- S-i-n-g-o- game — Take a piece of foam core board or poster board and make a grid on it like a bingo scorecard. At the top instead of writing bingo you write singo. In each square you put a small piece of one side (hook) of velcro. Then you make two sets of markers–one for them to draw out of a basket and one that will be on the board. I laminated these. I made mine different colors so I could easily keep them straight. One side can say anything you want–I put “you’re a singing superstar” on mine and the other side will have different categories on it. You then put a small piece of the other side (loop) of Velcro on EACH side of the board pieces. To play you put the markers on the board with the category side facing out and a child draws a marker from the drawing set. They then have to choose a song to sing that fits the category they have drawn. If the group can sing it well enough in your opinion then they get to turn the matching piece around on the board. The goal is to get a straight line just like in bingo. For the free space, let them have a free choice marker.
- SINGO Take a piece of foam core board (if you want it to last forever so you can play this game often) or poster board and make a grid on it like a bingo scorecard. At the top instead of writing bingo you write singo. In each square you put a small piece of one side (hook) of velcro. Then you make two sets of markers--one for them to draw out of a basket and one that will be on the board. I laminated these. I made mine different colors so I could easily keep them straight. One side can say anything you want--I put "you're a singing superstar" on mine and the other side will have different categories on it. You then put a small piece of the other side (loop) of velcro on EACH side of the board pieces. To play you put the markers on the board with the category side facing out and a child draws a marker from the drawing set. They then have to chose a song to sing that fits the category they have drawn. If the group can sing it well enough in your opinion then they get to turn the matching piece around on the board. The goal is to get a straight line just like in bingo. For the free space, I put a free choice marker. Or you could just give them that space for
free.
- Some of the categories that I used were: Holy Ghost, Following Christ, Love, Testimony, Missionary work, Friends, Plan of Salvation, Temple, Prayer, Families, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, Tithing, Obedience, Service, Courage, Gratitude, Honesty, Choosing the Right, Prophets, Book of Mormon, Articles of Faith, Baptism, Priesthood, and Free choice.
- Singing Olympics – during the Olympics in SLC we opted to “pass the torch” in Primary as well. I made a torch out of a flashlight with red cellophane paper over it and we passed it around the room. When our song finished the next person got to pick the next song. We also had 4 different games going for our Olympics.
Cooking up a song — Take kitchen containers, a mixing bowl and spoon, and an apron. Tell the kids that we were cooking up a song. I had a volunteer put on the apron and choose a container (empty cool whip, etc.) and add the “ingredient” to our mixing bowl. Each container has a slip of paper that says either line 1,2,3,or 4. While they are stirring, we have to sing that line 5 times to help it cook. Believe it or not, this really worked. They all wanted a turn, and I told them lots of stuff about how their singing helps it to cook. You decide which order to put the ingreds. Into the mix!- Stand up Sit down — Print the key words to the song out. As you pull out the key words you stand up and sit down when those words come in the song. This is great if the children are getting restless.
- Puzzle game – Make up a crossword puzzle for the song you’re learning. The clues would be the key words to the song.
Stop and Go – Make a traffic light out of 2 black poster boards. Cut out 2 traffic lights and put red, yellow and green cellophane in between where the lights should be. I let the children come up and shine a flashlight through the colors. We sang on green, stopped singing on red and did something different every time on yellow (girls, boys, clap to rhythm, hum, etc).
Ball Toss – This is a mini basket ball hoop with a miniature basket ball. Depending on how many shots they make tells us which song we sing. If they can’t make any, we sing what the pianist wants to sing. (she likes to pick once in a while)
Song (word) search — Make word search puzzle with song titles hidden in it. There are many sites on the web that will do this for you. All you have to do is print out and blow them up.- Fishing — Attach paper clips to song titles, have a baton or play fishing pole with a magnet at the end for the “hook”. The children fish for the songs to sing or how many measures you will go into the song.
- Magnetic letters — Use the magnetic letters that you use on the fridge. Put them in a bag or appropriate container for the season. The children draw out a letter and choose a song that starts with the letter they pulled out. For the sake of time, I use the letter that correlates with the number in the alphabet the letter is. 1-26 (make a list ahead of time and you CAN use the songs over and over)
133.Concentration —Put pictures or words up on the blackboard, and cover each with a piece of paper. Take turns flipping the paper. I flip one, and the children flip the other. When they match one we sing that song.
