November 2014 – Pattie's Primary Place

Funny Story and Ugly Sweater Parties

Friday in my class we were doing turkeys for art. I was listening to the chit chat at one of the all-boy tables. It was quite hysterical. I just HAD to share the funny banter. This is what it is like being a teacher. It will tickle your funny bone!

Downtown at Abravenal Hall to see the genius comic “Jim Gaffigan, Dad is FAT” show.

“Hey Mrs. Moss did you know my mom is pregnant?” another child rebuts with “Hey MY dad is the President!!” another child “YOUR dad is American?” another child “My dad is the judge!” My dad works at McDonalds, I saw him there when I was a little kid!”

Funny Monkey stocking I saw yesterday at Hobby Lobby. It just cracked me up!

. I just HAD to stop and write it all down. 1 minute of kinder kid discussion. Unbelievable. These kids could be doing stand up comedy! They all stopped in awe of the lucky McDonald’s kid. Tee Hee. Oh this made me chuckle today! And #McDonalds, take note.

And these ugly sweater party invitations and decorations were cute. I want to have an Ugly Sweater Par-tay! I have plenty of them to decide between, that’s FOR SHORE!

Ugly Sweaters are the BOMB! I Agree!

Cute Snowman in his ugly sweater holding your cookies for your Ugly Sweater Party… tee hee. Gotta Love it!

Me and the hubs enjoyin’ life and laughing our guts out. Happy Holidays!! And Happy Ugly Sweater Parties one and all!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PattiesPrimaryPlace

Make a Primary Singing Time Scarecrow

Primary Singing Time SCARECROW for November Singing Time! You just PICK a PIECE each time you sing a song. Put that Scarecrow together a piece at a time as the kids sing songs!

A fun FALL GAME is to MAKE A Singing Time SCARECROW! Just make up a large brown paper bag circle face and a BIG hat out of colored paper or scrapbook paper. Then bring in a bag and inside the bag you will have the cutouts of the Scarecrow pieces.

Bring a bag full of these cutouts. 2 large EYES, Yellow rectangles of HAIR, a SHIRT, Triangle NOSE, FUNNYstitched MOUTH, BOW for shirt.

If you want more you could add a Sunflower or black crow on the hat. Use these items for a pick something out of the bag game and add to the scarecrow face each time kids pick. Then sing the song number on the back of that item while the child puts the piece on the scarecrow. They will really enjoy this game and it is easy. You could do the same thing in December putting together an angel with wings or a Christmas Tree with bulbs and lights and stars and tinsel. Have fun with it!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PattiesPrimaryPlace

Primary Singing Time Fun Tips

One way to be sure you are letting lots of different kids help you is to pull sticks out of the can with all the kids’ names on them, to be sure each child has a chance to come up and participate in the singing time games….

I use lots of these kinds of singing signs on fat craft sticks so I can call on kids to come up and help me lead the primary singing time in different and fun ways….(boys sing, girls sing, whistle, hum, louder, softer, stop, go, etc.)

We hold about 8 of these up around the room while singing “I am Like a Star Shining Brightly” as everybody does the hand motions opening and closing their fingers like blinking stars.

I teach school and my motto has always been; if I’m bored, the kids are going to be bored too. Don’t be boring. Do fun activities along with teaching the songs. I hope I never get stale, as a teacher. I always wanted to do fresh, fun things to get the kids involved.

Try a game of Going Fishing using each fish as a song (list songs in washable marker on the back) or you could use them to write small questions and tape them to the backs of the laminated fish. The pole is just a dowel with string and magnet.

The other thing is to always bring the spirit into the singing time. The songs most often do it themselves. But I always taught lessons along with the songs. I would bear my testimony about my work in the temple. I would tell the kids about how important it is to include others and be nice at school with stories of things I had seen at school, such as fighting or bullying or unkindness, that made me sad.

I have made dozens of these kinds of things where you pull a string on the back and the thing grows, or goes up as they do a great job singing…..they are always delightful fun. Try a rocket blasting off, a thermometer going up in red, etc.

I encouraged them all the time that they could make a difference in their own families by instigating kindness or exhibiting helpfulness to their siblings and parents.

