Retiring the Blog

It is with mixed feelings that I write to tell you I am retiring this blog. I have poured my heart into it! However, I feel like Ammon, who was "called another way" by the Spirit of the Lord (Alma 22:4). 

I know that God still speaks to men and women today. I know that He has a specific plan for each of our lives. And I know that if we seek to know His will for us, He will help us know what we should do. For me, the Lord's plan includes grad school and advocating for supports for gifted children. It is overwhelming and exciting and scary and wonderful.

Don't worry, though; I'm still singing. I brought in rhythm instruments to my Sunbeams class today. :) I desperately hope I'll get to teach Primary music again. Maybe I'll even start back up this blog. Until then, may you always feel the Spirit of the Lord as you help these precious children sing praises to Him.

Happy singing!

"A Child's Prayer"--Reviewing with Egg Shakers

We have a newly called Primary Music Leader in our ward, and she's fantastic with the children! Nicolle Sherwood is a professional musician, and she gave me permission to share an activity she brought into Primary her first week. 

The children have already learned all the songs for the Primary program, but they get forgetful. So, Nicolle has been going through and reviewing how well they know each song. Her egg shaker activity is a great way to review "A Child's Prayer" in Junior Primary. 

Here is a video of me, showing Nicolle's activity:

When I saw Nicolle present this activity, I wasn't sure if the kids would go for it. I mean, the egg shakers weren't moving that fast or anything, and that didn't seem that exciting to me. I was amazed at how the kids responded. They were completely focused on her, mimicking her movements carefully. She did a couple repeats, having them focus on different aspects of the music or movements, and then at the very end, she had the children shake their eggs crazy fast and loud, just for fun. The kids loved it. :)

This just shows the first verse of "A Child's Prayer," but you could improvise your own actions for the second verse. 


Happy singing!

Looking for more?  Here is a collection of other review ideas. Or, try using this charades activity for any of a number of songs.

Using Primary Music in Other Callings

Pioneer Sunbeams sing as they walk.

Confession time: I haven't been a Primary music leader in years. I've forgotten how many years, actually. But Primary music is so much a part of me that I take it wherever I serve, so I don't feel as if I've ever left! I wanted to share with you a few examples of how I've used Primary music to help me in other callings. 

If Primary music isn't your current calling, I hope this gives you some ideas. If Primary music is your current calling (as I expect is the case for most of you!), then please consider whether this post could be useful for your friends and ward members. Then feel free to share the post, so as to fill the world with more music. :)

Seminary

I love using Primary music in seminary! Here is a short list of ways I've had it work well.

• Take a month and focus on Primary songs for the opening hymn.
• Ask them their favorite Primary songs, and ask them what gospel truths they've learned from them. See my post on this activity here.
• Have them write their own verse to Book of Mormon Stories or Follow the Prophet, as a way of sharing which scriptural personalities they connect with. See my post on this activity here. 
• Bring in Maori sticks to learn the memorization song for your current book of scripture. (For example, The Books in The Book of Mormon). Sharla has a great post with a video of how to use Maori sticks. It's complex enough that my seminary students loved it!
• Show a video of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing a Primary song in General Conference. Here is one of my favorites, "He Sent His Son." I have done this numerous times with different songs to help the Spirit testify of a principle we're learning.

Course 12/13 Sunday School

Youth Sunday school might seem like a harder stretch for using Primary music, but remember, the point isn't to make Primary music fit. The point is to help the youth think about the principles, feel how important they are, and then want to live them. Primary music is fantastic for helping accomplish those objectives. Here are some ways I did that with my 12- and 13-year olds.

• Show a video of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing a Primary song in General Conference, as described above.
• Bring in Primary song books and have the students find a song that teaches the principle you're learning.
• Write their own verse, as described above.

Sunbeams

Ok, guys, I've been in this calling for one month now, and I have to say, this has got to be the easiest calling for including Primary music! The manual already gives suggestions of songs almost every week, so all I have to do is choose a way to make the songs really engaging. Hint: most of the time the children won't sing with you, but that's okay. :)

• Sing "Families Can Be Together Forever" while the children put together 4-piece puzzles of pictures of families. (Full post on puzzle pictures here.)
• Sing "Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked" while the children wear simple costumes and walk around the room. (See the picture above. Aren't my Sunbeams just the cutest?!) Stop and do appropriate actions when the song talks about Sunday activities. 
• Sing "I Am a Child of God" while using hand scarves.
• Sing "I Love to See the Temple" while the children put pretzel sticks on the outline of a temple. Bonus: snack time with a purpose! 
• Or choose another activity with any song the manual suggests. 

