Toes, Knees, Shoulders, Head, Shoulders, Head,.....

I have a jar that I use when I want to repeat songs but keep the children interested in singing it over and over and over and over.... in it there are instructions on how to sing the song (buzzing, mooing, with your hand on your head, in a higher voice). I've seen these jars on many other chorister's blogs, so I know I'm not the only one. The other day I put in the jar "sing 'Head Shoulders Knees and Toes' backwards". The younger children were completely thrilled with the idea of trying this. They tried so hard, go so confused, and laughed very hard. The SR primary didn't seem so sure of themselves. Instead they whined about trying. However, once they tried, they wanted to do it again and again and again.
Here is how it goes:
Toes Knees and Shoulders head, shoulders head shoulders head.
Toes Knees and Shoulders head, shoulders head shoulders head.
Noes, Mouth, Ears and eyes.


It was so much fun.

It's Autumntime CSB pg 246

It's Autumntime-- Children's Songbook p246

It's autumn-time. It's autumn-time. The leaves are falling down.

It's autumn-time. It's autumn-time. It's all around the town.

It's autumn-time. It's autumn-time. There's yellow, red, and brown.

It's autumn-time. It's autumn-time. Bright colors can be found.

I made autumn colored leaves (yellow, red, brown, and orange-I guess it just wouldn't fit into the song) out of construction paper. I free handed most of mine, some I traced what I thought would look good on to the paper and then cut it out. I found that the easiest was to do them symetrical (eventhough a lot of leaves are not, so if your's aren't symetrical don't worry) you could even have the children cut out their own leaves if you want. I could get 4 leaves out of one normal size construction paper. I found that there were 3 different leave varieties that I made.

1. Basic round with a point. Either with no ridges or snip a few out before opening it.
2. Lots of edges, loop in and out to the top. Remember there are lots of different leaves and they don't need to be perfect.
3. This one I traced out before cutting. Curves at bottom, middle and to the top. Sort of like a maple leaf.
   I made an extra large leaf for myself, it was really uneven.

Now while you sing: the song have each child start with their leaf as tall as they can be (without being on the chairs). As you sing the song, have the leaf float gently, glide, fall, dancing, down to the ground. The idea is to not have the leaf reach the ground before the song is over, not a moment after either, to time it perfect. I wish I had a camcorder last Sunday when we did it. The children were getting so into it. We spend over half of the time doing it. I know we don't have much of a Autumn, here is Arizona, we don't really have snow either, but we can still enjoy the songs.

A Happy Family

Sunday is our program. I am going to be sooooo HAPPY when its over. After the program I want to do something that is completely different. Sing songs that we haven't all year long. I'm going to teach them "A Happy Family" song. As I teach it I'm going to show pictures of my family. Instead of just learning the song as it is written we are also going to learn how to say mother/daddy, sister/brother, and grandma/grandpa in other languages and substitute them in. I've been asking our ward for help.

Example of what we are doing:

English: I love Mother, She loves me. We love Daddy yes sir-ree. He loves us and so you see, we are a happy family.

Any other language: I love ______, She loves me. We love ______ yes sir-ree. He loves us and so you see, we are a happy family.

• Spanish: Mother- Madre, Daddy- Padre,
• Hawaiian: Mother- Makuahine (-hene), Daddy- Makuakane (-koni)
• Filipino: Mother- Nanay (Nani), Daddy- Tatay (Tati)
• Arabic: Mother- Ommie, Daddy- Ebbie
• Finnish: Mother- Emo (Amo), Daddy-Taatto
• German: Mother-Mutter, Daddy-Fatter

Ask around in your own wards to find out what languages people know. Originally I wanted to learn the whole song in various languages, however when translating a languages they don't always fit into the rythm of the song anymore and I didn't want to mess with that.

Other idea

• have the children draw pictures of them mom and dad and hold them up when they sing mom or dad
• contact some of the children's parents and ask them to bring a picture of their ____, then use that for the person in the song.
• do it in ASL, learn it on the church site.
• Use children's names, this can be really good if you only love two kids to sing the welcome song to. "I love Kalie she loves me, we love Caleb, yes sir-ree....." You could go around the whole room and eventually sing everyone's name. It would be a way to get to know all the children's names.

Good luck. I hope this works out and the children find it fun.

Aug Song and the continual quest for a reverent wiggle song

The Aug song is "Families Can Be Together Forever". I had each child draw a picture of their family and then hold it up when you sing the word "family" or "families". It worked well, especially for JR primary. They enjoyed holding up their picture and show it off. The only problem with this is that the 2nd verse doesn't contain the word "family" until you get to the chorus, and the 1st verse only has the word once. But they all hold their picture waiting for that word. The idea came from our Stake Primary music leader. Her suggestion was to have each child bring with them a picture of their family. Yes this would be better in that it would not take any time away from Singing Time, but I don't want to be only the phone all day on Saturday trying to remind them to bring their picture, and what if they forget or their family doesn't have a current picture. Also I really really dislike (wanted to use hate but I guess I don't hate) making phone calls, and our primary is HUGE, making phone calls to all those families would not be fun. Also growing up I never got the feeling my parents were too happy to have to remember to bring stuff for us, I don't want any parent to feel overwhelmed with it. This way no has to remember anything but me.
In the ever continual quest to find a reverent song that is good for the wiggles and yet calming rather than riling them up, today we did 'Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" But instead of doing the song faster each time (which I'm being to hate because the children are so rowdy after the song is over), this time we sang the song slower and softer each subsequent time until we only moved our lips and were moving in almost slow motion. Then I had the children sit back down on their seat and be quite and reverent. And guess what-they were. Yeah for a good wiggle and quite song.

SingTime: Wiggle Song Idea

I can't take the credit for this, it was totally my pianist's idea and she may have got it from somewhere else too.

We sang "If You're Happy" # 266. (if you're happy and you know it.....)
-1st verse: Clap your hands
-2nd verse: shout Hurray (or one of the more reverent ideas suggested in the primary book)
-3rd verse: fold your arms. The pianist plays softer you sing softer, and at the end everyone sits back into their seats, quite and arms folded.

It worked well to turn the time over to the counselor doing sharing time.