of the song as they sing it. I might even bring in a couple of mirrors and have the children pass them around and look at themselves as they sing. 

What's the Olympic tie-in?

[hmm, in progress ... suggestions would be appreciated ... maybe tie in to precision sport and practice saying certain words together, maybe with more staccato ...??]

Target #3 - Singing Loudly with Volleyball for [need to check my notes for which song] by Watching the Choir Director

I will have children practice watching me and knowing by arm movements that they need to sing more loudly or more quietly. I will occasionally move from setting to bumping, and also sneak in singing quietly and loudly. I will throw in some side activity, like randomly stopping in the middle of a song, to see how well children are watching me and paying attention to what I'm doing. I will ask the pianist to keep playing when I do that to make sure the children are stopping because of me, not because of the music.

What's the Olympic tie-in?
I will talk about how in games like Volleyball, sometimes the front person will make signals behind their back to indicate what they are going to do during a volley. That means the other person has to pay attention and recognize the subtle signs.

Target #5 - Singing Reverently

I think I might just talk about this one and remind children that they need to do this one all the way through.

What's the Olympic tie-in?
I will talk about the concentration needed for so many Olympic events, and remind them about how quiet the audience is during a tennis match so that the players can concentrate.

What's the Olympic tie-in?
This one will be Olympic basketball, and I will talk about how in basketball, you don't always know who is going to pass the ball to you unless you are watching. Hm .... okay, this one is weak. I would to turn this one into an activity ... so I will update this one as I get closer to next week and figure out what I'm going to do exactly ...

Target #6 - Remembering all the Words for vs.2 of "When I Am Baptized," vs. 3 of "Nephi's Courage," and vs.2 of "I Think When I Hear." 

When I Am Baptized - Team Rowing
I will have each side of the room take turns rowing, and when they row, their side will sing a line of the song, so that we go back and forth.

Nephi's Courage - Cycling
I am going to talk about how they draft off each other when they are going very fast. You know how when someone is yelling to you out of a car and the sound carries? We're cycling and draft, and singing, so the sound is going to carry - first one side is going to sing the song, then the other side of the room is going to sing the same line. Then we're going to repeat heading in the other direction.

I Think When I Hear - Soccer
I'll have them pass a soccer ball around the room while they sing the song. If the ball stops on them when the piano stops, their whole class has to stand up together and recite all the words of the song from the beginning until that point - because soccer is a team sport.

What's the Olympic tie-in?
I will talk about how in gymnastics, they have their routines perfectly memorized, so that if they forget a section, they can pick up right where they left off and keep going.

Showing Enthusiasm / Emotion
I will talk a little about each song and remind them about what they are singing for each song. I will talk to them about what the Stake choir director did to help us be enthusiastic and emotional about a particular song. 

What's the Olympic tie-in?
I will talk about how when we watch the Olympics, the commentators talk about the back stories of the participants, and how that helps to make us feel emotionally invested in the athletes. We want to be emotionally invested in the songs.

The Singing Time Olympics, Part II

This is the first week of the Singing Time Olympics, but the second post about it since I wanted to give folks that were interested in doing this a heads up. So, go to my previous post for my initial thoughts on this. I love this activity because I really think the kids will love it, you can tie it into the Olympics that are actually happening right now (I love watching the Olympics!), and you basically will have your next three Sundays planned out. Wa-hoo!

(I also did some pre-Olympic "training" activities on a previous Sunday, which you could work into one of your three Sundays.)

And now ... the Summer Singing Time Olympics 2012 begins!

(I took this pic after primary today ... the rest of this post was from before the Singing Time activity actually happened, but I can tell you that it went well, was a lot of fun, and gave me great ideas about what to work on with the children to improve how well they sing each of these songs.)

Introduction
I will put up a poster board with the Olympic Rings, which I shared a few week ago (made by tracing lids with colored markers). I will also print up copies of the Olympic Rings to place around the room or on the judges' table for decor (found here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Olympic_rings_square.svg)

I will act as both commentator and coach for the primary kids. (Maybe I will alternate between wearing an announcer tie and a coach whistle?) As the announcer, I will say something like,

"Thank you participants for your timely arrival at the 2012 Summer Singing Time Olympic Games. We appreciate your reverence as the judges for the Olympic games file in."

The judges will come in (holding clipboards?) and sit at a table that has been decorated with a table cloth, flowers(?), - whatever I can think of to make it look very official and "Olympics-ish." I made little name plates for them that say "Judge Smith," etc. I found a name plate template to save myself time in making these. Seriously, this part took me about three minutes - just long enough to Google a name plate, change the names in the template, print it out, and fold the paper.

I will then say something like, "And now, it is time for the Opening Ceremony, the passing of the Olympic Torch. Everyone, please stand as we sing [pick a song] and pass the torch across the room until we reach [choose the child nearest to the end on the front row]." (I will have time for this since I get the whole hour for primary this Sunday. If you don't, use one of your songs that you feel confident about, rather than using it for the judging portion of the activity.)

