Inside Camera--Focusing on Mothers in Your Ward

Use family pics from your Primary

Superlative alert:  this is my all-time favorite Primary music activity. Ever.  Probably because it's my kids' favorite activity, too. :)  The base idea I got from Sharla over at TeachingPrimaryMusic.com, and I just tweaked it a bit.  I dare you to give this a try, and see if your kids don't beg you for more when Singing Time ends!

Preparation

Ask each family in your Primary for a family picture.  My Primary secretary quite handily sent out a group email for me. The families emailed me their pictures, and I printed them out on cardstock.  Yes, this takes quite a bit of colored ink, but these pictures can be used over and over, so I was okay with the cost.  

The odds of your receiving a picture for every family are kind of slim. You could send out personal emails a few days afterwards, or you could just use the photos you received. If you're ambitious, you could even arrange a time at church to snap photos of the remaining families.  

Presentation

Tell the children you're going to play a game. Ask them to pretend they have cameras inside their heads, and you want them to take an inside photo of the picture that you will hold up.  Tell the children to memorize the picture as much as they can because you're going to hide it and then quiz them on details. 

Hold up the first family picture and start singing your Mother's Day song of choice. This year, we're learning "I Often Go Walking," but this works equally as well with any family-focused song.  (I do this activity for Father's Day, as well!) Sing the song through once.  You'll probably be singing a solo, but that's okay, since the kids will be learning as they hear the song repeatedly.  As I sing, I walk across the front of the room slowly, giving all the children a closer view. I pointedly bring the picture close to whichever child is in that family, to make sure he notices.  

After singing the song once, hide the picture and ask 2 or 3 questions.  Some good example questions are "How many girls are in this family?" or "How many people are wearing glasses?"  You can base questions off of the individual pictures. 

For each picture, the last question I always ask is directly to the child in the picture, and it is, "What is special about this mom?"  

Then, I pick up the next picture, and we repeat the whole activity. I normally have time for 4 or 5 pictures, but that's never enough for these kiddos! I can repeat it week after week, as we prep for Mother's Day, using different family pictures each time, and they never get tired of it, even my tough-to-impress older kids. ;)

Happy singing!

Helpful Hint:  Mother's Day and Father's Day can be tough for some kids.   See my blog post here about special needs Primaries, with a section about children who have special needs when being taught the doctrine of families.