Pattie's Primary Place – Page 4 – Good Stuff for Primary Leaders

August Primary Singing Time

Most choristers are getting ready for the primary presentation coming up. I always started to add my musical instruments about now. I always had a few instruments as accompaniments to the song. It adds so much.

I love this little trio of cuties…..my 3 oldest granddaughters; apples of my eye!

I looked out the window and what did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree! ALWAYS
add some funny songs into your weekly list.

One idea is to use the older kids who can play the violin. I had 2 girls a few years ago that played alongside an easy, repetitive chorus of one of the presentation songs.

Most years I have used resonator bells to accompany a song. I love the wood block bells and they sound delightful tinkling in the background. You can use other types of bells too.

First Note 15 Note Wood Xylophone
One I recommend is a xylophone set for $20 bucks. The tones of these bells is very crisp and rises above the piano AND the singing. And you can get a child who has some piano lessons in his/her background to play a simple rythm or several children to do chords to add to the chorus of a song. The link is HERE for Musician’s Friend, where I bought mine. The kids LOVE them. they have many other types of bells to choose from for around $25.00.
Rhythm Band RB2130 Plastic Resonator Bells
Another thing to start is maybe a song with sign language. I tried to do this every other year. It is so moving to watch young kids sign a song. Love One Another has signs in the songbook.

Another instrument I’ve used in the past is a flutist. I don’t care if it is an adult or a primary child, it always adds to the meeting.

And lastly, I will add some solos and trios or duets. Many songs have a harder 2nd or 3rd verse that the kids do not really master in time. If that is the case in your primary, then add an older group of boys or girls or a mix to trio the 2nd verse.

It especially has worked well in missionary type songs. It just brings such a sweet spirit to the song lyrics to have individual kids sing them at the microphone.
Anyway, add some special things to your program this month, so you have time to practice and perfect the special musical touches. Happy Summertime!

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July Primary Singing Time Mustaches and Games

Here Mr. Moss is at the Pioneer Day Parade floats. The hub’s face says it all (why does my wife make me take these dorky pictures with giant pioneer people? why!) haha.

Here we are at the Pioneer Day Floats after they went out to the Pioneer Day Parade on State Street in Salt Lake City. It was fun to tour around and see them all up close. These Pioneers were funny.

A really FUN idea for practicing those songs again and again to get ready for the Primary Presentation is to get kids to SING with all their hearts! Here are some GIANT ears to get your kiddos to SING LOUDER!!!

HERE at Delta’s Dazzling Costumes are some BIG EARS to use for the game “I CAN’T HEAR YOU SINGING! They are $6.00. Another set I found HERE at Oriental Trading.

Put your ears on and walk around tapping the shoulders of kids who are singing their hearts out. It would be a lot of fun to wear these ears and walk around resinging songs and getting kids to chuckle while practicing some of the songs for the presentation coming up. Who doesn’t like a little comic relief? I DOO !
large-ears

Another fun thing to do would be to make up a set of mustaches on a stick. Have the kids come up and pick a mustache to use to direct the song or else just to wear and sing with you up in front. Behind each mustache can be the song to sing after they choose one. FUN! And wouldn’t they LOVE to take one home? You can get skewers (100 of them) at the dollar store to attach to.
Free mustache printable

HERE on Pinterest are some printables for mustaches to cut out. Just put them on wooden skewers or popsicle sticks. Or just cut out the shapes from black construction paper if you don’t want to print them out and use up your toner. Have fun RESINGING!

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Pioneer Day Singing Time Cake Walk with Pioneer Children

Well Pioneer Day is this week, so I was thinking of some fun things you could do! I found a cute thing I still think would be fun for next week. The kids will do something with their families on Pioneer Day if they live in the U.S. We always celebrated it when our kids were growing up in California. If they live in Utah for SURE they will celebrate with a rodeo or a parade or something fun like that.

Here is a cute Pioneer Day color and glue ACTIVITY page to send home for the kids to color and cut out and fill the handcart. It is found HERE at Squigglebop.

Anywho…..a fun idea I got from Camillesprimaryideas.com was to use the little tone bells and have some of the older kids come up and play to her color chart while you sing
l. LITTLE PIONEER CHILDREN using this flipchart HERE for the words. Check out my blog a few years ago when we did a PIE Chart for PIE-O-Neers HERE.

