Weight Watchers Update

No we haven't given up. We are still doing Weight Watchers on our own. Its been going really well. We are entering week 8, my husband has lost 17 lbs and I have lost an official 12 lbs. I now weigh the same that I did when we got married almost 2 years ago. Yeah! Sadly though I still can't fit into any of those cloths, having a baby really shifted all my weight. But hey, I love seeing results. It motivates me to keep going. I will say that I will miss all the extra points I get while I am still nursing. It will be a sad day when we stop nursing. 

Too Exhausted To Go On

While up at my parents I was making Sunday's dessert. I had put Baby Al into his high chair to keep him out of my way. I had given him some Cheerios while sitting there.  After a bit I realized he wasn't making all his noises, I wasn't worried because I knew he had already finished all his food. I turned to look and there he was completely out. Just too cute. 

1st Sunday of the Month- GRRRRRR

I am SERIOUSLY considering starting the new song on a different week than fast Sunday. It is just too hard. Here are the reasons why.....

1. Fast and Testimony Meetings ALWAYS runs way over. Sure other Sunday's run over too, but Fast Sunday it ALWAYS does. So Jr primary starts late, way late!
2. Because of baby blessings and visitors we have to help them find there class...., RS bringing in this months announcements..... it takes us longer to get started.
3. We always have visitors to sing "Welcome" to. 
4. Since its a new month we sing "Happy Birthday" to all the children who have a birthday this month.
5. Its a new theme and a new scripture for the month, so they are introduced.
6. AFTER all this then I get to do "Singing Time" and teach the song. By now I only have maybe 10 left  for ALL of JR primary's time (for Singing and Sharing times). How am I suppose to TEACH in that time, let alone turn the time over for "Sharing Time."
7. Also after all this, long sacrament meeting, starting late, introducing a scripture- those little 3 yr olds (and we have a ton of them) and all the other little children (oldest we have are 6 and there are very few of them) are done, they don't want to, can't, and will NOT sit still or pay attention. They NEED a wiggle song, they need activity. But I am so frustrated because I don't ever feel like I have any time to do help them with that need.

So not only do I have to plan completely different lessons for JR and SR due to JR's inability to read yet, and because of the learning speed. But I also have to do it because SR has the time on fast Sunday to learn the song, so they always have an extra Sunday of productive time above the JR primary. I am having to do twice as much work preparing a lot of extra lessons. I have spoken to the Primary Presidency a number of times about my concern for the time. I have suggested that we do birthday's another Sunday of the month. We talked about the idea of not doing "Sharing Time" more than just introducing the new theme on the first Sunday. It has been suggested to me to more the room around for JR primary to make it a horseshoe so that I'm closer in proximity to ALL the children than the long room way. I am considering just making the first Sunday review the previous month's song and play a song game, rather than start the new song. Then I would start the new song the next Sunday. I don't know what the solution is, all I know right now is that what we are currently doing is stressing me out.

Problem 2: I need ideas for teaching JR primary. I do actions/ASL with them regularly. I use LOTS of pictures when I'm teaching them. I'm not real good with little children. I am at my best with ages 7-9, but they are all in SR primary.What do you remember from your primary days. What kept your attention? What have you seen that works with very young children (nursery too)? How do you teach a song in nursery? Is there anything better, or as good, out there as good old fashion relation? Please any help ya'll may have. Thanks.

Focused Activity: He Sent His Son

Idea 1: Match Game

I am going to play the Match Game at least one Sunday this month. Mount the pictures onto all the same color of construction paper. Have a picture with a line all on one side. One for each line, separate the question from the answer. Put them up face away from the children. Have a child come up and pick two, do they match? If so, sing that question and answer set. If they don't know, have them sing the whole song, then identify if they went together. If you put the question set that has 2 questions (What does he ask? What do the scriptures say?) up twice, there are 6 (12 squares), also to get 6 you could have a "you pick a song" to match to another "you pick a song" to get 6 squares. Since Sunday is Valentines day, I decided to mount my pictures and lines on hearts.

Idea 2: Sing the Answer
Or it could be called 'sing the question'. This idea came from singing "A Child's Prayer". The older children love singing songs where they do an echo, or sing a different times (favorite is boys separate from girls). By doing an activity where we split who is singing each part will get them more involved waiting for their part. Here are some ideas of ways to split it up. Each example can be flipped- answer/question also.

• You sing the question, then have them sing the answer. You'll be silent during that part- listening to them only.
• All adults sing the question, then the children sing the answer.
• Pick one class to sing the question, everyone else sings the answer.
• Boys sing the question, girls sing the answer.
• Left side of the room sings the questions, Right side sings the answer.
• Give them the answer and have them tell you the question.
• Anyone over a certain age sing the question, all under sing the answer.
• Pick a select group of children to stand at their seat to sing the question, everyone still sitting sings the answer.
• Anyone waring _______ sing the question, everyone else sings the answer.

