Just Dropping In!

After getting such wonderful ideas from a primary chorister I dropped in on earlier on my vacation to Utah, I was excited to pop in on another! My next visit was to another primary in West Jordan, Utah with chorister Jill Taylor.  

Hi Jill! 

Jill and I talked for a little while between her singing times, and I felt strongly that if we lived closer we'd become great friends. She even let me go into nursery with her, which was very wonderful. I don't see a whole lot of posts about nursery, or maybe I don't pay as much attention to them as I should. But Jill had some fun ideas that really inspired me to put more effort into nursery. 

The first thing Jill said when I told her I was a visiting chorister, was that she doesn't sing, and is not musical, and she was not sure why they put her in as the chorister. Well! It was obvious to me why she was called....she has such affection for the children, and they followed her in singing as if her fists were full of candy. She loves the children and they love her in return. It's as simple as that. 

Jill began by teaching both verses of I Love to See the Temple using pictures from a flip chart. They sang the first verse, and then she went back and explained what the different phrases meant, involving the children and asking them questions, too. She listened for the phrases that needed work, and had the children sing those phrases through until they knew the words better. She repeated the same process on the second verse. This is exactly what I will be doing this Sunday as I teach the same song.

Next Jill had a clear glass vase with about 8 small American flags in it. Crinkled inside the vase were torn pieces of red and blue paper, just for some color. Each flag had the name of a review song on it. She chose a reverent child to come to the front and choose a flag, and when they sang the song the child got to lead the song using that flag. It was so cute! The kids loved it! 

I have about 30 medium sized flags I bought at Deseret Industries last winter. I was able to talk the store manager into selling them to me for 10 cents each, which was a small miracle!  I mean, this was a first for me! Now I have just the thing to do with them. I think I may have an entire class come to the front to wave/lead the flags.

Jill used visual aids for nursery, and again, the little ones were completely focused on her. She had a flip chart for "Wheels on the Bus", which is one I use too, although mine is an older version. (Mine is from the book, Music Fun For Tots by Pam Carity and Marsha Nawrocki, published by Church Mouse Publications and distributed by Deseret Book. I bought it about 22 years ago at Deseret Book.) 

Jill also had some really cute-sy stars printed on yellow card stock, laminated, and adhered to tongue depressors. She used these to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" giving one to each child to hold and wave during the song.  For sure, I have got to make some for my nursery kiddos!

Thanks Jill for your clever ideas! Thanks for letting me tag along in nursery, too. I had a blast!

Somewhere in West Jordan, Utah

Because I have been out of town, I was able to attend Primary in two separate wards in the past two weeks. Both were fabulous. Both were somewhere in West Jordan, Utah, and both had some great ideas I want to share with you. 

The ideas presented in this post are from the chorister who's name I didn't write down. She was fantastic! (If  it was YOU please forgive me and comment with your name so I can give you proper credit.) I will share what I learned from the second chorister, Jill Taylor, in my next post.

The first thing I noticed about our Unknown Chorister was how well organized she was, how well she used her time, and how she never missed a beat:

She asked the children if they knew what the Declaration of Independence was, and she explained it a little to them. Then she had a teacher come to the front and tell about the following: 

“That We May Be Redeemed” by Harold I. Hopkinson

Founding Fathers

"We know the signers of the sacred Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers, with George Washington at their head, have made appearance in holy places. Apostle Wilford Woodruff was president of the St. George Temple at the time of their appearance and testified that the founders of our republic declared this to him: 'We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.' (Journal of Discourses, 19:229.)

"Later, after he became President of the Church, President Woodruff declared that 'those men who laid the foundation of this American government and signed the Declaration of Independence were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits, not wicked men. General Washington and all the men who labored for the purpose were inspired of the Lord.' (Conference Report, April 1898, p. 89.)"

Ezra Taft Benson, "Our Priceless Heritage," Ensign, Nov. 1976, 34

The Declaration of Independence

"The Declaration of Independence . . . is much more than a political document. It constitutes a spiritual manifesto—revelation, if you will—declaring not for this nation only, but for all nations, the source of man's rights. Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet, foresaw over 2,300 years ago that this event would transpire. The colonies he saw would break with Great Britain and that 'the power of the Lord was with [the colonists],' that they 'were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations' (1 Nephi 13:16, 19).