I will then have opening ceremonies - the passing of the torch. I will have everyone stand and we will pass the torch around the room until it gets placed in its honorary spot at the front of the room. While we are passing the torch, we will sing a song that is not on our program list.

Here's my torch. It took me less than a minute to make (once I had all the pieces in front of me ... so okay, two minutes)! So easy ...

How to make the torch
You'll need:
A paper towel roll, or if you don't have that, strong paper that you can roll into a funnel (e.g. roll up your junk mail!)
Red and orange issue paper or cellophane
Foil
Tape
Scissors

I scrounged around the house to find these supplies so there's a lot you can substitute depending on what you have on hand. I took a paper towel roll, cut it straight down one side, then re-rolled it into more of a funnel shape. I then wrapped it in foil, placing the roll at an angle to the foil so that it took less foil to cover the material. I then stuffed one piece of tissue paper into a red cellophane bag. I then stuffed that cellphane bag into the foil-covered roll. That's it! So easy. I had planned to dig up orange tissue paper and wrap it in red tissue paper, but a red cellophane bag and gold tissue paper gave the same flame-like effective that I was seeking. The idea is to have a good visual but not spend a lot of money on materials. You can find stuff around your house.

How judging will work
I want to keep this pretty simple. I will have the children sing each of the songs that we are working on for the primary program, then have the judges hold up their scores after each song. I want to add a little anticipation here, with a bit of a drum roll, giving each judge time to hold up their cards individually so the children are not seeing all of the scores at once. The judges will then each have an opportunity to discuss why they awarded them with certain points, and to talk about where the children need to improve. I have seen all three of these judges give great feedback in ward choir so they will not need any coaching here on what type of feedback they can give to the children.

The judges' score cards
I will explain the score card to the children so that they will know how they are being judged. The judges will have a smaller copy of this on their own score cards, which I made for them in advance. Feel free to print my version out (you'll need two copies for each judge = six copies). You can just right click to save it to your computer, then print it. Or, post your email and I'll send you a file that you can easily print.

I have thought about having my score card add up to a total of 12 points but with the judges only awarding as much as 10 points. This way, the judges can mark the children down and discuss the areas they are being marked down for, but still give them a decent overall score. Right now though, I think I might just make the total 10 points. I will let judges know they can award 1/2 points and 1/4 points on their score card, but then ultimately round up when they choose what final score to hold up.

Scoring will be based on the following criteria. I found a nice scorecard on SugarDoodle, too, but it wasn't what I was looking for so I made my own version. I do want to share that version though, as it has some fun ideas that I did not use but feel it's a shame not to know about for future reference. 

• Memorization. How well do you know the song?  2 possible points.
• Volume. How well can we hear you singing the song? 2 possible points.
• Diction. How clearly can we hear the words of the song? 1 possible point.
• Blending. How well are you blending your voice with the person next to you? 1 possible point.
• Reverence. How reverent is the primary room as a whole? (e.g., standing still, not talking to neighbors, enjoying the music) 2 possible points.
• Other. The judges will use their discretion to judge for other qualities in a good choir, e.g., standing still, smiling, overall sounding great - whatever they want to throw in. 2 possible points.

I thought about having each judge score on different things but I think it will be more fun to anticipate how each judges score compared to each other. They can talk beforehand and agree to keep it within a certain range if they are worried about being way off from each other.

I also wanted to leave plenty of room on the page for judges to jot down notes.

Guide for the judges
I am also going to print out a little mini-instruction sheet for the judges. Something to the effect of:
1. You can award 1/2 points and 1/4 points, but for your final score, be sure to round up. Note that each item (like "memory") has a total amount of points that you can award per song.
2. Please jot any notes along the sides of the paper or in the score boxes to help me know what to work on with the children next week.
3. Wait for me to ask you to hold up your score cards.
4. I will ask each judge to explain their scores to the children and give them advice on how they can improve as they sing that song.

Holding up their Olympic scores
I think it would be cheaper to use a hollow font or just write out the numbers with a permanent marker but I wanted things to look very official for effect so I created numbers in PowerPoint. Obviously, you can do this in Word as well. I was planning to put a border around the numbers. I happened to forget until after I printed the pages. Oh well.

The Olympic Games Continue ... (Weeks 2 and 3)

For Week 2 of the Olympic games:
We will review where children need to improve their songs, but I will tie this into some fun Olympic games of some sort, like "Pass the Torch." (I just made that up so I don't know the rules yet.)

For Week 3 of the Olympic games:
I will have the judges return, judge them again, and this time, award them with higher scores. They will then receive gold medals for their improvements. (See my previous post. I did a lot of comparison shopping and ultimately bought 72 medals for only about $23. Cheaper than making them unless I went ultra, ultra, ultra cheap and had medals made out of paper, I guess.)