The Song of The Heart

Mary Judy, a chorister friend of mine from Logan, Utah sent me a great e-mail describing what she did for their program review. I thought it was a good idea and that you all may like it too, even for next year if you are now finished with your program. I just loved her idea of singing from the heart! I'm posting Mary's e-mail as a "guest post." She sent a pdf file with these little boxes ready to print out and make, but I don't know how to post a pdf file to the blog. I'm sorry that I don't have more time to experiment and figure out how to do that. I hope you can see how to adapt something just from looking at the picture, or, since Mary includes a link to the box, perhaps you know how to create it from the original. Mary also graciously offered to send the pdf file to anyone who would like to print the boxes she prepared. Her e-mail address is: mary.judy@gmail.com . Thank you, Mary!

"I just saw your post with reverence ideas for practicing for the Sacrament program. I did use the music measles idea earlier in the year and it was a big success. I had our primary presidency pass out the dots to the children as they sang well. They in turn put them on their teacher. At the end we had the teachers come to the front and sing a verse from "Follow the Prophet." We were then able to see which teacher had the most measles. Two teachers had measles all over their glasses and were "blinded by the music" haha! The children loved seeing their teacher's sing. It was really fun.

On our last Sunday practice before the program I decided to emphasize the importance of singing from their heart. I found an oversized pair of glasses at our local dollar store. The lenses were heart-shaped. As we sang our first song I had our Primary president choose the class that was watching me, and singing with their whole hearts. We then had their teacher come to the front, stand next to me, put the glasses on and watch to see which other class was paying attention and singing with their whole hearts, It worked well because they looked a little silly but the children were trying really hard to watch me as we practiced standing up together and singing.

I made the attached heart-shaped boxes, punched two tiny holes at the top and threaded some white yarn through them to make a necklace. I had them printed in black and white at our local printers. I think it only cost me about two to three dollars for fifty necklaces (25 copies). I could have printed them on my home printer but it isn't a laser printer and when the ink gets wet my copies smear. I also could have put some candy in them, but I opted to leave them empty. I thought of them more like a locket. I wanted them to represent the children giving their hearts through their voices. (The song of the heart is a prayer unto me.)

I found the pattern for the heart box on Martha Stewart's web site. I reduced it so I could get two boxes on one sheet of paper. Like I said, I wanted them to be more like an over-sized locket. If you go to her site she has a video you can watch to see how she folds it. Martha mounted her template on heavier paper and scored lines down the middle. I printed my pattern directly on to regular weight paper without scoring the paper. I cut them on the solid lines and folded on the dotted lines. I also added the picture from the front cover of our primary program for this year. The painting is by Dale Parsons. "

I'm probably going to make a simple red heart necklace out of construction paper. These wouldn't be as nice as Mary's boxes, but I'm hoping that the children will catch the point. I'll also make some red heart shapes to attach to my glasses to watch for beautiful singing. Maybe I could make cardboard heart-shapes to attach to a stick, kind of like opera glasses. I hope you can see the wonderful possibilities in this idea.