I Know My Father Lives

For April, the Sharing Time Outline has asked Primary Music Leaders to select a song from the  Children's Song Book. In December (or whenever it was; that was a LONG time ago) I went searching for my songs (as May is the same way). I decided to find songs that went with the yearly theme: I am a Child of God. So I looked up "Child of God" in the topic section. That led me to the "Worth of a a Child" section. That section has 19 songs. I chose "I Know My Father Lives" - because I feel it is a classic that doesn't get sung enough and very simple and beautiful - and "Can a Little Child Like Me" (more on that one later). And after perusing blogland - I think I am the only one that did that. It seems like many people based their choices on the theme for the month (a very popular choice for April being "The Priesthood is Restored" but we just sang that in 2011, so I wanted to find something different).
So I hope I am not wrong in my choice - and this may help absolutely no one else since I am the only one to pick this song but here it goes anyway.
So Sugardoodle (the best site just about ever, by the way) has a page for this song on the Primary Song Index .
First it talks about the author/composer: "About the composer - Reid Nibley: Brother Nibley, a concert pianist and BYU faculty member, was asked to write a song about testimony. He wrote quickly because the words and music came at the same time. “I Know My Father Lives” was very simple, so Brother Nibley began adding notes. It became more and more complicated, so he erased all the unnecessary notes. When he finished erasing, the song was just as it had been written the first time!  (Taken from "Fun with Favorites" from the October 1985 Friend Magazine)"

Then, there is a link to a page at Christy's Clip art that doesn't seem to work for me, but I went to the site itself and found this idea "VERY EASY!  Simply type out the following words[KNOW, LIVES, LOVES, SPIRIT, TRUE] {SENT, EARTH, FAITH, PLAN, I CAN} (two to a page, landscape) on the computer in a font that you like and print.  As you go through the song, show the words.  I would have the stack and toss the words as I came to them. "
Then, I will have the kids come back up and place them in order on the board.
And I don't normally do flip charts, but I may print up Jolly Jen's almost solely because it is only two pages (you know, and for its super cuteness)

All you need to know

I was blog surfing again (Hey! that's where all my time goes!) And I stumbled across I Heart Primary Music (even though, yes, it is in my side bar on at least one of my blogs) and took the time to read the last post - which is a poem that she and her mother wrote titled: "All you need to know you learned from primary music" And it is great! So I took said poem and went all crazy with text effects and fonts and this is what I came up with:

All You Need to Know by Laura Henckel

Now, I haven't gotten her permission to publish yet - but I did so that I can show her what I did. So, I might be deleting this post if need be.
The preview on scribd didn't look quite like the one I have so if you would like a copy of the word doc I have, just leave a comment with an email. And -- remember -- I communicate with yahoo, so you might need to check your spam or trash.

April Planning

(image from 4shared)

For me, April will absolutely FLY by! First week, is of course, General Conference. And for our stake, the following week is Stake Conference.

Consequently my plan will be short. But before I realized Stake Conference was the second week of April, I did plan a song, so I just left it on my page.

The third week I plan on introducing the song I have picked for April - I Know My Father Lives. And the next week will be a memory review game where I will put names of songs on the back of memory game tiles that I plan to print up

And again, this fabulous calendar template was made by Sunbeam Singing

APRIL Planning by Laura Henckel

Easter Activities

(couldn't find a credit for this pic, but it is gorgeous, so I included it anyway)

Easter just so happens to fall upon a fifth Sunday. Earlier, I had agreed with the presidency that I would take the whole sharing/singing time on the fifth Sunday.
I didn't anticipate having the entire time on Easter Sunday, but once I realized that - and it was okay with everyone that I would still take the entire time, I was really excited.
I just hope that I plan enough to take the whole time.
I have not been able to find the actual Easter page on Sugardoodle, but Notes from a Novice primary song leader had it! (thank goodness!)
For Junior I will be using this idea from Irene. I really like the simpleness of it.

For Senior I found this article from the friend April 2011 all you need to do is click the download button and it will pull up a full color version. I am going to have the kids match the pictures to the narrative. I will also print up the scriptural references that they will match as well. I'm going to fit some songs in there as well.

If I have time, I found this idea on eprimary that takes the Easter Egg idea, but puts an lds spin to it - AND it has songs!

If The Savior Stood Beside Me posters

I am posting this extremely late, but I'm doing it anyway, because I am terribly vain and almost sinfully proud of my posters.

