These pictures are on paper for a roller-box activity I'm calling "Pioneer Adventures." I have twelve pictures on the roll and there is an action and a review song associated with each picture. Twelve would be too many songs to get through, realistically, but I can skip some of them if my time is running out. It is nice, however, to have the flexibility of more songs in case I have extra time. The first picture is just scenery and begins the activity with the song "Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked." Tell the children that the pioneers ran into many interesting things along the way. After singing the song, roll the paper until the next picture appears.
I have a butterfly baton fancy and I'll divide the children into two or three groups. We'll sing the song and have a child point the butterfly to each group, during the song, to indicate who should sing.
We'll pantomime fishing as we sing the review song.
The hill indicates that we should sing the song very slowly as we go up this steep hill.
I have a bee puppet that I will give to a child. When the bee appears we should hum and when it disappears we should sing the review song.
We'll stop and sing "Rain is Falling". I have a great puppet for this song. A picture is coming up in a later post.
The skunk indicates that we should hold our nose while we sing the song. I'll pick a fun song for this picture.
This is a river crossing and I'll show the children how to hold their arms above their head and march as we sing the song.
This is an "echo canyon" and indicates that we sing using an echo. Divide the group into two and have one group sing the first phrase and the other group echo it. Repeat for each phrase in the song.
The picture of ants on an anthill wouldn't load for some reason. The activity is to stomp the rhythm of the song as we sing so that the ants will fall off of our legs. My 11-yr-old daughter reminds me that we don't want to kill the ants, of course. Hmmm. Maybe you should have a response ready for when that comes up. Or, just stomp and shake the ants off and move on without singing. :o)
This is a rattlesnake. We should sing very softly so that we don't scare it.
At the campfire all the children are invited to help me direct the song, using the side way's figure eight pattern.
Finally, we'll turn out the lights and sing the last song in the dark. That's it. The kids love the roller-box and we'll have lots of fun with this.
This is a rattlesnake. We should sing very softly so that we don't scare it.
At the campfire all the children are invited to help me direct the song, using the side way's figure eight pattern.
Finally, we'll turn out the lights and sing the last song in the dark. That's it. The kids love the roller-box and we'll have lots of fun with this.
11 comments:
I LOVE this idea. SO creative! I am going to post your link on my blog. The children are going to love it!
I was just released, and I'm sad. I'm also sad that I don't really need to look at your blog anymore. Your ideas are great, simple, straight forward, and appropriate for primary. Thanks for your help with my calling.
I just found your blog--another Primary Song blog I read linked to it. Thank you so much for all of your fantastic ideas! Out of all the blogs like this that I've read, I feel like yours are the most doable ideas--they are fun, get the kids involved and excited, but they are still simple and easy to do. Thank you so much!
I love the roller box!! SO cute, and clever! After 3 years as the chorister, I have been released. Sad! Even though I have been released, I find myself still visiting your site to see you cute ideas! The Anderson reunion is coming up...will any of your family be there?
Bridges, thanks so much for the link! I always love your ideas, so I appreciate your endorsement. :o)
Frosty and Cassie, I'm sad you won't get to do the most fun calling in the church, but change is always (usually) good and I'm sure that whoever you work with now with benefit from the creativity I'm sure you've developed in this calling. Stop by occasionally, just for old times sake!
Kiersten, welcome to my blog. I'm glad that you find things doable. Doable is certainly what I'm after. When things take too much work, it isn't fun anymore, and the kids just learn to expect fireworks every week. That doesn't seem smart to me. Thanks for your comment.
Frosty, I think two of my boys and their wives might visit the reunion for a day or so because they are in the area, but alas, the reunion always falls on the week of our county fair which is a really BIG deal in our family and we still have a daughter participating in 4-H. In another few years I will be free to attend again. I hope you will all have loads of fun, fun, fun!
This is fantastic! Can't wait to use this!
I was wondering about how long the paper in the roller box is? I need to get some and was wondering how long to look for. Thank you!
Renee, it is probably about 20-25 feet long. That's longer than any rollerbox I've made so far! I probably shouldn't have made it so long, because it gets kind of tricky to keep it rolling up nicely. The weight of the roll allows the paper to slide down on the stick toward the end so I have to keep adjusting it. But, I wanted the feel of "walking" in between the pictures. It worked out pretty well for me on Sunday, we actually went through the songs pretty quickly. We did all of the pictures, but didn't sing a song with the skunk or the ants. We just plugged our noses and said pee-eww for the skunk and stomped and shook the ants off and moved on.
I just love your blog as well - thank you so much for all your wonderful ideas! Quick question about the roller box though...do you sing just one song the entire primary with all the different ways that your scenes depict or do you choose a different song with each new scene? Does that make any sense?!? :)
I usually use the rollerbox for reviewing several different songs, but theoretically, one could design the scenes with different ways to sing the same song. With twelve scenes on this particular roller box, the same song would get too monotonous I think. But a way shorter one might work, especially if you threw in a couple of rest activities similar to the rain song and the skunk and the ants.
I love this idea. I didn't have time to draw all the pictures or make the roller box (family was in town), though. I ended up improvising and using the same idea and we just used our imaginations. I would pretend that I saw something (like, "Look! Do you see that steep hill?" Or, "Do you smell that? It smells like a skunk!" The jr. primary especially got really into it and enjoyed pretending. Thanks for another great idea!
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