Music Aid - Flower Spinner

Everyday items can sometimes be put to good use in Primary music. This is a lawn decoration that I found in Hobby Lobby that works very well as a spinner to choose songs. This is a good time of year to look for something similar. I'll assign a review song to each color and have a child spin it. The color that points to the black band on the stem will tell us which song to sing.

I spent several minutes checking all the pinwheels in the rack to find one that was well balanced and random. This is important since you don't want to be stuck singing the same song again and again if the same color keeps coming up. Still, even with a well balanced spinner, the odds are high that we'll spin the same color at least a couple of times. I can bring the surprise sack and sing the same song using a different musical aid, such as the slinky or the bell or the baton with a fancy on it. Or, I can assign additional review songs to the color and sing a different song. If we spin the same color three times I could ask the child to choose a favorite song.

If I am reviewing a song that I have recently taught, I could also use the spinner to choose different ways to sing the song such as boys/girls sing, teachers only, sing/hum, stand to sing, etc.