Pioneer Day Singing Time Fun

Then dress up in a pioneer hat and apron and bring 3 kids up at a time to do the bells while you sing. Her color chart where she uses a pointer and points to the color so the child with the corresponding bell can play it is HERE. Just copy this chart. Or if you are like me and don’t want to use up all your color copy ink, then just draw circles and color them in with markers the corrsponding colors.

Pioneer Day Singing Time…..Check these TONE BELLS out on my store or HERE at Educational Aides.

2. PIONEER CHILDREN SANG AS THEY WALKED

Another cute idea was to do PIONEER CHILDREN SANG AS THEY WALKED. You could do a footprint cakewalk. HERE is a link to some PRINTABLE SHOEPRINTS for the cake walk. You just start the music, kids get up (maybe a few classes at a time) and you have set out all the footprints (maybe 25 of them) in a circle around the outside of the room. They walk around as you all sing. Then the music stops. YOU pick a number between 1 and 25 and that person can have a pioneer treat of some sort (cookie, salt water taffy, lollypop or cupcake or mini Hershey’s candy bar wrapped in Pioneer saying etc.) It is fun and a good way to rehearse songs over and over that just need practice.

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5 Independence Day 4th of July Singing Time Games

1. SOME FUN PATRIOTIC SONGS FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY!
1. MY FLAG, MY FLAG (#225) (with RibbonWands) See how to make them on my blog HERE.
2. THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER (Hymnbook)
3. MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE (#224)

Only instead of blue, green and pink ribbons for the wands, you could use RED, WHITE, AND BLUE and then WAVE them to the BEAT of the SONGS!

2. INDEPENDENCE DAY QUESTIONS FROM THE JAR….

I loved this idea from one of my former Laurels! It is a bunch of questions to put into a patriotic jar and ask. When kids answer the questions they get to pick the song on the back to sing. Maybe they could use the Ribbon Wands!?! Here is the Link to sugardoodle’s page.

3. DECORATIONS WITH A PATRIOTIC THEME WITH SONG TITLES TAPED ON BACKS
For the 4th of July you could also get red, white, and blue decorations from around your house and tape a song to each of the decorations. Have kids come up and pick a decoration and tell the group why they are proud to be living in the USA. It is good to have kids remind each other of how lucky we are to be Americans.

Here’s some decorations from my house…lots to choose from!

4. WAVE FLAGS TO THE RYTHM OF THE SONGS!! Another idea is to have little flags you purchase from the dollar store or Hobby Lobby. I found them at Hobby Lobby for 49 cents each. You could buy 8 flags to decorate your house and use them also in singing time
.

Pass them out to the class singing the nicest and they get to wave the flags on the next song. This is just a mini motivator to have some good singing happening.

I’d bring a few things from my Table Decs too!

5. TIC TAC TOE WITH RED, WHITE AND BLUE TAFFY PIECES!

I noticed at Walmart that they have red white and blue decorated Taffy pieces for only a few bucks and it’s a GIANT BAG! You could do a tic tac toe game using red white and blue Xs and Os and yarn and the winning team gets the candy or just use it to give one for each child that comes up and shares why they are proud to be living in the USA. An Independence Day link to a Quiz to use with Tic Tac Toe game is HERE.

Happy 4th of July Everybody!

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Mother’s Day Singing Time

The lovely Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival gardens going on right now. So lovely.

I remember when my kids were little there was a wonderful first grade teacher who always did a little program in her classroom. Several of my children were lucky enough to have her as a teacher. Her name was Mrs. Estelle Seaton. She was such a gifted teacher. She used to call her teaching year her “sports season”. She came from a family of tall amazon people who all loved football. But her true love were her little first graders.

She would get the kids to stand up proudly in a group in her classroom and put on a little musical performance for Mother’s Day. We were invited to the “Mother’s Day Tea Party” where we would bring all the goodies but the kids gave us the real treats.

Yummy cookies are always fun or a cupcake to decorate for mom too!

They made us sawdust molded handprints holding silk flowers. We took pictures together. And I remember crying when they sang the Mr. Rogers song “I Like Your Eyes”. They sang a bunch more numbers but that’s the one I remember crying on. At Mrs. Lirettes blog she shows a picture of a flower arrangement card I got from my little boys. They did the exact same card in Mrs. Seaton’s class. Maybe making little cards would be fun!