You can’t tell from this picture but the red tongue goes up as the kids sing louder or better. It is a funny one with the furry red head of hair on Lester.

I would try to repeat things that were spoken about in the sharing time lessons when I had inspirations. The singing time is primarily a teaching time. So make it so.

Use lots of pictures and visual aids to go with all the primary songs. Here I am showing my favorite method to teach a new song; finding a flip book from Sugardoodle with words to go with pictures.

If you’d like to start out the new year with a few cute conducting ideas to keep the kids learning and interested, check out these posts by some music experts in the trenches of Primary Music. Teaching kids how to conduct is always fun too. And if you don’t know how, just read some expert blogs and copy them!

Here are a few ideas on leading Primary Singing Time from some experts in the field…

Leading Sticks by Brooke Wakefield on Sugardoodle
It’s All in the Hands by Ali Katherman on Sugardoodle
A Conducting Wand on Sugardoodle
Conducting Elephant by Tifany Hoecherl on Sugardoodle

Getting Ready for a Wonderful Thanksgiving in a few weeks! My son and his family are coming from Chicago to stay for a week. It’ll be So FUN to see my little grandbaby girl who is turning 2 soon! Woopie!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PattiesPrimaryPlace

Primary Singing Time BINGO GAMES!

I have done PRIMARY BINGO GAMES in singing time for lots of the seasons. A cute one for Christmas is below. Woo Hoo! I love me a freebie!

For Christmas I do J-E-S-U-S along the top, and for Thanksgiving we do T-H-A-N-K-S. Just make up some clip art pictures of 16 (4 x 4 grid) OR 9 (3 x 3 grid of pictures) that have to do with the season. Then I cover each of the pictures with just colored paper squares or wrapping or scrapbook paper squares. Then put a number on each square that covers each picture. When the kids pick just put a sticker dot in their class’ color to distinguish one class from another. Or you could just play till the end of your time and whichever class has the most dots wins a prize.

Christmas Bingo Game – Make your own BIG ONE!

A FREE downloadable bingo card from DTK for Kids is fun and easy to do. The link is HERE. It will give you ideas for every holiday under the sun. And if you have a color printer it will be CUTE TOO! That’s always high on my list. hehe.

Get a copy of these 8 Bingo Cards for your family party or to use in a small class in Primary.

At Crazy Little Projects is a FREE Thanksgiving Bingo I made up for my family and grandkids to play at Thanksgiving. It is super cute pictures for even little kids to be able to play. There are 8 bingo cards. Another one with words under the pictures is HERE at Instant Bingo Card.com.

Add caption

If you do small bingo cards I’d give each class a few cards to share and as we call out a few of the items and somebody gets a bingo, they come up to get a bag of licorice or Smartees or lollypops for their class and then you sing a new song.

Another idea is to do MAKE A Singing Time SCARECROW!Just make a large circle face and a hat out of colored paper or scrapbook paper and then bring a bag full of these cutouts. 2 large EYES, Yellow HAIR, SHIRT, NOSE, FUNNY MOUTH, BOW for shirt. If you want more you could add a Sunflower or black crow on the hat. Use these items for a pick something out of the bag game and add to the scarecrow face each time kids pick from the bag. Then sing the song number on the back of that item.

DTK for Kids also have a Bible Bingo that might work too. I copied the calling cards printables and the link is HERE. Just peruse their topics, decide if you want pictures or words (vocabulary option) and then PRINT! I use them a lot in my classroom for theme days too.

I have pocket charts from my classroom so that is an easy way to put the pictures up. Another is to put a little piece of magnet on them. Our primary chalkboard is magnetized.

This package is $5.00 from Walmart. You would seriously NEVER run out!

You can get small circular magnets from Roberts or Michaels for a few dollars. They will last you a long time too and are very convenient for putting posters and stuff up on the board.

Fun Spring Bingo Games – choose 9, 16 or 25 spots

You can also just choose a child to come up and ask them to tell something they are thankful for. They could come up and put a marker on the Bingo Board. You could make it easier and just do 3 in a row and have 15 pictures or phrases covered up. They have cute holiday and seasons bingo pictures that would be cute to make up for holidays. Happy Holidays by the way!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PattiesPrimaryPlace