Way back in January, I found posters from Because I have been Given Much. On the post, the author talked about Costco and how, apparently, you can take a document and or file to Costco and they will print it out in poster size. I have also seen that this is quite ridiculously cheap. So for those who have a Costco near them -- that's great.

I am not one of those people. The closest one is about 60 miles away.

So plan B - ask local library if they have an opaque projector. And they did!!!!!!! (For those of you old enough - like me - to remember what opaque projectors are you can skip this part - but an opaque projector is an unbelievably heavy bulky object that you can put a page into and it will project it onto the wall many times the original size - kind of like an overhead projector, but the item being projected can be on plain paper - or in a book {this was obviously way before just converting items into digital form and making a power point presentation out of it})

AND they even let me check it out!!!! So I took every day available to wait around until I hurried up at the last minute and made this poster.

I'm not going to say it was easy - because it wasn't. I also used foam board instead of poster board and there is a size discrepancy that is made very obvious with the projector. But I muddled through the focus issues and then cut out the pictures from the one I printed, enlarged them (found that 265% was the best size - through trial and error as you can see the top pic is a bit small) and glued them into their corresponding places.

So the rationalization for this post and showing off my poster - I did this for all verses and it was great. They look great and are on that sturdy foam board and I can store them at church and believe I will be using them later.

But I am afraid that using these posters to teach the song was not the best idea. The kids who can read just read it and the kids who can't really were lost today when we started going over it again (probably because I took a "break" for St. Patrick's day). So when I taught it today, I feel things went quite better. But I only got through the first verse and didn't have time for my game of filling in the words with senior, but I guess I have a filler activity already prepared. (Like I would ever have time for a filler, but maybe I can use it in the summer for review.)

If the Savior Stood Beside Me Mashup

So, I had decided much, much earlier that I was going to do a scratch off word guessing activity that I was actually quite excited about. But I realized that we just didn't know it well enough to do that.

I was kind of scratching my head as to how to really teach the words. Our first week we just kind of glanced over the song and even though we had fun, I left feeling like they didn't really learn it. I went searching for ways to teach.

And there are LOTS of posts on this song.

Here is what I came up with: Primary Notes 29 had a number of posts on ITSSBM, but this post about a cute Easter egg idea had at the very bottom a link to a document that had this idea(that I have altered a bit):
I made 8 (4 for each verse) pieces of paper with large question marks on them (I printed up 1 question mark, cut it out, glued it onto one of my 8 pieces of paper. I then took the paper that I cut the question mark out of and used it as my template to paint question marks on the remaining 7 pieces of paper - because I am cheap and hoard my ink.)

Ask the children to count the number of times you sing about the Savior standing beside you.  Sing the 1st verse and get their answers (2 times).

Point out that the first time you sang it was at the beginning of the song and the 2nd time you

sang it was at the end of the song.

Put a picture of the Savior at the far left side of the chalkboard and a picture of the Savior at the far right side of the chalkboard.

Tell them that in between these two pictures the song asks us questions. Each question starts with

“Would I”. Ask them to listen for how many times you sing “would I”. Sing the verse and get their

answers (4 times).

Post on chalkboard in between the pictures of Jesus 4 papers that have one large question mark

on each of them.

There are 4 questions between the two times we talk about the Savior standing next to us.

At this point, I printed up the OCD Primary Chorister's pictures for verses one and two. I put magnet strips on the back of the question marks and on the back of the pictures.We will talk about each question that corresponds with the pictures. I also printed up these word strips from teachldschildren.com and will use them instead of the pictures for senior primary, but for junior primary, I may still post the words underneath the picture/question mark. And then we will repeat with verse two. Then, if I have time, I will either mix up the pictures and have the kids place them in the right spot or go over which phrase goes with which picture.

I will do the same thing with senior, but if I have time, I am going to do a different kind of game.

I took each verse and printed it up. I divided each verse into two parts. I then picked six key words from each verse.  Then I created a document with blanks for the words and made the blanks for the key words red (I also sized the blanks according to word size: a six letter word would be 6 underline characters). I put those papers (4 in all) in page protectors. I will ask a child to roll a die and then write that many words on the red blanks with a dry erase marker. 

If the Savior Stood Beside Me Game Sheet for Teacher by Laura Henckel

If the Savior Stood Beside Me Word Game by Laura Henckel

St. Patrick's Day

For St. Patrick's day, I was fortunate enough to find a fabulous idea from Primary Singing Time Ideas for Leaders. I am adapting it a bit and here is how I plan to do it:

Brittney paired each phrase denoting luckiness (or being blessed) with a song and I put them all on foam shamrocks

I found a package of a dozen shamrocks from the dollar store (you know, for a dollar) and bought two packages. In each package, there were 6 plain foam ones and 6 glittered ones. So I combined each group and wound up with 12 plain, 12 glittered and here is what I did with them.
Junior primary - I used the plain foam shamrocks.  I printed the statement on one side and then the song on the other. But I wanted to highlight the difference between blessed and lucky, so instead of saying it, I wrote blessed on the Shamrock, but covered with a sticker that says lucky.

