Thanks to Tifany (Orchard Heights Ward, WA) for sharing this idea!
Name That Tune Twist
This is a fun Singing Time that my Primary Kids loved! I did a twist on Name That Tune. I had 5 plastic bugs (from the dollar store) that I taped a Children’s Songbook page number on each of their bellies or the underside of their wings. I had a bug net for a child to come up & “catch” one of the bugs that I’d set up on the table. The child would then carry the bug in the bug net over to the pianist (this way they could interact more with him & get to know him better). While the child was doing that, I had another child take a croquet mallet & ball over to the course I had set up. They would then choose which wicket they wanted to try to hit the croquet ball through. I had 3 wickets to choose from. They each had a number on them. There was a number 3, 4 & 6. I then had placed masking tape in an X in front of each wicket. The lowest number had the closest X & the larger numbers were further away. Of course, number 6 was the furthest. The child could choose any of the numbers to try to hit the ball through. They would place the ball on the X & go for it. I always let them keep trying until they made it. If they didn’t make it by the 4th or 5th time, I would simply slide the wicket over to make the ball go through it. The number on the wicket that the child hit the ball through would be the number of notes that the pianist would play. The children were told that the bugs were special bugs with special songs & only the pianist could know what each bug’s special song was. It was the Primary children’s job to try to guess the song. Once they guessed correctly, we would sing it. If they sang well, we would “catch” another bug. If they didn’t, we would stop to work the “bugs” out of that song before we could “catch” another bug. The kids loved it!!! They were awesome, too. The Jr. Primary generally only tried to hit the ball through the wicket 3. But they were able to guess every song! For Sr. Primary, I didn’t talk about the special song story (they are way too cool for that). I told them about the tape with the numbers. Instead of them just coming up to the front to put a bug in the net, I told them I would toss it to them & they had to catch it in the air with the bug net. But they only got 2 tries. If they missed the 2nd time, they had to pick up the “dead” bug & put it in the net to take it to the pianist. They had a great time too! Of course, I talked about gross things the bugs do, or eat, or land on. It was great! They all sang loud so they could “catch” another bug. Jr. Primary got through all 5 bugs, Sr. Primary made it through 4. This is definitely a game worth playing again, especially for fine tuning the Program Songs!