More Christmas Singing Time

Joy to the World

I realized the last two weeks, as I have taught a new song each week, that the way I teach songs doesn’t allow me to involve many of the children. So this week to make it a little different and trying to involve more children by putting all my picture on the big Popsicle sticks. I also learned from my visuals for the verses for ‘Far Far Away’ that I needed to break up my pictures to smaller groups. 'Far Far Away' would have worked better- if they were bigger, I made them 8 1/2 by 11 paper size.

Joy to the World

The Lord has come (picture of Christ’s second coming)

Let Earth receive Her King

Let every Heart prepare Him room

And Saints (I discussed who are Saints, then used a poster of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.)

And Angels sing (I was really proud of my choir of angels, I made both male and female angels and I was able to make them look like angels without having wings.)

The JR Primary knew a few of the words here and there, but they got it really well after just a few times. SR Primary already knew the whole first verse, so my visuals were less effective only because they weren’t needed. They begged me to learn the second verse. Since I had not prepared for this, I used some chalk and wrote the second verse on the board. I just erased words as we went along. They got it down really well.

As I wrote in my previous blog that I was also going to do ‘Christmas Bells’. I think I will do this one and ‘The Shepherd’s Carol’ the coming week. I know that the SR primary already knows ‘Christmas Bells’, I felt that since they are both rounds, the two would complement each other. I am frustrated that I only have so many weeks left before Christmas. I have five more songs I wanted to teach: ‘Stars Were Gleaming’ (CS 37), ‘Away in a Manger’ (CS 42), ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ (hymn 209), plus the two I mentioned earlier. I just wish I had more time. The Sunday before Christmas we are going to do ‘the Nativity’ song as a Sharing time/ Singing time. We’ll have the children dress up and act out the song.

Christmas songs are the best songs all year long.