I truly love Primary music for the way it helps me feel the Spirit. No matter the age of my students or the setting in which I teach them, I want them to be able to feel the Spirit in every class. Primary music is one way we can help them do just that.

Happy singing!

Prepping for a New Songbook--Write Your Own Song!

Writing Primary Songs in Seminary I'm excited for the Church's new hymnbook and Children's Songbook! (Read the announcement here.) I also love the idea that anyone can submit songs they've written. The announcement came at an especially fun time because I had just had my seminary students, for a year-end lesson, write their own verses to Book of Mormon Stories. Here are a couple they wrote: 1. Aft’ they left the tower behind, the Jaredites embark.  Jared’s brother brought some stones to take away the dark.  To the promised land so that the people could be free.  Followed God, with the light righteously. 2. Enos was a bad hunter, he couldn't shoot a deer But his father prayed for him and asked that he would hear. The words of God forgiving him as he fell to his knees Through day and night, he asked in faith, righteously. And a fun one: 3. Laman and Lemuel weren’t so bad after all Sure they complained a lot but followed Moses Law They tied up Nephi but eventually set him free Mmmmh, no, they were psycho, righteously. Aren't these youth fantastic!? I love their thoughtfulness and creativity. Something similar to this could also be a fun challenge for your senior Primary. Then, if they wanted, they could submit their new verses to be considered for the new songbook!  I gave my students the following pattern to write their verses in groups: Line 1: 13 syllables, rhyme with Line 2 Line 2: 13 syllables, rhyme with Line 1 Line 3: 13 syllables, rhyme with Line 4 Line 4: 6 syllables + "righteously" We wrote their verses on the board so everyone could sing them, and they were really into it. I love any time we can bring the music of the Church into our lessons, to help students of all ages learn.

Happy singing!

Looking for other ways to get Senior Primary kids more involved?   Read how I've used child pianists, here. For an idea of how to adapt a junior Primary activity to be more interesting for senior, try this one.

8 Tips for Planning Primary Music from lds.org

Recently I was browsing around on lds.org, just to refresh my memory as to what resources were there for Primary music leaders. There is a page dedicated solely to planning music time, here. I don't remember this page from when I was first called! (But then again, that has been a few years...) The page offers 8 tips for planning Primary music, and I was excited to see how well they align with the principles that our favorite music mentor, Sharla, has been teaching for years. Each tip offers a brief explanation as well as a question for us to ask ourselves. Here is a summary:

1. Know the Song

Do I know the song well enough to make eye contact with the children?

2. Use the Scriptures

Do I connect the doctrine to the words the children are singing?

3. Sing, Sing, Sing

Do we sing more than we talk or play games?

4. Capture the Children's Attention

Do the attention-getters that I use enhance the learning experience?

5. Include Different Learning Styles

Do I vary my teaching plan to include different learning styles?

6. Direct Children's Listening

Do I ask questions that encourage thinking?

7. Involve the Children

Do I use activities that involve all of the children rather than a few?

8. Bear Testimony

Do I bear brief testimony of the doctrine taught in the song?

I strongly encourage you to check out the full article here. Now I want to go read the rest of the Primary music site. I wonder what we'll find next! :)

Happy singing,

New Facebook Group for Idea Sharing

Hi! I just wanted to acquaint you all with a new-ish Facebook group that I'm loving. It's called Sharla Dance Teaching Methods. It's a place to share ideas, encouragement, and successes with teaching Primary music in Sharla's style. If you're not familiar with her, then come find out why we're all giddy for her teaching style! You can find her website here. She focuses on child development, participation, and different learning styles. She's taught me everything I know. ;) 
Happy singing!

"If the Savior Stood Beside Me"-Helping Children Connect with the Meaning Through Actions

I love the song, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" (find it here). It has a pretty melody, and the words are peaceful and hopeful. I find it challenging, though, to help my Primary learn all the words. This activity helps the children take part in the memorization experience by coming up with actions to represent individual lines of the song. I would only do one verse in a given week, but if the kids show they really like the activity, you could review the following week and then add on the next verse.

Preparation

Learn the song really, really well. Then, think about the size of your Primary. How could you best divide the verse, so that each row or class could be assigned a line or two of the song?

Presentation

Ask the children, with their teachers' help, to come up with an action or two for a line of the song, which you will assign them. Start singing the song, walking by each row and pointing to them when you sing their line. When you finish the song, repeat--again walking by each row and emphasizing their line, so they can hear the words again.  