"The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition—the divine right of kings. At issue was the fundamental question of whether men's rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God."

Ezra Taft Benson, "Our Priceless Heritage," Ensign, Nov. 1976, 33

(I am not sure about the exact quotes she used, but it was very close to these articles.)

Then she had everyone sing, I love to See the Temple one time through. 

Next, she put up a flag representing the 13 original US colonies.  She explained that each color on the flag symbolized something, and she asked the children if they knew what they symbolized. She had prepared in advance three jars with a little vinegar water in them, and three spoons with a dab of food color on two of the spoons (one remained white, so no food color) and then covered the spoons with baking soda. To guess each color's meaning, she stirred the spoonful of baking soda into a jar of shallow vinegar water. It foamed all up and then revealed either red, clear (white), or blue. She explained the patriotic symbolism for each color,  and she had them sing each song after each color was revealed:

• Red: Courage, Nephi's Courage
• White: Liberty, Book of Mormon Stories (especially the 2nd verse)
• Blue: Loyalty, I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus

To wrap it up she explained a little bit about how Francis Scott Key came to write the Star Spangled Banner, and then had the children use hymn books to sing it. 

She commented to me after that she had gotten many of her ideas for that day from sugardoodle.net. I, for one, am extremely grateful to have a resource like Sugardoodle, as I know many of you are. We are truly blessed to live in this day and age of technology. So thanks to Melanie at Sugardoodle, and a big Hooray! to all the contributing choristers there, too!

Thank you, Unknown Chorister from West Jordan! It was so much fun to visit. You are awesome! The children in your primary love you and I can tell they look forward to your singing time each week. I can't wait to use your ideas!

 

Stars and Stripes Forever

So my 16 year old son walked in the room when I was assembling this flag:

He said, "Mom, you know that's not a real flag, right? The stripes are all messed up and there's not even thirteen stars."

(Thank you Captain Obvious....I guess I won't be fooling the Primary aged kids, either, LOL)

Finding myself on the spot, I said, "Well, I plan on pointing out to the kids that this flag is incomplete, just like some of the songs we are going to be practicing are incomplete!"

Brilliant.

Here is the PDF for the stars and stripes.

Stars and Stripes
For the stripes I printed 3 pages on red card-stock and three pages on white card-stock, then cut them out, taped them together, and taped them on to a blue poster board. For the stars I printed one page on white card-stock, cut them out and taped them to the blue poster board.The stars are from my DJ Inkers graphics collection.

I have songs written on the back of each stripe. I didn't have 8 songs for the eight stripes, so I wrote the songs I want to review more than once on more than one stripe. I love singing the patriotic hymns with the children, so that was a given. But I also want to work on The Holy Ghost again and practice the sign language, as well as the 9th verse of Follow the Prophet that was in the Friend Magazine about President Monson. I'll wait to introduce Come Follow Me until next week.

Here's my list of songs. They are in no particular order:

• America The Beautiful (Hymns, 338)
• My Country 'Tis of Thee (Hymns, 339)
• The Star Spangled Banner (Hymns, 340)
• (Written on 2 of the stripes )Follow the Prophet, Thomas S. Monson Verse (Children's Songbook 110)
• (Written on 3 stripes) The Holy Ghost (Children's Songbook, 105)

On the stars I have 8 ways to sing:

• Hand on Heart
• Boys/Girls alternate phrases
• Softly
• With pride/loudly
• Swaying
• Drum the beat on knees
• eyes closed
• Statue of Liberty pose

Then, I found this cute patriotic paper airplane on familyfun.com.

Click here to download and print your own.

The "flag" will be placed hanging on the whiteboard. I will have a child come to the front, standing a few feet from the whiteboard and flag, and try to hit a stripe on the flag with the paper airplane. We will sing the song written on the back of whichever stripe the airplane touches. The older the child, the further back they will stand. I will also have a child choose a star, which will tell us how to sing the song.

Happy Birthday to the USA!

Have fun!