This one was from my little Daniel Moss when he was only 6.

Here is another way to do it with a cute poem attached.

On Mother’s Day it is a wonderful and special treat to have the primary children sing a loving song to their moms. It is always a tear jerker moment watching them sing their hearts out with giant smiles showing their love for mom. Childlike love, well, there is just nothing like it on God’s green earth.

Here are a few of my favorites that I would start practicing now. They are melodious and easy for kids to memorize.

1. Mother Dear I Love You So
2. I Always Go Walking
Get visual aids from the Sugardoodle website link here.

Another fun idea I got from
Basic Primary Music’s blog. Check it out! It sounds like lots of fun. It is a concentration match game.

All moms love flowers for Mother’s Day. And who wouldn’t love some of these lovely tulips? I would! But the crazy deer around here would eat them all up! So I must settle for daffodils.

Collect 10 fun/silly head-shots of the mothers of primary children. Copy 2 copies of each picture and place them behind a 1 to 20 grid you do on a poster board or tape up onto the chalkboard or with magnets on a whiteboard.

Print this Concentration.pdf on one side of white card stock. Print the pictures of moms you have collected on the other side of the cardstock. You will need to print each mom’s face twice, so make sure to put the one face of each mom behind two random numbers, so they don’t all end up side by side.

Attach the printed cardstock, number side out, on the white/chalk board, with tape or magnets. Then kids come up, uncover 2 numbers to see if there is a match. If they make a match that child comes up and says 1 thing they love about their mom who shows up in the picture. Then sing a song to the moms. You can invite them in that day if you want. Try to include some of the Primary Presidency.

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Easter Primary Singing Time Resurrection Eggs

My husband and I recently attended the BYU Museum of Art Carl Bloch art exhibit. It had many religious paintings from Bloch and others called “SACRED GIFTS”. The link is HERE. It was very moving. There were many paintings of the savior during the time of his crucifixion and resurrection. It is free. Go see it if you are in Provo during the next month. My favorite was an etching done by Shwartz called “Agony in the Garden”. The link is HERE. It is a picture of an angel trying to comfort Christ as he prays. It moved me to tears. My husband came up to me at the end and said, “Well the best one was that one”. And he pointed to the same one I had identified.

Frans Schwartz “Agony in the Garden” my favorite of the BYU Museum of Art “Sacred Gifts” exhibit.

It is very reverent and quiet as you enter the museum. There are ipads and headphones where you can read and hear interpretations from art docents, apostles’ talks, and music by the Mormon Tabs as you walk around and look at each picture. It was really a wonderful date night we had last Friday. I highly recommend it. You just need to order free tickets online.

Easter Singing Time The Resurrection of Christ….the greatest event to ever take place for us….

I have SO loved this idea since getting it once in Relief Society in a lesson on the great sacrifice of our Savior and His Atonement. I have used this around the Easter dinner table in my family. I’ve used it teaching teenagers in Sunday School and in a Family Night. And I’ve reused it in primary.

Kids love object lessons. And this easter egg “signs of the Savior’s Sacrifice for us” is a great object lesson for kids and adults alike. Every year, when I’ve taken out my little basket of eggs I’ve got a tear in my eye. I love the Savior. I believe in Him with all my heart. And I know in whom I have trusted.

Easter Primary Singing Time – If you want to hear a great talk check it out HERE.

In this chaotic life we are all a part of, it is a simple and clear walk through the steps to the Savior’s crucifiction and resurrection, easily understood. I would try if I could to get the presidency to let you have a little extra time one of these upcoming weeks leading up to Easter.

I love this painting depicting the sacrifice our Savior made for us….

So many times we address just the “Next Lesson” in the yearly lessons at church. As a former Catholic, and a convert to the church, I always have mixed feelings about this. Why not recognize the greatest sacrifice ever made, given by the greatest who ever lived among us on this Internationally celebrated holiday of Easter? I never did get that. Try to honor the Savior on Easter. That’s my simple and heartfelt message.

Another favorite painting of mine…I’m looking for a big copy of it to put in my great room remodel…it says to me….“I will look for you when you are lost…even though you are odd, different, ugly, damaged” His love for us, evident.