- Detective clueless — Make up a question for each phrase of song…. reduce font to smallest size possible. Envelope: “Classified Files” containing questions ; Dress as Detective with trench coat/ hat/ sunglasses…. Bring a magnifying glass Make five question marks labeled with the five W’s – laminate, stick magnetic tape on back to place on chalkboard. Five Important “W’s”
- All detectives (or reporters) know that they need to ask these questions when looking for clues to solve a case. WHO — WHAT — WHEN — WHERE — WHY
- For each question, call up a child (assistant detective) to read a question with the magnifying glass.
- Yearly theme game– Take the theme of the year and make up a song to go with each letter in the words or a song for each word. Let the kids pick a word and sing the song that correlates with it.
- Book of Singing Stories –Make a book with poster board. On each page have a picture or “clue” depicting a Primary song. The kids get to turn the page to the song they want to sing. I have several pages that I can change out. You can use color copies of the GAK pictures, they’re lovely!
Celestial Challenge — This idea is from The Primary Page. It has a gold sun, silver moon, and white stars, all on a black board. Each is labeled accordingly – celestial kingdom, terrestrial kingdom, and telestial kingdom. On little squares of poster board, I have made up “icons” for each program song – a picture and the name of the song, for both the older & the younger children’s benefit. They are taped up in “Outer Darkness” at the beginning of the year, then once a month, we have our “Celestial Challenge.” I have them sing each song, and the Presidency tells them whether they have sung it well enough for the program (Celestial Kingdom/sun) or maybe it needs some more work. The goal is to get them all on the sun (Son)!
- Toilet tissue Unroll— Unroll a roll of toilet tissue and write song titles on random squares and re-roll. Then let each child take off one square and the ones with song titles get to lead their songs.
- Fabric mouse that is on a stick and he hides inside a piece of cheese. When the kids sing loudly (but reverently) He comes up out of the cheese. When they aren't singing as well he goes back inside the cheese.
- Music box (it's a gift box that I've decorate) and in the box I have the names of songs. The kids pass the box around while we sing a song and when we stop whoever has the box opens it up and picks the next song.
- "I CAN" can (it had those words pasted on it) for when the children were tired of learning songs. It had slips of paper with the names of the songs the children already knew. It was our 'first aid' kit to get rid of that 'having to learn' feeling.
- Vocal exercises (anything you've done in an adult choir that is meant to improve blend, or attention to dynamics, or breath support is great.
- Choir books made for my seniors because we did all 4 verses of the Spirit of God in our program. Just a piece of construction paper with a copy of the song stapled inside it. I figure that if the ward choir can't do anything memorized, why should the primary have to do everything memorized.
- Floral hat and as we reviewed a song we were learning, told them that whichever class sang the best, I would have their teacher come up and model the hat while we sang the song again.
- Sing-o-meter that measures how well they are singing, and they like to see the arrow move and make it to fantastic during the song.
- "Never louder than Lovely”. The kids sing loudly (but reverently. The kids know what it means and it is easy for them to remember.
- Instruments Our kids love accompanying their singing with whatever rhythm chances I can come up with (many learned here, thank you) We are a large Primary, so only a few get a turn at time:
jingle type bells strung together
2 wooden blocks tapped together
2 pencils clicked together
lead the rhythm with fabric scarves
lead the rhythm with a pencil
film canisters with beans inside shaken to the rhythmI usually only have them use 1 or 2 kinds of sound at at time so it doesn't sound chaotic. Of course I try to get them to follow the rhythm of the song.
- Top Ten:we've gone into RS and Priesthood to sing the top song for them, and then we post the poster at the church exit so all could see it. People love to see where their "favorite" ended up.
- Sent a form around to each of the adults in the ward to list their favorite Primary song and a short explanation as to why. I would read the explanation and the children would have to guess who it was who had wrote it. On Mother's Day we used the forms from the mothers; on Father's Day we used the forms from the fathers... Often I would pull the form of the parents who were visiting to help children with talks and
prayers. And we always sang the bishop's favorite when he came to visit. It was great fun and the children loved finding out all the grown-ups' favorite songs.
152."Trivial Pursuit"game, where I would write up trivial clues similar toscripture chase clues, and the children would have toguess the song and/or the specific line in the songthat gave the answer.
