Review Activity-Back 2 School

For the last Sunday before school started I borrowed my sister's back to school singing time idea. Her idea was to bring a backpack full of school supplies. Each one would represent a song and a way to sing it. The ways to sing it would be actual musical terms. I like this idea because it allows for actually teaching about music.
These were the things she brought:(for each item we sang a song from the program)
scissors: these are to represent singing staccato (the notes are short, like they've been cut with scissors-so sing one of the program songs staccato)
glue: represents legato (the notes stick together nice and smooth like they've been glued
glasses: they represent a fermatta (because you have to watch the chorister with your eyes very closely to see how long to hold out the note--the kids loved singing the song with lots of added fermattas)
new school shoes:to represent allegro and andante (sing the song fast or slow)
a framed picture of mom and child: my son really takes a picture of me and him to school each day. This is to represent acupella. Just like the kids can't take their moms/families with them to school--they have to go on their own, we are going to sing on our own without the piano.

Review Activity-Song Hospital

I loved the song hospital idea I had read about (and will look up the source soon) and decided to adapt it a little bit for our primary. I dressed up as Dr. Sis. Larson and the primary room became a hospital.

In our waiting room each song was a patient and waited in a chair to be called back to the examining table.

Our examining table

While the song was on the table, the kids and I sang it and then assessed it using this chart. I had the older kids take turns filling it out themselves, and for the younger kids, I had them help with circling the numbers.

If the songs were healthy enough, they were discharged. Discharged songs were placed outside the door (as though they were going home). Songs that still needed some work were "admitted". I placed admitted songs on the board.

Review activity-Solar System

This idea was another one adapted from another singing time blog (it was so long ago, I can't remember the source). This was a review for primary program songs and also a way to learn a few more "little songs" (that the presidency wanted to throw in last minute-I really try to be accomodating.)
SO I made the solar system out of poster board and each one represented a song from the program. It's hard to see from the pictures, but all of the large planets have little flags on them with the letter "p" for primary. THese planets are ones that we have claimed with our flag because we know the corresponding song pretty well.
So to begin this activity I told them how much I had enjoyed flying all over the universe with them and visiting all these different planets and sticking our flag in them, but we still had a few more planets to visit that don't have flags. They are called dwarf planets because they are very small and the songs on them are very short and easy to learn. For this activity, I also had a little laminated rocket ship that we moved from dwarf planet to dwarf planet as we learned those little songs. And we also added a "p" flag to each of the little planets as we mastered them.
One thing that I added for Senior primary was some decoding. I thought it would be fun to pretend that one of the new songs we were learning needed to be decoded because some of the words were in a weird alien language (going with the whole outer space theme). So I gave them each a piece of paper and pencil with the words to the song. The fun was that the key words to the song were changed to wingding font. Using the key, also on their paper, they had to decode these words. Once they did, they had all the words to this new song right in front of them, so they had no excuse not to sing along.

Review activity-The Singing Bee (with a spin)

I saw two ideas online that I wanted to fuse together. The first idea was for picking a song to sing using a human spinner. You just use a spinny chair, tape the names of songs all around it, have someone sit in it with their legs out and toes pointed forward, and then give them a good spin. Whichever song their feet are pointing to when the chair stops is the song you sing.

So that was how we picked out which song to do for "The Singing Bee". For this game, whichever kid was the contestant came up to the front of the room and was given a hand held microphone (kids love to hold a microphone). The pianist would then start to play the song that was picked by our human spinner with everyone singing along. Then the pianist would stop playing somewhere in the middle of the song, and the contestant has to sing the next line of the song by themselves. This activity takes hardly any preparation and the kids loved singing little solos in front of everyone.

Come Follow Me-Follow the recipe

For teaching the second verse of Come Follow Me, for both junior and senior primary, we did "Follow the recipe". I can't remember where I found this idea, I just know it wasn't my own.
Each time the kids learned a line of the second verse, I called on someone to add an ingredient to our big mixing bowl for chocolate chip cookies. By the time they learned the second verse we had beautiful chocolate chip cookie dough. I then pretended that I had a magic oven hidden behind the piano where I placed the cookie dough, and brought out a big basket of already baked cookies. Each of the kids got to go home with some cookies, and I got to go home with not one, but two large mixing bowls full of cookie dough. Talk about a SWEET activity!

Come Follow Me-Crazy Chorister's "just follow the pattern"

There are so many wonderful singing time blogs that I love to visit, none more than the crazy chorister. She had this idea for teaching come follow me that I knew would be perfect for our senior primary, called "just follow the pattern" since the song is about following:)

So for teaching the first verse of come follow me to the senior primary, I first passed out a white piece of paper to each kid. Each time we learned a line of the song, I would instruct them on folding their paper. By the end of the first verse they each had an oragami white dress shirt. (for this activity you can go on youtube to watch how the folding is done.)
I loved this activity. Just something different.

Come Follow Me Fishing

For teaching the first verse of Come Follow Me to the junior primary I first taught them about when Jesus said these words to His apostles. I explained how they were fisherman and Jesus told them to follow Him and become fishers of men. So we did a fishing activity with this song. Pretty simple. Each time we learned a line of the first verse, I called on someone to go fishing. Each fish then had a question attached to it such as, "It's Sunday and your friend has invited you to go see the new movie you've really been wanting to see. What could you do to follow Jesus?" The little kiddos loved going fishing!