The eggs can be put together using this easy tutorial HERE at Serving Pink Lemonade’s blog. . Use stuff around the house to fill your eggs. Another with a LIST is HERE at scribd.com. I actually like both of them. You could do a combination of both lists. I would skip the vinegar though, yucky :D. A third lists is here copied from Yahoo Voices.

Egg #1: (palm) Jesus rode into Jerusalem and the people waved palm branches. Matthew 21:1-11

Egg #2: (cotton ball with cologne on it) Mary poured perfume on Jesus’ feet. John 12:3

Egg #3: (bread) Jesus shared the Last Supper with His disciples. Matthew 26:26

Egg #4: (coins) Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 26: 14-15

Egg #5: (a thorny stick) Soldiers placed a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head. John 19:2

Egg #6: (cross made from toothpicks) Jesus carried His own cross. John 19:17

Egg #7: (dice) Soldiers took Jesus’ clothes from him and cast lots for them. John 19:24

Egg #8: (nail) Jesus was nailed to the cross. John 19:18

Egg #9: (sponge) They gave Jesus vinegar mixed with gall to drink. Matthew 27:34

Egg #10: (whole cloves) Spices are used to prepare Jesus for burial. John 19:40

Egg #11: (rock) The stone covering to Jesus’ tomb was rolled away. Matthew 28:2

Egg #12: (empty) He is not here He has risen! Matthew 28:6

I would try to use the songs in the Easter section on one Sunday as well as going over your song for the month. Some links for flipcards on good Easter songs are HERE at Precious Primary. 1. Jesus Has Risen 70, 2. Hosanna 66, Beautiful Savior 62 To Think About Jesus 71, etc. HERE is a flipchart on He Sent His Son at Sugardoodle. Pick a child to come up and choose an egg. Read the scripture inside and show what object is inside and explain what part it played in the Easter story. It is usually a very quiet and reverent time, you will see. It may be your favorite thing you ever do in primary.

This picture is from another bogger Beyond Sippy Cups HERE.

I would also include the list of items in a copied off piece of paper to send home with the kids after primary and tell them they can make up their own dozen eggs with help from parents and redo it in their own family night. I loved getting this for my family and I would encourage any primary leaders to do the same. It has made a big difference in my life and my family’s too I believe.

sidewalk chalking & egg dyeing

And don’t forget to color eggs and get some sidewalk chalk for Easter! One of life’s fun memory makers if you have kids or grandkids of any age! Happy Easter!

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Primary Singing Time Bingo

I have done bingo for lots of the seasons. A cute one for EASTER is HERE at Family Crafts. It is free and printable. Woo Hoo! I love me a freebie! I’m gonna be spending a lot of moolah on my classroom kids for our Easter Egg Hunt this year since I have 30 kiddos! It’s a good time to get those cute plastic eggs too. You can put questions inside them. Then have kids come up, pick an egg, and answer an easter question. Then they can put a marker on the Easter Bingo Board. Class that gets 5 in a row gets a basket of treats. I’d do just a bag of jelly beans or something like that. But I’m a cheapster! lol.

Free Easter Bingo Game that is Printable!

For Christmas I do J-E-S-U-S , and for Easter I do BIBLE and for Thanksgiving we do T-H-A-N-K-S. Just make up some clip art pictures of 16 OR 9 OR 25 items that have to do with the season. Then I cover each of the pictures with just colored paper squares or wrapping paper squares. Then put a number on each square that covers each picture.

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. They 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. 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

Then we choose a child to come up and I will ask a gospel question or a “finish this line” in one of our new or presentation songs. If they guess the answer a gospel or music question they turn over that number on the bingo board. Object is to try to get a whole class bingo 4 or 5 in a row. Or 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. You ask the questions.

Easter Bingo Game

Then sing a song. Or pick 2 children and questions then sing a song. You should be able to pick about 8 or 9 kids and hopefully get a bingo even if you have a huge primary. Have fun with it!

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St. Patrick’s Day Singing Time

For St. Patrick’s Day Singing Time this year, you could add a bunch of leprechauns or shamrocks for cute decorations and put song titles on the backs of them. Kids love leprechauns. Or you could play hide the leprechaun and sing loud or soft (when kids are getting Hot and Cold near the leprechaun) . Send somebody out from one of the older classes while you hide it.