153.Brown bag filled with some small pictures in my primary bag (i got the pictures from an old friend magazine)--I never take it out--it is my "emergency activity." Any activity would work, I just chose this one because it is small and doesn't weigh a lot or take up a lot of space in my bag. If I end up finishing my activity early in primary (which has yet to happen! Lol) then I would take this bag out, have them pull out a picture (there are pictures like sacrament meeting, B of M, Jesus, temple, etc.) and have them tell me a song we could sing that matches the picture--if they can't think of one (jrs have a harder time with that) then I let them pull the picture, and the first song that comes to my head that matches the picture is what we will sing.
- Brother Potatohead—put parts on to Bro. Potatohead—each part has a matching song/phrase that makes up a member of the church.
Body—I Like My Birthdays, pg. 104 (Baptized a member of the church)
Eyes—Search, Ponder, and Pray, pg. 109 (Read Scriptures)
Ears—Stand For the Right, pg. (Listen to what the prophet says and do it!)
Nose—The Lord Gave Me a Temple, pg. 153 (Our body is a blessing from God—we need to take care of it!)
Mouth—When We're Helping, pg. 198 (When we do what is right, we are happy and kind to others)
Feet—I Hope They Call Me on a Mission, pg. 169 (Service to others and Missionary Work)/Trying to Be Like Jesus, pg. 78 (Follow Christ's Example)
Arms—I Pray in Faith, pg. 14 (Fold our arms and pray)
- Yellow posterboard (golden plates) and make a "Book of Mormon Stories" with each page we will tell a quick story and sing a song that fits that person or story, the first page I will have a
picture of Nephi - and the scripture in 1 Nephi 3:7 and then below that it will say Nephi's Courage, the next page will have a picture of Enos and it will say "If With All Your Hearts", then we will have King Benjamin and probably "I Will Be Valiant", then a picture of Alma and then we'll sing the Alma verse of Book of Mormon Stories, then a picture of the stripling warriors and the song "We'll Bring The World His Truth", then a picture of Samuel and the song "Samuel
Tells of the Baby Jesus", then a picture of Jesus with the Nephites and the song "Easter Hosanna" and then a picture of Joseph Smith and the song "An Angel Came to Joseph Smith". I might also add a picture of Ammon and do that verse in the Book of Mormon stories and I love "Had I Been a Child" so I might use two pictures of Jesus visiting the Nephites and do that song too. You could make this short by not going into the stories and not doing a whole lot of songs - or you can stretch this out by telling the stories.
156.Unscramble the words to a line from a song we have learned this year.
Raise your hand when you have figured out one of the songs. Now come up
and lead us as we sing that song.
157.Huge apple (out of poster board) in front with a worm (your hand in a pink sock) and have the worm poke his head out when the sing well and know the words and then poke his head in when they miss or are unsure of a word. Then stop review that part, have the worm appear happy and continue on.
158."Clues" about the songs – clues that were simular to the clues used in scripture chase- the clues would be doctrinal in nature so I was making sure the children were learning what the song
was teaching. When a child guessed which song it was about, I then let them choose which class got to sing the song to everyone else. (I would make sure one or two classes did not get picked on more than the
others.) Being able to choose which class was to sing it kept everyone involved as they all wanted to make the other classes sing.
159.Tape recorder review. I recorded the children singing (they loved that!) and then I played it back for them. I asked them some questions like; What things were good?; What things needed improvement?; Then we would sing it again and record it. Were there improvements made?; Did you know the words better? Then we would talk about distractions, both ones you could hear and visual ones. I always remind the kids that these songs are prayers to our Heavenly Father.
- Judging numbers make them around the half of a page of cardstock size. I set my page layout to horizontal so I could fit 2 to a page. I made some real simple borders to frame the numbers and then made the numbers large enough to almost fill the entire space. Then I printed them off onto cardstock, cut the pages in half and laminated them. I used a double hole punch in the top of each page and then put a loose leaf binder ring into each hole. This made it so I could flip the numbers easily. I was able to hold it with one hand and lead with the other. I pretty much held it up and changed the numbers from 8-9-10,
occasionally a 7, depending on how the kids were singing the song. They would begin to "slip" and get softer if I left it on the 9 for too long! I also had the numbers on different colors of cardstock so that if they couldn't see the numbers, they knew they needed to get to the red color because then they were "Hot". The 9 & 10 were that color. The 7 & 8 were an orange color, the 5 & 6 were yellow and then 1 to 4 were blue...meaning really cold!