Friday, July 9, 2010

Song Review - "Hotter/Colder" - Find the Ox



Do you remember the pioneer story of Mary Fielding Smith and her lost (cows) ox? She is such an inspiration to me. Mary certainly did her best to follow the Savior and to follow the prophet. I thought that hiding and finding an ox would fit well with the pioneer-ish motif this month. I had the great idea to take the ox from our Christmas nativity set and use it for the “Hotter/Colder” song review activity after I teach “Come Follow Me.” So, I dug the box out of the cupboard and unwrapped every piece looking for the oxen. There were no oxen, only a donkey, a camel and a couple of sheep attached to shepherds. Hmmm, I guess the oxen are in the other, beautiful, white porcelain nativity set. Aaack! I’m not taking that.

I thought about making an ox out of clay, but I really didn’t want to spend that much time. I thought about using one of our many small plastic farm animal figures, but wanted something a little bigger. I thought about driving 45 miles to town to check out the larger plastic animals at Michael’s craft store or to look for something at the dollar store. Instead, I got out my trusty Teaching, No Greater Call manual and read again in the Methods section the directions for making paper stand-up figures. Now I have an ox to hide.

It was pretty simple to make. I didn’t have any heavy brown paper so I glued some thin brown paper to card stock and that worked pretty well. After I got it finished I realized that I could have used a brown paper grocery sack, but would probably still have glued it to cardstock. After I studied the illustration in the book, I sketched a pattern because I didn’t want to make a mistake on my brown paper. Then I traced and cut out the body of the ox. Because it seemed easier, I traced and cut out the head separately and then glued it on. Finally, I touched up the whole thing with simple crayon details.

When I’m ready to review the song, I’ll have a child leave the room and invite another child to hide the ox. Then we’ll have the first child come back in and look for the ox. The rest of the children will give clues to the hiding place by singing the song louder (hotter) as the child gets closer to the ox and softer (colder) if she moves away.

The ox from the nativity would have been perfect. This paper one is not as sturdy, but it will work.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is wonderful!!!

Unknown said...

I was just thinking of the 'hot/cold' game! This is a great idea to incorporate the Pioneer theme in with our regular practice of the Presentation music!
Thanks!

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