For singing time in March I’d use some leprechauns and some pots of gold and RAINBOWS! You could have the kids pick a colored strip of 6 different colors with a song on the back. Then they can add it to the top of the “POT OF GOLD”.(just a black paper pot taped up on the board). By the time you have sung 6 songs, you’ll have a RAINBOW! I would just do straight strips because it is easier. Then a straight rainbow will be coming out of the pot.

Well, the Irish holiday of St. Patrick’s Day almost upon us…..I decorated a bit at the house.

I love the cute little leprechaun my class made a few years ago out of empty lamination rolls….they were cute! And look at that awesome tablecloth I actually sewed myself! Yeah, I rock just a little bit on that machine. lol.

Some of my favorite March St. Patrick’s Day story books I read to the kiddos in elementary.

My classroom Calendar bulletin board….I change it out every month to match a holiday or the season.

I love the holiday full of rainbows. I taught the kids all about ROY G. BIV. That is the clown who reminds us of the rainbow color order. Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. I just mix up indigo and violet and call it purple instead. Then they do a pot of gold with a 1 inch x 12 inch strip of each of the 6 colors and glue them on the back of a pot. We add fake coins glittered to the top.

We made Leprechauns, March Book Reports and some Leprechaun similes and pots of gold.

Then when they come back in pick a song, have kids sing louder when they get “hot” or close to the leprechaun, and sing softer or slower when they get far away or “cold”.

This is a great way to practice over and over a song they need a little practice on before the presentation. Have fun with leprechauns!

My classroom St. Patrick’s Day Bulletin Board we just finished today at school. I love how it turned out with all these pots of gold and Leprechauns!

My front entry room table decorated up with St. Patrick’s Holiday stuff.
And in the meantime, here are some of the things I’ve been up to. Do you get the idea I’m IRISH? Well I am. My name is Pattie for heaven’s sake! I used to be a Russell. My grandparents on both sides are Irish and Scottish. I can’t help myself!

I love this picture of 2 of my granddaughters from Chuck E. Cheese of all places!

I love this story The Luckiest Leprechaun!

Coffee Table with Happy St. Patrick’s Day decor at my house.

I love this holiday. It is fun to get out all the green stuff for March. I’m glad we get a whole month to enjoy the Irish stuff. Kiss me I’m Irish!

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Valentines Singing Time

Since yesterday was VALENTINES DAY, I would do some heart popping balloons for singing time! I would go over to Hobby Lobby or Michaels and look for some heart shaped balloons. Or just 7 or 8 red balloons will do in the 9 or 10 inch size. Then I would put 7 songs on little strips of paper and roll them up inside each of the balloons.

Then tape them to a wall or chalkboard before the kids all come in. You could write a big number on the outside or just leave them blank.

Here’s my little Valentines with me at the Petting Zoo last Saturday…..

Ain’t she cute?

Feeding the goats…..priceless!

Then tell the kids for Valentines Day coming up you wanted to play “pop the balloon” with them. Sing the assigned song and tell them you are going to be looking for the best singer to pick to come up and pop the balloon for the next song choice.

I’d try to get some heart shaped ones from Roberts Crafts, Micheals or Hobby Lobby….

Then they will undoubtedly sing their little hearts out for you. It’s so cute how easy it is to motivate kids.
Then pick out your first “contestant”. They can come up and get a big pin from you for popping.
Make a big deal about maybe counting down from 5, to 4, to 3, 2, 1 Let er RIP! Then watch the fun.

And you’ll have your next song to sing. Tell them once again you will be looking for the best singer to pop the next balloon. The balloons will cost you about 20 cents each depending on where you go. I know Roberts Crafts has balloons too and you might find some cute Valentine ones to put in between the plain red ones for variety.
Balloon Pop Gift Wrap
Happy POPPING! And Happy Valentines Day!

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Olympic Torch and 15 Winter Olympic Sports Pictographs

I wanted to teach the kids a few things about the Olympics in Sochi, Russia happening this week. I always love watching the opening ceremonies and the pride I feel in our country represented by hundreds of cool athletes from all around the U.S.A.

We made Olympic Torches for art this past week, and I had them write about the Olympics.

Our classroom bulletin board of the Sochi, Russia Winter Olympic Games turned out pretty.