I will hide the shamrocks around the primary room with the statement facing outwards
So a child will find a shamrock that says "We are lucky to have bodies". Then we will talk about where our bodies came from and how Heavenly Father has blessed us with bodies. Then the child can peel off the sticker and reveal the word blessed. Then we will turn over the shamrock and sing the corresponding song (In this case; Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes)

Senior primary - for senior, I used both sets. I wrote the statement out again on each of the glittered shamrocks, but of course on the plain side. I will hide the glittered shamrocks around the room, glitter side facing out. I will post all of the double sided shamrocks on the board with the song facing out. The child will pick a shamrock, read the statement, then try to pick the corresponding song and we will sing it (Also removing the "lucky" sticker to reveal "blessed" on the statement.

In both singing times, the child will have the option to keep the "lucky" sticker if they wish. At the end, I will give each child a "I am blessed" sticker (that they can put over their lucky stickers if they so wish)

Now I completely just pulled clip art off of Google for the "lucky" and "I am blessed"; nothing is original and I really don't have a source to credit. If you are against that kind of thing, I apologize. But I rationalize all of this plagiarizing by keeping in mind that I am not getting paid or making any profit from the work of unnamed others. Hope that is okay in the end.

Lucky vs Blessed by Laura Henckel

Ideas for If the Savior stood Beside Me

(Hand in Hand by Greg Olsen)

If you haven't visited Sally DeFord's site - and page dedicated especially to this song - DO IT NOW! You really won't regret it (well, maybe other than spending all that time listening to ALL the different arrangements)
When looking for an image, I found this post - while it's not really a singing idea, it is a great story about how this song truly applies to life. Whether or not I tell it to the kids, I really like that I now have this perspective
Primary Singing Time Singing Magic has a great flip chart and activity

(Image from Primary Singing Time Singing Magic)

And then, something I am really excited about: A Make your Own Scratch off  Word Game!

My description does not do it any justice, so just go over to Notes From a Novice Primary Music Leader and check it out. If I was able to make the Child of God children, I think I can totally do this.

(Image from Notes From a Novice Primary Music Leader)

March Planning

In In January, I found this super cute calendar from Sunbeam Singing and I've adapted it a bit, but here is my plan for March in her adorable format:

March Planning by Laura Henckel

and check back for some great Easter ideas

My Nursery Bag

Finally, finally, FINALLY! I got my nursery bag finished (actually almost a month ago and am NOW just getting around to post, but that's okay. It's DONE! and I couldn't be happier). I based my entire idea off of Camille's Nursery Bag from Camille's Primary Ideas. I changed it up a bit. NOTICE: I do have two songs not in the songbook. So I'm not sure how you feel about songs not in the book, but one of them is about ducks and I had some tiny "rubber" ducks from the closet and my daughter (in nursery) adores ducks, so I went with it.
Here is my list of songs:

Nursery Songs

1. Happy Family p. 198 (picture frames) (I cut out 5 "frames" from cardboard, spray painted them and the kids hold them and stick their heads through them - {pretending to be in the family picture that you hang on the wall}: now I have a small nursery (no more than 5 children each week), so this was not as difficult as making 12 might be. It was time consuming and quite an exercise, but the kids adore these frames.)

2. Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam p. 60 (sunbeam necklaces) (the ones in the document look like egg yolks with a starburst around them to me. If you can find foam sun cutouts [like Camille did] I would go with that - besides, they were wicked hard to cut out)

3. Popcorn Popping p. 242 (actions)

4. Five Little Ducks (ducks)

5. Itsy Bitsy Spider (actions)

6. Do As I'm Doing p. 276 (shakers)

7. Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes p. 275 (actions)

8. I Hope They Call Me on a Mission p. 169 (tags)

9. Once There Was a Snowman p. 249 (actions)

10. Follow the Prophet, chorus only p. 110 (prophet sticks)

11. I am a Child of God p. 2 (sit quietly with arms folded)

Here is the pdf of the visuals I cut out and then had laminated:

Nursery Visual Aids by Laura Henckel

Here is the little list I printed up to remind me of my songs

Nursery Song List by Laura Henckel