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)

Introduction Week: As A Child of God

Well...some of the wards in our stake were split a few weeks back.  I stayed in the Primary Presidency, but we lost our Chorister...so until we get another one.....I get to fill in!!!  So much fun.

So, This coming Sunday we will begin learning "As a Child of God".  I thought I'd post my plan just in case any one out there still visits this blog...

Preparation:

Two Large bags (Brown Paper Grocery bags work best)---on the front of one put Choice #1 and on the other put Choice #2.

Several objects that correspond with the words of the song....The words I picked are:

Earth (globe or picture of Earth), Choose (the word on a piece of paper), family (picture of family), light (flash light or other light you can bring), Holy Ghost (picture of a child praying with the word Holy Ghost attached to it), Right(The word Right and an arrow pointing to the right).

Several objects that are silly fill in words for the words in the song....what I chose is:

A Picture of Mars, A Cookie, Stuffed Animal, cell phone, Comic Book (or other magazine), A picture of a nice meal representing Dinner.

Okay...so are you confused yet....here is how it will all come together...

Presentation:

Before Primary, put the objects randomly into each bag. Make sure you don't have all the correct choices in the same bag so it doesn't get predictable.

Have a child come to the front.  Tell them that we are learning a brand new song that will help us understand the importance of making good choices and how that can bring us peace and happiness.   Tell them the first line to the song.  Pull out the Globe and the Picture of Mars.  Tell them that the first line of the song is....." I came to ? with the power to ?   Have the child choose between the two objects to fill in the blanks.   You could say... Is the correct line... I came to EARTH.....or I Came to Mars?  Then sing repeat the line...and move on through the song until you get to the end.    For the next part I'll say....Is the Line I came to Earth with the power to Choose or I came to Earth with the Power to Make Cookies?   I think you get the picture.  It's simple, yes...and pretty obvious....but I think it drives home the point that choice means something.

In case you have a child that thinks its really funny to choose the wrong answer....humor them and sing the wrong line and show them how it not only doesn't fit the song, but it doesn't fit the message either. 

Anyhow,..have fun.  It's great to be able to do this every now and then.  Have a great week.