Song Review - "As a Child of God"

For old times sake, I thought I would share with you all what I did to review “As a Child of God.”  I put the phrase pictures up on the board and asked a child to leave the room. I asked another child to choose one of the pictures to remove. We shuffled the remaining pictures around a bit to make it harder to spot, but if the guessing child is young, you may want to leave the pictures as they were. When the child came back into the room, we sang the song again to help them discover which picture was missing. Naturally, I asked the child to give the answer in the exact words of the song. If the children had a hard time, we sang the missing phrase together and then repeated the whole process.

The other review activity I had prepared was a “Pop Quiz” with questions about the song. The questions were written on orange slips of paper and placed in an Orange Crush bottle.  A child shook out a question and then had to answer it in the exact words of the song. Naturally, we had to sing a little to help them out. The pop quiz is just a fun way to help the children review and focus on the words of the song.

This year I have only five older kids and the rest are quite young. I think they need a little more time with our new song, before I ask them to learn a hymn. Since they already know "Stand for the Right," I'm going to trade months and teach "Choose the Right" in March. I'm currently planning a great "dramatization" to teach "Choose the Right," with kids holding props surrounding and singing to a child in the middle of the circle. I'm hoping that the mental images of acting out the song, together with the props, will help the little ones especially. I'll share when I get all the props ready. It will be too late for most of you, but I'll share anyway.

A New Blog - Link

You will have noticed that chorister blogs come and go. That is just the way of things, I guess. We get released, or we post all our good ideas, or we get involved in things other than blogging! Thankfully, when one chorister blog slows down, others appear to fill the need. I can tell that Nalani's new blog will be another great resource among many good blogs out there. She recently posted a fabulous explanation of the melody map that you won't want to miss, and her teaching plan for "A Child of God" is very thorough. I hope you'll visit - say hello for me.

First Week in the New Year

Yup, I'm still here - just not posting much, obviously. My visitors have gone up considerably in the last week. No doubt you all are looking to see what I'm doing with the new song, "As a Child of God."  I intended to post about this earlier, but have been snowed in and then couldn't make it down our incredibly muddy road until today. So this post may be too late to be of help for anyone. I'm sorry about that.

For this first week, I'm actually combining two teaching methods from my master list: Exploded Flip Chart and Choosing Pictures. Since the theme for the year is about choosing, I thought it might be fun for the children to choose the pictures for the phrases. For the first week, I want the children to focus their attention on listening. I don't want them to see words too quickly. So, this first week, I'll have them listen to the song and then choose from a variety of appropriate pictures (Choosing Pictures). The first week of a new year is typically a little chaotic and this method allows me to be flexible with the time. I'm really only planning on getting one verse and the chorus, but maybe I'll be lucky. ;o) I'll use these pictures along key words for the phrases (Exploded Flip Chart) next week.  Brittney's idea for using new year's resolutions is really cute and I'm planning to use a few of these as a back up singing time, in case my time is really eaten up or if we have too many children missing because of the weather. This idea is also easy enough to explain over the telephone to a substitute, so it will surely go on my emergency list.

I'm quite excited about this year's theme, "Choose the Right," because choosing opens up a thousand possibilities for a primary chorister. The remaining songs are relatively simple and we already know them, except for the hymn. I'm looking forward to a great year. I hope you feel the same.

Program Report

This time of year is always a little hard on Primary Choristers! I just want to encourage you all and send my best wishes and hopes that the program you are working on comes off just as you hope it will. In case it doesn't, don't feel responsible - just move on and have fun with the rest of this year! ;o) I'll tell you my story and maybe it will make someone feel better.

Remember, first of all, that I direct the music in a branch, and have a small group to begin with. We lost a number of children as they turned twelve. Then we had a couple of families move out. So, our core group for the program was reduced to about 12, with the usual few you just can't count on one way or the other.

