Thursday, January 5, 2012

Repeat Week: Which Brick Will It Be? (As A Child of God)

Howdy Folks.  We still do not have a chorister called, and so I have the privileged of taking on week two for the new song this month.  When I was chorister, I really liked to take week two to cement the words and music in the children's minds by playing a game that accomplished that, but also was fun enough to distract them from the fact that they were singing the same song a bajillion times in 20 min.

Here's my plan for this week.

Prep:


Enough card board bricks to make a small wall.  (Now I realize that most of us do not have these readily on hand.  I happen to find them at a garage sale years ago....but here are a few replacement ideas that will still allow you to do the same thing.  Small flat rate shipping boxes (you can get these at no charge from the post office), empty baby wipe containers, Empty juice box boxes (the long boxes that come with 12 juice packs in them, 12 pack soda box containers, or simply wooden building blocks or a jenga set.


One Word of the song placed on each brick (or if you do not have all that many just group them by 2-4 words to cut down on the box or block needs.   If its for Jr. Primary, you might want to consider some pictures for key words to remind them since many of them do not read yet.




Presentation:


Before Primary set up the wall.  Make sure all the words are facing front so they can be easily seen.  Put them in order as well.


Tell the children we are going to review "As A Child of God" by practicing making good choices.  Show them the wall.  Tell them that the goal is to remove one word (or group of words) at a time (singing the song after each removal) and trying to see how many words they can remove without having the wall fall down.  They must choose wisely, for if the wall falls down we have to sing the whole song without any helps to rebuild it.  To spice it up a bit, you can have the children sing the song in a different way each time to keep it fresh...such as staccato, acapella, oohing, standing on one leg, covering one eye....etc.


This activity acts as a memorizing game since they must remember the words that have been removed.  It is very helpful for the boys especially because besides memorizing, they are each trying to solve the puzzle of how to keep the wall standing and so it minimizes boredom and non participation.




Have a great week!  Is it awful to hope they keep taking their time with calling a new chorister?  :)


*thecrazychorister (sometimes)

14 comments:

The Olsen Family Odyssey said...

Love your ideas! (Secretly hoping they never fill the chorister calling) heheheheh:) Thanks for sharing your amazing ideas!!!

Esther said...

You have such wonderful, original ideas. Thank you!

Katherine Shupe said...

Yes....I check your blog all the time for great ideas. PLEASE, don't stop posting. Even your older ideas transfer to different songs, and for people like me (creatively challenged), I really appreciate you sharing your gift!

Brittney said...

Such an awesome idea. Thanks for sharing. I will have to see if I can round up some boxes this week and use it next week.

Jesica said...

You really are very talented. I was just called to be the primary chorister and am so excited for this calling, but am not one for coming up with ideas on my own. I'm so grateful you are filling in for a couple of weeks to help me get some things started! I would love it, if you had the time, to maybe continue to post a few suggestions as to what you might do in the coming weeks, even if you are not still subbing for the chorister. (or even how we could use some of the other ideas you've published to work with some of our new songs.) Thanks for sharing your talents!!

Mindi@MyLove2Create said...

Really!?! You are awesome, I have the ability to copy creativity but coming up with it is a different matter. I LOVE your blog! Thank you for all your wonderful posts, and even if you are not the chorister and you have amazing ideas, please continue! You rock!

Melissa and Nate said...

Thanks for the idea! I ended up using toilet paper rolls and stacked them up...it worked great! Thanks!

Nathan's Mommy said...

Like the toilet paper roll idea! I have a collection of those rolls and paper towel tubes. Think I'll adapt it.

Melissa said...

I need to pick your brain for teaching Choose the Right. I want to start on Sunday (My kids picked up January's song fast, and I'm having a baby soon and really want to teach CTR... except I'm totally stumped.) Any great ideas??? :)Thanks!

Melanie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melanie said...

Melissa-

A couple of ideas come to mind. First,..have the bishopric member over the primary or the bishop come into primary with a CTR Cape (this could be as simple as green fabric with the CTR symbol on it)..and have them hold a CTR Shield (a poster board or cardboard made to look like a shield) Tell the children that this is CAPTAIN CTR and he's going to help us learn our new song (or his theme song). Have him give his testimony about choosing the right and have him hand out Little CTR Shield on popcycle sticks to the kids. Have him encourage the children to always choose the right and then he can exit the room. Proceed to teach the song by telling the children that each time they hear the word "RIGHT" in the song that they can hold up their ctr shield.

This is a vigorous and happy song and could stand for a little enthusiasm and still keep the spirit present.

Another, more simple idea, is to just sing repeat the song to them and have them stand each time the word "Right" is said.

Good luck and Congrats on your new little one!

*thecrazychorister

Peterson Pack of Wild Dogs said...

I just wanted to leave an additional idea that I got through reading this post. I was too lazy to go to the post office for boxes and I didn't have near enough at home. I also didn't have toilet paper rolls or any of the other suggested ideas, but I do have a Jenga game, so I took sticky tabs and wrote the words on the side of the blocks. I set it up like you would normally. There are only 3 simple rules. 1. Write the song on the board as you pull the correct words to keep in line of where you left off. 2. You get three strikes. So for example if you're next tile happens to be on a side that will surely make the tower fall, you can take a strike and skip the word. 3. If the tower crashes, you sing the whole song all the way through. Have a child come set it up while you sing and start where you left off. I LOVE the idea you provided. Thanks for getting another creative week flowing!!! You make ME look GOOD!!!

Readings Digest said...

I just wanted to say a huge Thank you for your ideas this month. I was so grateful to find your ideas on introducing verse one with kids choosing the right words and your brick/jenga idea. I used both of them and they really did the trick of teaching the song while keeping kids engaged. The kids loved both activities. You are so clever! You were a real answer to prayer too because my printer was broken so I was desperate for ideas that didn't require printing out stuff. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You

Rach H @ FamilyEverAfter said...

i'm the chorister in my ward, searching for easy ideas tonight. i love this, thank you so very much for updating your amazing blog with such wonderful ideas!!! xoxo, rachel