April 2011 – Pattie's Primary Place

Mother’s Day Singing May 1st

Mothers Day Primary Singing….so sweet for all the moms!

Of course we always sing to our mothers in Sacrament Meeting on Mother’s Day. There are lots of songs to choose from in the Children’s Songbook on the theme of Mothers. I’ve mostly done “Mother Dear I Love You So” and sometimes “Mother I Love You” mostly because they are very easy for the kids to learn and remember. And you don’t always have a month to practice. But if you have more than 2 weeks I would go with “I Often Go Walking”. It is one of my favorites and many mom’s favorite song too. A different flipchart from last weeks is found at the Jolli Jenn site HERE.

Sugar Doodle website has several flipcharts for the song. Just choose your favorites and make them up. You will only be able to do about 10 minutes of mom songs so make it simple. Then use the rest of the time to do “Praise to the Man”. It is going to be a hard one with all the GIANT WORDS!!! A flipchart to make I found at Sugardoodle website…link HERE.

Another thing I found online is a spreadsheet from another chorister outlining here whole YEAR! What the heck! How do people do that? I could never be THAT organized. But let’s not reinvent the wheel. Use somebody else’s ideas they are lovingly willing to share! The link is HERE at Divine Secrets of a Primary Chorister. Have Fun!

Mothers Day Messages, Mothers Day Sms Messages

And don’t forget to give your mom a hug on Mother’s Day

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Easter Sunday

I think it is imporant that on Easter we talk of Christ and the most amazing event in all of history. It bothers me as a former Catholic to talk about events in the old testament or something on the Sunday lessons instead of give the day up to the greatest gift we’ve been given; the atonement of Christ.

Kids know parts of the story but it is a great opportunity to tell the story again in pictures, visual aids, songs, and questions and answers format. You could make up a large red TRUE and on the back tape a large blue FALSE sign on poster board or cardstock. i would make up 2 of them. Then have 2 children from the same class come up and ask them a questions about Christ’s crucifixtion and resurrection from the scriptures. Then they decide and show either the TRUE or the FALSE sign. Hopefully they both get it right. A link to questions from the Easter story are HERE at bible-questions.htm. You could also make up some on your own.

The Good Shepherd

You could also do my favorite question game; Resurrection Eggs. I would do eggs with the articles inside according to this website post called Resurrection Eggs and is found at this link. Another link that I also liked was found HERE at Women Living Well.For instance for the dime inside the egg there is the scripture event where men drew lots to see who would get Jesus’s robe and clothing before he is crucified. Or a small thorn on a rose stem piece would represent the crown of thorns given to Jesus before he walked with the cross. You could take out some that you think may be too hard. But most of them someone in primary would be able to explain what it respresents. I’ve had mine for about 8 years and I have done them with my family and hope to do them with my grandkids. A visual of the eggs is HERE at Churchhouse Collection. It is the same one as above but goes into more detail. Just pick about 7 or 8 plastic eggs filled with one of the items to do with the kids. In between each egg sing a song.

Another Favorite is Resurrection Eggs…This would be my 1st choice.

Since Mother’s Day is coming up I always had the kids sing a few songs to mother in Sacrament Meeting. So I would choose a few songs to practice today and for the next week too. An easy one is “Mother Dear I Love You So”. And my favorite is “I Often Go Walking”. I would teach those today and do the Easter Story in pictures in between songs. Get visual aids from the Sugardoodle website link here. Happy Easter!

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Musical Instruments in Primary

This week I would use one of my Musical Instrument ideas from January. I like to take out my BOYS SING and GIRLS SING signs and HUM and WHISTLE and some xlophone bells and tone bells or whatever you have. I have tambourines, wood blocks, sticks, jingle bells, but the xylophone is the kids’ favorite. I bought 3 of these for my classroom and they work great in primary too! The link is here for Musician’s Friend 25 Bell Set. It is in a cool blue case that is great for toting back and forth.

There are so many kinds of instruments like the ones above that are professional sounding and the kids love them. The last set is ideal because you can split up the notes and give different kids a resonator bell and it always sounds pretty no matter what they play as long as it is on the beat. It adds so much to music.

                              Girls SING!

Boys Sing!

A link for the Xylophones or tone bells is at Musician’s Friend at this Music Website. For performance I figure out the chords and teach 2 of them to play coordinating chords that go with a chorus. Last year we did it on FOLLOW THE PROPHET and it added a little dimension to the song.

Also, the kids don’t realize they are resinging all the songs over and over because they are engrossed in watching whomever is up playing the bells. It’s a great drill week.

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Songs in Easter Eggs in a Basket

Wasn’t conference last week great? I loved Jeffrey Holland’s talk. It is good to be reminded how hard the prophet works and how he’s got the same basic things he has to take care of in life that we do. I forgot about how much they sacrifice and their wives and kids sacrifice. I felt kind of sorry for his wife. I think it would be so hard to be that supportive ALL THE TIME. Those women must be absolute saints, and must also be very strong in their testimonies. Thanks Elder Holland, for reminding us of all the stuff President Monson does for us.

Easter Baskets filled with plastic eggs

This week would be a no brainer. Easter is next week and I think a very fun activity would be to put the songs for the day inside plastic eggs in a basket and then hide the eggs before the kids get into the primary room. Then call out one class at a time and they have to go hunting for an egg to know which song you are singing next.

I have baskets of eggs all around the house!

I’ve got so many different kinds of eggs I could use. Just use what you have around the house. Or else go to Hobby Lobby where I bought 10 dozen plastic eggs for my classroom Easter Egg Hunt. They were on sale for half off of 77 cents! What a deal.

Bring a hanging egg tree with songs on the backs of eggs…Add te giant Bunny egg just for fun!

Use the mirror ball eggs with a song on the back of each…

I had my grandbabies over for dinner last week so we put up all the Easter decorations around my house. I think kids love to see all the symbols of Easter. But I would use up all the “cute stuff” this week and next week use the more Christ centered visual aids regarding the events leading up to the crucifiction and the glorious resurrection scenes.

Kids Easter Dinner Table…

The poor boy bunny got his eye bitten off by our naughty doggie Bruce…poor bunny!

My cute little Easter Chicky 9 month old Josie!

I made up an Easter Bingo for next week that has all religious symbols on the bingo cards. I will share that soon!

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