We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet

We started by doing what was suggested in the 2013 Primary Program book: I made word strips in different colors with each half of a line and then put the second halves of lines around the room. The first halves of lines (on the left) I put in order, taped on the board (because I hadn't figured out the yarn trick at that point).
Then I had the kids try to pick out the second half of each line. Some kids picked up immediately that the colors corresponded, the first half of line to the second half, but most kids really struggled to think which of the word strips came next.
After we had a line put together we sang it. That got boring, so I had 1/2 the kids stand up and sing the first part of the line and then sit down while the other half of the kids stood and finished each line for them. That was fun. Most of my directing was getting the kids up and down. With the teachers' help in the classes, the kids got the words.
The words are hard for kids and we did discuss them some.
I also brought in props to go with each:
Lines 1-2) The conference ensign with our prophet's picture on it
Line 3) A picture of the golden plates
Line 4) I drew a picture of the sun in chalk and talked about how the gospel makes us feel good, just like rays of the sun make us warm (very hard concept, yes)
Line 5) An apple, since food is a blessing (which the kids wanted to eat. Don't eat my prop!)
Line 6) A picture of a hand
Line 7) Work gloves for service
Line 8) A heart for love

Now I found that many word strips really cumbersome to magnet up or take up, so I bought a hot glue gun (just $3) and glued it to yarn. These fold up, and you can just hang them up.
You can also turn individual pages backwards when you're memorizing.

I also had the music coordinator in Sacrament have the congregation sing this as a hymn about a month after the kids started learning it.

Review-- If the Savior Stood Beside Me

So the kids are losing the words to "It the Savior Stood Beside Me," and with as many verbs are in the song, who can blame them?
Would I THINK of his commandments and TRY harder to be true?
Would I FOLLOW his example? Would I live more RIGHTEOUSLY? (okay, that's an adverb)

Verse 2 hard part:
Would my words be TRUE and KIND if he were never far away? (Yeah, I know. These are pronouns.)
Would I try to SHARE the gospel? Would I speak more REVERENTLY?

I narrowed it down a bit and decided to make scratch off surprises for the key words.
Directions below, idea came from here, though.
Materials:

Clear Contact paper
Acrylic paint
Regular dish soap
A disposable bowl to mix, scissors, a spoon, sturdy paper, a pencil

1) Make your papers to scratch off by writing the lyrics, leaving space for "think," follow," etc. to be covered.
2) Cut out an oval shape that will fit over each hidden word.
3) On the paper side of clear contact paper, trace the 6 ovals (approximate is fine)
4) To make the scratch off paint, combine 2 parts acrylic paint and 1 part dish soap. You will need 3-4 layers of it. Paint it on the plastic side of the clear contact paper.
5) After the layers are all dry, cut them out (using your tracing on the back) and hide your lyrics with them.

When running this I put them with the corresponding picture hints and explained what we were trying to find. Then I had them sing the first verse and try to remember what words filled in the blanks (this part worked well. I did motions for think and follow to get the kids connecting the dots).
Then I asked who thought they knew what went in the first blank. After the guess, I let them scratch it off and see how it went.

Pros: This was fun. I was a bit nervous that the kids would be so excited about scratching with coins that they wouldn't know the words, but each kid I asked had paid attention and knew what was under that paint.

Cons: I actually tweaked the ratio of paint to dish soap. Don't do that. It made it hard to scratch off.

We only got through the first verse last time. I think I'm going to redo the scratchers on some more first verse cards and see if the kids remembered (quickly) before moving onto the second verse.

Back to School week

The older kids were looking a little bored last week, so I decided to change it up a bit.
This week I wrote Aa Bb Cc on the board and brought some things in for a back to school theme.
After the welcome song, I told them that this week was school themed and that I needed to look more like a teacher. Right then and there I put my hair up in a silly, loose bun, stuffed it with pencils, and donned little framed glasses which I wore WAY down on my nose. I wish I had brought a shawl.

Me as a "teacher," getting them ready for school to start.

I asked the a volunteer to pick out of my school objects the one that represented recess, because they'd been working hard at church so far and deserved some recess!
He picked a ball and then we sang a wiggle song as recess.
Next I said that we had to do some cutting, just like we do in school, and could someone pick out the correct school object?
She picked the scissors. I told the "students" that we were going to cut, not paper, but that the scissors were a symbol. I told the kids that we were all going to stand and sing and my helped was going to find the very very best singer and CUT them from singing--that means that they have to sit down and the rest of us will have to finish without our best singers. (I sent her 4 times in the song to cut someone).
After that, running out of time since we started singing time by going into RS and singing I Like to Look for Rainbows for them, we only had time for 1 more.
I asked a volunteer to pick our class pet. It was the frog and we played Find the Frog (directions here) together.

I also had an eraser that we could have used to "erase" words from one of our songs. We didn't get that far.

Pros: The kids thought it was funny when I dressed up. The teachers may have thought it was funnier. Also, they were interested in practicing the same songs for the program, that we really need to learn.

Cons: Maybe just that I did have volunteers so some kids wanted a turn and didn't get them. But I really didn't have any problems today.