Tacky and the Winter Games is a book I sent away for on Amazon to read the kids too. HERE is a link. Tacky is one of my all-time-favorite book characters. He is so funny and odd but always saves the day

I looked on Pinterest and around the internet and found a few fun ideas for things we could do. I have always loved watching the figure skaters in the Olympics. Who doesn’t remember Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan and the hoopla of THAT winter olympics?

Here is the Sochi set of Winter Olympic Pictograms. I used these to put kids’ face pictures on the “heads” as they choose their favorite Olympic Winter Sports. Check out HERE at this Flicker site for more pictures.

Sochi Winter Olympics depicted on our bulletin board.

I can’t believe the Salt Lake City Winter Games were back in 2002! The students chose their favorite of the 15 events and I put their pictures on top as a headshot. Super fun!

Snowboarding was a favorite Olympic event of the boys and girls in my class.

We also did a class graph of favorite Winter Olympic Events and I think figure skating and snowboarding were winners.

I used the Salt Lake City Pictograms from the UEN Website for my headshots HERE. I just liked the black background better and also because it listed the name of the sport. These would be SUPER CUTE TO DO IN PRIMARY!
I made up some SOCHI 2014 banners with the Olympic Rings for our Class bulletin board.I used little “class picture” faces copied on the copy machine in black and white. Then I had a mom helper glue their face to their favorite or most admired winter sport.

So I had the kids also do a graph choosing their favorite of the Winter Olympic Sports. Boy did we have a lot of ski and snowboard lovers in our class! (I don’t think anybody even KNOWS what a bobsled is! :D) HERE are some cute graphics I used to create our Class Olympics Graph. It was free on TPT. Some backround information and stationery is HERE from TPT. I forgot to take a picture.

Olympic Torches out of paper cones covered in tinfoil. The flames are orange, red and yellow tissue paper squares.

Then we chose our sport and wrote why we’d love to be in the Olympics. We brainstormed how exciting it would be to wear the Red, White and Blue, go to the opening ceremonies wearing the U.S. Team Uniform and hat, (although this year’s hat is kinda weird looking in my view) and live amongst the top athletes in all of the world, even if only for a few weeks or days. I hope they will all be safe in Sochi 2014. That’s always a concern these days, sadly, isn’t it? The best bunch of activities that I found for FREE was HERE at First Grade WOW. Thanks so MUCH! There was everything from Math to Nouns and Verbs and Wordsearches. She matched some activities to the cute Tacky the Penguin Book (My favorite Children’s Book of all Time).

Their”Olympic” essays were a lot of fun to read. Some cute word wall vocabulary cards can be found HERE at TPT. My favorite stationery I found was HERE at TPT. It was soooo cute!

Winter Olympics Writing and Olympic Torch Art…..

I found a cute Olympic Bingo game that was super colorful but I wanted Winter sports only. It is HERE at learning treasures. I’m going to keep looking. A cute wordsearch I found HERE at Sports Girls Play. And a very cute Olympic Torch outline is quality-kids-crafts. I did a variation on it in my class so check them out below. Another cute BINGO game with WINTER sports only is HERE at Classroom Jr.

Here is another bulletin board we did just outside our doors. Underneath are the 15 events I had copied many years ago during the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. I just pulled out my file again. Good memories! I got to go SEE that opening ceremony. It was magnificent!

I wanted the students to experience Russian Culture a little bit too. So we will make some Russian Nesting Dolls out of paper next week and write poems about the Russian Olympics. I brought in the dolls I bought in Armenia many years ago when I traveled to Russia. HERE at activity village are the printable and free download of the Russian Nesting Dolls blackline. They turn out really cute! I’ve done them in the past when we had a rotation for Christmas Around the World and I presented Russia. Russian Nesting Dolls I have at home from my trip to Russia a few years back picking my son Dev up from his Armenia Mission (near Russia). I also showed them some travel brochure picture posters I made up of Russia with some of their cultural icons like the Onion Domed buildings, Their government leaders (Putin) and who their Santa Claus is! (Father Frost).

I will read them some of the stories of “Babushka” by Patricia Polacco because she depicts the Russian culture in her stories. Here are a few of her famous books. Maybe some of these ideas will spark an Olympic Idea for you to do in Primary. The torches were easy, just a cone, tinfoil and tissue paper taped inside. Easy Peasy!

I hope we bring home lots of gold this week at the Winter Olympics! Go Team U.S.A. Babushka's Doll 443633

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