Planning ahead can be a burden. I try to normally plan ahead so that I can share my ideas, but my mind works best the closer I get to something. I don’t know how many Sundays I’m going to be out after having this baby. I’ve planned out the whole month of May –just in case.
April 26th (today)- I’m putting today on here because it was a good focus activity idea and I totally didn’t think of it myself but a former primary chorister told me it was her old stand-by, and after she told me I had a “duh moment”, play hot and cold and sing that month’s song over and over. The down side was that they were so rowdy today that we stopped playing the game early, it wasn’t the game, it was just something about today.
May 3rd- Start teaching May’s song “Baptism”, and continue working on our Mother’s day song. Since I’ve already posted how I’m planning on teaching “Baptism” I’m not going to waste space here. Instead please refer to my post on Thurs April 23rd.
May 10th- Review May’s song “Baptism”. After the song has been reviewed sufficiently, play hot potato/ quite mouse while singing the song. You can only pass the bean bag to someone singing well. If you are not singing (including talking or hollering for the bean bag) or if the bean bag is in our hands when the song ends, you have to sit down and sing from your chair.
May 17th- Maze game with Verse Challenge: Back in November I made a maze, I suggest to everyone to make their own maze and have it laminated (check with your local Staples-like-store for the max dimensions they will do, also sign shops have larger dimensions if you want a larger maze, I took mine to a sign shop, I wanted it was large as possible). I originally made the maze to have multiple ways to get through it because I wanted the children to be able to choose different paths.
This time I made little envelopes (found a sample small envelope, traced it onto construction paper, cut it out and glued it). In each envelope is a verse of a song we have learned so far this year. As the children travel through the maze they come to an envelope and get to identify what song the verse belongs to, then everyone together gets to sing that verse. 
I would suggest that if you still have time after one pass through the maze, take all the remaining envelopes, move them around in the maze and start at the beginning again. This can also be done by taking any picture, having a line from a song, a number that will identify which song the piano is to play for them to guess, or just the name of the song. For going through the maze I have a little boy and a little girl with magnets on them, but any picture or toy that the children will identify as something that can move will work (car, train, stroller, or bee/bug). Again I highly recommend the maze, the kids respond well to it and it’s the easiest stand-by activity to hand a sub.
May 24th- Tic Tac Toe: I originally was going to put the verses on the back of the tic tac toe pieces but then decided they would go better in the maze. How we are doing tic tac toe- I just made a large tic tac toe board (16X16) along with some X’s and O’s. On the back of each X or O, I wrote a song name that we’ve been working on OR just a fun song to sing. I am going to split the room into two (most likely left side vs. right side), I’ll have a child come up and pick one of the X’s or O’s depending on which team they are on. They will then get to place it on the board, and everyone will sing the song that is on the back. If you wanted to make it more competitive, you could have them name that song and if they don’t get it right the other team gets to try to name it. But again I am trying to keep it simple for the sub.
May 31st-I lucked out its Stake Conference.
That takes me to June, and I’m already starting to work on preparing to teach “Seek the Lord Early.” Maybe if this baby comes closer to my calculated due date then I’ll be able to plan it before this baby comes. I’m not planning on taking all these Sunday’s off from church, but I will need to take off at least one or two for healing, and if there are any complications I might need more, so it’s best to try to be prepared. After all we are promised if we are prepared we have no need to fear. My next goal is to make some meals that will store well so I won’t need to cook or relay on someone else to cook. But first things first. My plan is to take the lessons and put them in the primary closet so they are already at church for the sub.
Thank you for sharing your ideas. I was recently called to be Primary Chorister and it is nice to see your ideas on how to do some activities along with the songs we are learning this year.
ReplyDeleteAnd congratulations on your growing family. It's a great idea that you planned ahead. My 6 month old decided to come two weeks early and I hadn't been having much labor at all.