The second factor in this story is that our building has been under construction. The biggest challenge recently has been the "missing" restrooms! Anyway, we were scheduled to have just one rehearsal on the Sunday before the program on the 16th. But then we got word that we wouldn't have meetings after Sacrament meeting - so no rehearsal, at all.  AAACCCKKK! We managed to get what children came that week to stay long enough to at least view some picture prompts for the twelve songs we were singing and get oriented as to where to sit. I started to sweat this just a little! Then, this last week, we again got the mid-week word that we wouldn't have regular meetings after Sacrament meeting. I knew this would reduce the number again, but I was shocked that only 6 children were brought to church to participate in the program, plus two little Sunbeams. One of my best singers had lost her voice and could only whisper. Two others had insisted the week before that they didn't want to stick out, so they just mouthed the words. I had only three children carrying the choir. Thank goodness we had a couple of teachers singing as well. Each time we sang, one of the Sunbeams waved her arm to help me lead, and sometimes she added a dance around my feet as well. ;o)

As always, I was told the children sang beautifully and it is true, they did. I really am convinced that angels must join us. No matter what, the Spirit somehow amplifies the situation in the hearts of those who hear, and I'm thankful for that. That is my witness this year. I hope each of you end up with a special memory as well!

Get the Bugs Out - a Link

Get the Bugs Out is a cute activity posted this week on The Ordinary Adventures of a Primary Chorister. I think I'll use this for our next program review. We sang through all of our program songs on Sunday and, thankfully, we have just a few bugs to work out. This activity will make doing that fun. Be sure to check out this fun review game. Thanks, Bridges!

Melody Charts - a Link

I had a very sweet e-mail from Marcia Berkey, who wanted to share a pdf file for the melody charts she made for the song "The Lord Gave Me a Temple." What a blessing she is. She says,

"I tried to show the length of the notes, the relationships, and the repeating words. I created it in Excel but didn't know if everyone would have that program so I converted it to a pdf document. I went into printer settings and enabled poster printing to be able to print this much bigger so the children (and I) can see it - different printers would have different settings for that."

Marcia put these charts into Google Documents and here is the link for it. (edit:  another link in case the first one doesn't work.) Thank you so much Marcia for sharing this with all of us! You are a sweetheart. ;o)

Just a reminder about what a melody chart is.  A melody chart is simply a "picture" of the melody, some way to visually represent the way the melody moves. So you could draw a phrase of the song on the chalkboard, with a single line that depicts the melody moving up and down in steps. You could draw dots or stars on a paper or poster, to represent the notes, putting these on different levels, somewhat like the way the musical notes are written on the staff lines. A melody chart simply helps the children visualize, in some way, what their voices are doing with the notes.

As a review, you could print the charts for each phrase of the song and ask the children to listen and put the charts in order according to what they hear. You will want to cover the words or that would give it away. You could draw the melody lines on the chalkboard and ask the children to number them as to which "picture" comes first, then second, etc. You could use laminated die-cut numbers with magnets, or even fridge magnets. Ask a child to place a number on the correct line picture. There are just lots of ways to help the children connect with these melody "pictures."

I attended a stake primary music workshop last night and was so glad to feel the spirit and the commitment of those ladies who were there with me. Our stake music specialist, who is also a chorister, was so bright and happy. Her message of connecting with and continually engaging the children was so sincere and her ideas were so helpful. It was a blessing to me just to be together with those women. I hope you all have this kind of support from your stake.

Wrapping Up?

Well, the time has come to begin wrapping things up with this blog. I think I have posted all but a couple of singing time activities on my master list and I'm not sure where to take the blog now. My objective, in the beginning, was simply to post my ideas and then leave them as a resource for my daughter(s). But, now that that goal is met, I find that I'm reluctant to leave such a wonderful community as you all are. However, my life is very full, and I have other paths to pursue. I've gone back and forth with this.

I know there are some gaps here, especially with ideas for holidays and other occasions (although there are LOTS of ideas for pioneers). I'll try to continue to post occasionally, to fill in some of those blanks, but it will not be weekly. If any of you have any questions, I would be happy to explain what I do or how I might address it. Please just send me an email or leave a comment.

Meanwhile, I think I will take just a little blog break and try to figure out how to organize so that I can best leave things here as a resource. My husband tells me that what I really need is a static web page, but I don't know how to do that. If you are not a follower at this time, you might consider it now, so that you don't have to keep checking to see if I've posted something.

I've surely loved hearing your comments and even becoming acquainted with some of you. I will certainly miss that interaction. Just know that I'm sending much love and good thoughts to all.