I'm sure you can think of many more.

Idea 3: Fill in the blank
I know this one is other there a lot. I normally don't like to do it with the JR primary because I think all the words are too hard for them, but I think this song really lends itself to it. Write on it only write words that are the SAME for other lines, leave a blank for each different word. Write the missing words on stripes of paper that are cut to fit perfectly on the blank lines. Fill in the blanks, if the word is unknown where it goes sing the part of the song it belongs to and see if the children can remember where it went after they were done singing.

The other way this could be done is to only put the unique phrases and words on the board. Then have the common phrases on the strips. Have the strips color codes to what type of phrase it is ie: "How could the Father" could be red, while "He sent his Son" could be written in blue, and I did the small words (tell, show, ask, us, we, with, and) in purple. Go through the song and have the children match which lines goes in that blank. Make the blanks the color (marker or I used construction paper) of the strip.

Win a Headband

These are so darling. They make me wish I had a little girl to put them on.They do have adult sizes I could ware too.

WIN A FREE headband of your choice--

TO ENTER- to to their website and store, take a look around. Then leave a comment of which headband is your favorite. Entries close Feburary 28th. The website is simplymemzelle.com

Don't forget to become a fan of Simply Memzelle on Facebook

Teaching: He Sent His Son (February Song)

The chorister before me had been in this calling for 7 years. When she was released, I inherited dozen of song helps that are already made. Many of her helps I have not used because I don't really like what she chose to do. At the start of this year I went through the whole box to find what was already made for this year's songs. Again some I don't want to use, but I really like the simplicity of this one. She printed the questions and answers separate. Then there are questions for each one. Each phrase that has the word "world" in it has a world. For each world there is a key word phrase above it ie: "tell" and "Show". I made the question marks for each phrase to note there is a question here. The phrase that has two questions right after each other has two questions marks next to their card. Each sign and pictures has their own magnate for putting up on the board.
If I was to do it myself here are some pictures I would suggest using from the church's web site. The color ones are from the new Gospel Art spiral book and the coloring pages are from the Friend site. If you are one of those people who feel uncomfortable even drawing an earth, this link takes you to a world in the coloring pages, use any Nativity picture for the second line. Just a side note, I like coloring so I choose the coloring pages. Also I could use them to have the children color. I'm sorry these are out of order of the song, but I am having issues with Blogger. It is the picture with the line it would go with below it.

He sent his song to walk with men, on earth that we may know (above)

How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go (above-sorry out of order I'm having issues with blogger)

How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness (above-1st line, I would use a pic of the earth, a heart, and a question mark with it).

What does he ask? Live like His Song (above)

What does the Father ask of us? What do the scriptures say?

Have faith, have hope, live like His Son, help others on their way.

He sent His Song to die for us and rise with living breath.

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice of death?

Along with the lines and pictures (I like that they are all separate, so that while I am teaching them I can take things away and see how well they can do it without) I am going to use ASL to note the question and the answer. For phrases that begin with "how" we will sign "How". The questions that begin "what" we will sign "What". With the start of each answer, we will sign the "Answer". They are just one word signs. We are not planing to do it with the program, it is just a sign to help the younger kids, after all I have a lot of sunbeams. I always struggle helping them learn the songs. My JR primary is so large and almost none of them can ready yet. Everyone says teach to the most advanced children in the class and the other's will follow. I think, lots of pictures, and multiple ways to connect with the song.

Win an Apron

There is this darling apron, Go to joansowards.blogspot.com to find out how to win it.

PETA-go eat meat

February 2, 2010

An animal rights group is calling on keepers of the country's most famous groundhog to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a robot. PETA says it's unfair to subject the creature to the bright lights and huge crowds that mark this Feb. 2 tradition. Organizers of the festival say Phil is fine — living better than other groundhogs in his climate-controlled environment.

I try to ignore PETA, I think that 90% of what they do is stupid and extremist. Mostly I thing their brains aren't getting enough protein because they don't eat meat that they are trying too hard to think. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't care. When I heard this I had to laugh something hard. That groundhog is treated better than a spoiled child, should we be allowing our children to send a robot to school because it is cruel to make them have to learn. Whatever, I liked Punzsutawney Penn's response. I'm going to go back to ignoring PETA. I just couldn't pass up this laugh.

WW-Week 4

Week 4- My husband lost 3 lbs this past week. Technically I gained 1/2 lb. But I'm not thinking about that because the day before my official weigh in I had lost 2 lbs and the day after I showed a loss of 2 lbs. I don't know what was with my official weigh but it was weird. Anyway, this is going good for us. I am really encouraged. For me this is do able. Not to mention I am seeing results- they may seem small, but for me this is huge, nothing has ever given me any results.