How well do you know your FAVORITE song?!

How well do you know your FAVORITE song?!

That's a challenge for the kids. After we did this activity I said to myself, "This is their favorite game to play." Then I realized that was wrong. What I should have said was, "This is my favorite game to play with them."

For some reason, whenever I pull out fancy props from the closet, the kids don't seem to like it quite as well as the really simple games we play.

Materials: masking tape, paper strips, Sharpie

Instructions: Tell the kids you want to challenge a person who things that they know their favorite song really well. Tell them that we will sing their favorite song for them, but leave out a word, and when we're done, they'll have to tell us what the word is.
Get a volunteer who is up to the challenge and find out what the favorite song is. Write a common word on a wordstrip, big enough to read, and tape it to their forehead. Then get them to show the pianist so he can not play the note for that word, too.
Then sing it, and then ask the kid what word it was.
Most of the kids are so proud, they keep their wordstrips on their forehead for the rest of singing time.

Samuel the Lamanite

Today I decided, very shortly before primary started, that I wanted to teach the Samuel the Lamanite verse of Book of Mormon Stories (p. 118) in conjunction with Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus (p. 36). We've already been learning Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus.

Arrows could not hit him for a man of God was he.
Get the whole cut out from LDS.org here

I thought this was great to remind the kids of more of the story of Samuel. The Christmas song tells about how he prophesied of baby Jesus's birth in 5 years and that a night will be as day. We discussed that this meant that the sun would go down, but it would still be light out. Note: we did this a week ago when we first learned the song.
The verse of Book of Mormon Stories tells another part of the story: Samuel taught from the city wall and people shot arrows at him and couldn't hit him. Also, he was a Lamanite teaching repentance to the wicked Nephites.

I taught it with hand motions, call and repeat:

Samuel the Lamanite, high on the city wall (form a wall with your hands)
Came to warn the people, and repentance was his call, (pretend you're Samuel, waving a hand from left to right, like you're looking at a crowd below you)
Arrows could not hit him for a man of God was he. (pretend to shoot arrows)
And he taught in the land righteously. (right hand out, left hand out [positioned similar to the "I don't know" pose], right hand in, left hand in, head down [end with your arms folded].
I never knew describing those actions would be confusing. These are the same actions I use for the end of the first 2 verses as well)

The kids really enjoyed this song, and I felt it helped the younger ones learn more about the story of Samuel the Lamanite.Still, I don't think we'll perform this song before "Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus" during Sacrament :)

Some of you get to be turkeys... A November singing time

On my hand turkey, I had actually written a clue for each song on each feather and the head. Before each song I let the kids guess what each clue meant.
ex. BoM was Book of Mormon Stories
ex. Head was Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Materials: a turkey picture (I just drew a hand turkey on the board with chalk), a bag/envelope with the following papers inside

--wearing red

--wearing blue

--wearing black

--boys

--girls

--blue eyes

--brown eyes
--green eyes

--freckles

Instructions: I told the kids that today I would pick some kids to be turkeys. Now turkeys don't really know the words to the songs: they only know one word. Everyone who is not a turkey sings all the song, but the turkeys sit quietly and then sing only the one word. (at this point all the kids were raising their hands, hoping to be turkeys).

Then I told them my envelope would tell me who the turkeys would be. I drew a slip from the envelope

(If I picked the blue eyes one, the children with blue eyes are turkeys).

Then I picked a word from the song, example "asleep" in "Away in a Manger," and that is the only word the turkeys sing. I also had them put their hands up on their chins when they sang the word, to look like the... thing that hangs off a turkey's neck. 

We sang each song through a few times, picking new turkeys and words each time.

Pros: The kids loved being declared turkeys. How surprising is that?! Also, this was a good activity to review a set of songs each a few times.