Thursday, February 18, 2010

Program Review Week--You've Got Mail!

Boy, I'm very late with the post this week. To much to do. Anyhow, This activity with help review Jan and Feb program song as well as get the machine going to tackle the up and coming "Follow the Prophet" song for March. Many of you are feeling worried about teaching this song. I hope this gives you some ideas you can use.

Prep:

1 Mail Box. You can make your own, use a real one, or perhaps you picked up the mail box that I suggested in the last post.....anyone will work just fine.

2 Envelopes per primary class..make them look as real as possible. Address them to specific classes (1 envelope will contain the review of the program songs or some other song that go with the message for the month, the other envelope will contain that Classes "Piece of the Puzzle" for March's song, and will be handed out at the very end....so keep them separate.

1 song picture to go in each envelop (Use your Jan and Feb song for two of the songs and then pick out a few other songs that match the monthly message. It would be easy if you just went to the Jolly Jenn site (on the side bar) and printed up one page to the song of your choice...it has pictures and words...and then they can guess what it is.)

1 very wonderful person who is willing to play the part of the mail carrier. It would be wonderful if they could carry a satchel, wear a hat, and really act the part.

Before Primary, set the mail box up at the front of the room. Give the letters to your carrier and make sure they know what order you want them delivered in. Have them totally out of site.


Presentation:

Tell the children that you wanted to start out with a wiggle song. Choose a favorite song or have a child pick their favorite wiggle song. At the very end of the song, have your carrier march very happily to the front of the room. Greet the Mail Man by saying, "Why hello, Brother/Sister so in so...how are you today?" Have them respond, "I'm doing great. Primary songs always make me feel happy. I just had some mail to deliver. " Have them put it in the mail box and then say, "See you later, Jr Primary (or Sr. Primary)" and then they should walk out of the room. Ask the kids if we should see who the mail is for....Call up a child to open the mail box and then read who it is addressed too...it should be something like:

Sister Smith's CTR 5 Class
Jr. Primary
(Ward and Stake)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Have the child hand it to that classes Teacher. Have them pull out the picture and guess what song that words and picture go too. Then sing the song. After the song, have your carrier come back in with another letter...go through the same process. At the very end, after each class has received a letter, have the carrier come back in for a final delivery. Have Him put an envelop for each class into the mail box. Have a child from each class come to get theirs. Have them open it. It will have a prophets name on it, as well as the words for the "Follow the Prophet" song for each child to take home with them. Each class will have a different prophet. Explain that next month we will be learning this song. Encourage them to learn the song as a class in the next two weeks and to practice their verse at home.
*******
The idea here will then help tackle the enormity of the song. Each class will either sing their verse or help teach that verse in the process and all the children will sing the chorus. Two weeks is a great amount of time for them to at least be familiar with the words. Encourage the teachers to take a little time to review the words with the kids.
I will be picking specific prophets to "highlight" along the way for specific activities in march (I am so excited about the first one) to learn the song and the reasons why we love these men so much.
Have a great week.
*thecrazychorister

12 comments:

Ben and Jessica said...

Question..How do you have behavior during singing time. Please help me with this!

Ben and Jessica said...

Sorry...I'm tired...I mean how do you handle behavior in primary. I need a behavior management system but....I guess the church doesn't like competition or treats or ???? I need ideas. I'm a teacher and I love motivation ideas for kids but I don't know what's okay at church?

Melanie said...

Ben and Jessica,

Here's a past post that might help you. Go to March 2009 and click on "Following the Leader". If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask.

*thecrazychorister

jennypenny said...

I Love your ideas. I have been coming here every week for the past year and a half. Thank you for your hard work and for making these activities fun but also not so out there that the spirit is not felt.

Unknown said...

Great Ideas....Thanks for the info! But do you ever use a behavior reward system?

Melanie said...

Behavior reward? Well, I praise a whole lot and they get to do fun things when they behave. They all know the fun stops and it gets really boring if someone is going to be out of control...and really, if you have an out of control person have the teacher take them out.

I do have a party right before the program for learning all the music. This year they earn a pizza slice for every song learned "program Perfect". The kids LOVE this and look forward to it all year.

I hope that helps.

*thecrazychorister

Tiffany said...

Love this idea. I picked up the mailbox the other day when I was at walmart. I saw it and was so excited to get it!! By the way, the cell phone where someone called was GREAT! All the kids loved it and once the teachers figured out what was going on, they thought it was great too! I did have one teacher give me a dirty look when I picked up my phone for the first time which was HILARIOUS! Once he realized that 1)I don't usually have "I Am A Child Of God" as a ringtone and 2)It was part of the program, he was all good! Loved it!

The Larsens said...

So I like the way you are introducing Follow the Prophet to them at the end. My problem is that our jr and sr. primary are seperate, so I will be teaching the song twice. So would you still only give each class one prophet to learn about?

mcstark1 said...

I love this idea, but 9 verses will be too long for our Primary Program (we usually sing 12 songs!)... I've adapted this and condensed it down to 4 verses: 1) Joseph Smith, Jr.; 2) Gordon B. Hinckley; 3) Thomas S. Monson; 4) #9 from the Children's Songbook. The first 3 verses are from suggestions found on SugarDoodle.net found in the Primary Songs section. I will give copies to all the teachers as suggested in this activity, but then have 2 classes in the Jr. Primary teach them to the Jr. Primary (and 2 in the Sr. Primary) and have the separate classes that taught the verse sing the verse in the program with all the kids singing the chorus.

This will make it easier with them only having to learn 2 verses in each Primary (we have separate Jr. and Sr.) and gives variety to the Primary Program so that not all the kids are singing all the verses of 12 songs :)

Thanks for the great activity... my husband just LOVES being married to the Primary chorister (not!) since he ends up being my unofficial helper (i.e. mailman in this instance) :)

Aim said...

Oh Melanie,

We did the mailbox/mailman today in Jr. primary and my kids just loved it! I love your ideas and am so greatful there are so many wonderful people like you willing to share!

Just wanted to say thanks, it was a huge hit!

Natalie said...

Hi, Love your blog! Thanks for all the great ideas. I have a quick question; could you help me understand the difference between "repeat week with game" and and "test week with game." Could you give me examples in your response? As I've been doing my plans for the week, these seem to be pretty much the same thing. Would love any insight you have.
Thanks!

(You can leave the answer to my question on this post - I'll check back here for your answer. Thanks!)

Melanie said...

Repeat week is when we do different activities to repeat the program song for the month. The emphasis is just on the repetition in order to help memorization

Test Week is where I make a challenging activity that tests the children's knowledge (beat, music, polishing up of the song, words memorized...etc.) There is more expectation this week that they know how I want the song preformed for the actual program. Sometimes this is the entire time..some times it goes quickly and we just have fun singing other things in the mean time.

Hope that helps