Daring Dads Dare to do Right!

For Father's Day I wanted to focus on dads a bit, but I was short on preparation time since I was out of town until late Saturday night. I knew I had a picture of kids and a dad to use, and here's what I came up with for the activity.
I had been wanting to teach the song "Dare to Do Right" p. 158 because of its good message. The plan for teaching "Dare to Do Right" could also work without it being Father's Day.
To start with I talked about how dads are so great and daring, and today I wanted some volunteers who were willing to do some dares, and be daring like their dads.

1) I picked a child and told them that dads are strong and love the scriptures. I dared the child to hold out my little quad with his arms straight for the entire song while we all sang
"Book of Mormon Stories." p. 118

2) The next child I picked I explained that dads cheer people up when they are sad. I dared a child to not smile for 15 secs. and timed it. Then we sang
"If You Chance to Meet a Frown" ("Smiles") p. 267

3) Before picking anyone, I told them the dare, since this one was super scary. I told them that daring dads have to sometimes do things by themselves, and asked if anyone was willing to sing by themselves in front of us. Out of my primary of 20 kids, 5 volunteered. I called them all up!
For 1 of our songs I have pictures to go with each line, to remind them of the words. I had each child pick 1 from the board and hold it. Then the primary sang everything except those lines, letting each line be a solo for the kid who was holding it. We sang
"Whenever I Hear the Song of a Bird" ("My Heavenly Father Loves Me") p. 228

Here are the pictures I got off sugardoodle.net (thanks others online!) The kids love them.
http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9421

4)This one I wanted to make a point that you don't have to do something just because someone dared you to do it. I called up a volunteer and explained that dads do a lot of things with their mouths that are good. They tell us they love us and they give prayers. Then I asked a child to hold her breath for 10 minutes. That's when we discussed that not all dares are good ideas, and it's okay to say no. After that I lessened the time to 15 secs. We sang
"A Child's Prayer" p. 12

Note 1: There was some chaos when I asked the child to hold her breath for 10 minutes, other kids calling out that it was impossible. Some choristers would have handled this great, but I think that if I did it again, I would have followed a different plan.

Note 2: I could have easily challenged every child to participate in this dare, if I'd thought of it.

5) I told the kids that I had a really good dare for each of them to do. I was going to write it on the board. I then wrote "To Do Right" and "To Be True"
I told them we were going to learn the chorus to a new song about being daring, called "Dare to Do Right." I told them how easy the chorus was and sang it for them, pointing at the "Do Right" and "Be True" whenever we sang it.

Then I had some pictures to represent the first verse (from the primary cupboard, but I'm sure you could make your own easily too) and taught them that.

Dare to Do Right Week 2:

Materials: Animal erasers glued to Popsicle sticks, pictures to remind kids of the words

I had some little animal erasers. I bought a hot glue gun for just $4 and glued them to Popsicle sticks. It's amazing how much more fun and real props seem by putting them on sticks!
I explained that to help us sing this week, I had brought some very daring animals. There were hippos and alligators and cheetahs and ducks! Now some ducks you meet aren't very daring, but I promise you, all the ducks in my bag are!
I explained that when singing "Dare to Do Right" we were going to hold up our daring animals every time we sang the word "dare."
I had teachers help me pass them out and then I picked 2 kids to be examples of holding up their animals, standing in front of the primary.

Pros: Easy, cheap, and involved every kid while they were singing. The kids liked the daring animals a lot.

Cons: I don't know. I can see the sticks being a potential distraction. Kids might also fight over who got which animal, but everyone was pretty good last week.

I'm glad I had enough animals that I didn't have to use the palm tree ones. The "Daring Ducks" proved to actually be a favorite.