When each group has had enough time to create an action, ask them to show the whole Primary. Sing just one line, and then copy their action. Sing that one line again, asking the whole Primary to perform the action with you. Repeat for each group, and then put the whole thing together!

Benefits

This activity taps into several different learning styles:

Movement:  The obvious. They get to do each action.   Visual:  The children get to see each group perform each action.   Words:  The children have to listen carefully to the words in order to create their actions. Also, for younger children, having something concrete to represent the lyrics is especially helpful.   Cooperation:  Each class/row has to work together to choose an action, and then the entire Primary has to work together to fit the actions to the entire song.

Happy singing!

Looking for more?       The above activity would be great with lots of songs. See my post here, where I used it with "Did Jesus Really Live Again?"

A Sensory Experience for "My Heavenly Father Loves Me"

Can we bring nature into Primary? This is a hard one for me to figure out. Nature is one of the 8 learning styles I describe in my post here. I believe that it's important to reach all of our children with varied learning styles, but this has been the hardest one for me to put into practice. When I learned that "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" was the Sharing Time song for February, I realized this song--which talks about nature and our senses--is the perfect one to use to tap into this learning style. You're probably already done teaching the song to your Primary, so this is a good activity to review it or help the truth of it sink in.

Bring nature in with a touch-and-feel guessing game

Getting Ready

The Main Idea

The gist of this activity is to help the children have sensory experiences that remind them of nature and tie into the major descriptions in verse 1 of this song. To make it fun and exciting, I turned it into a touch-and-feel guessing game.

Materials

• Brown paper lunch bags
• Loose feathers
• Rose petals
• Kleenex
• Floral scent (perfume, body spray, or essential oil)
• Folded paper fans
• Several pairs of inexpensive sunglasses
• Baby wipes
• Plastic sandwich baggies

Preparation

Make one set of the following bags for each class in your Singing Time, and label the brown paper bags with the following numbers. The quotes in parentheses are the words in the song that correspond to the items.

1. In bag #1, place a feather. ("song of a bird")

You can quickly make several folded paper fans.

2. In bag #2, place some rose petals. ("a velvet rose")

3. In bag #3, place a Kleenex with floral scent on it, and include a note on the bag, "Close your eyes and smell." ("a lilac tree")

4. In bag #4, place a folded paper fan. ("wind as it rushes by")

5. In bag #5, place a pair of sunglasses. ("look at the blue, blue sky")

6. In bag #6, place a baby wipe on top of a plastic sandwich baggie, so it won't soak through the paper. ("feel the rain")

Presenting the Activity

Before Singing Time, give one set of the bags to each teacher, with instructions to hold them back until the appropriate time. To intro the activity, have one different paper bag with a common item inside (matchbox car, spoon, pencil, etc.). Have two children come up front and take turns putting one hand in the bag, to feel what it is. Tell them not to say anything out loud yet, so their friend can have a turn to guess. After they've both had a turn to feel, ask them what they think the item is. 

Explain to the group that everyone will have a turn to play the guessing game, and they will have to listen to the words of the song to get clues. Set up some quick ground rules (no talking, passing the bags nicely down the row, etc.). Then ask your teachers to pass out bag 1, and you start singing!

Sing only the first verse (quite possibly by yourself) as the children take turns feeling the mystery object and passing the bag to their friends. The teachers can help their classes as needed. Depending on the size of your Primary, you might need to repeat the verse more than once in order for everyone to have a turn. When everyone has a guess, stop the music and ask them to compare with a neighbor. Did they guess the same thing? You can take one bag and reveal the item. Point out the line of the song to which it corresponds, and then immediately call for bag #2 and repeat! 

Junior vs. Senior Primary

Your junior Primary will likely not have patience for all 6 bags. That's okay! The bags are numbered to have harder items later in the lineup, so just stop when the children are too restless or when you think the clues are too difficult for them to guess, perhaps after bag 3 or 4.

Senior Primary kids will have both a longer attention span and a greater ability for abstract thought. Make use of that by continuing the activity through bag 6. Tell them that these last items are tricky on purpose, and the words in the song are only clues as to what the items are. Ask them if they can match up the items to the words in the song they represent. 

A Final Note

This activity calls for sitting still and waiting your turn. Since that is tricky for many of our cuties, I highly recommend you do this activity after you've given them a chance to get their wiggles out. ;) 

Happy singing!

Looking for more?    For another nature-focused activity, try this one.

Teaching Gifted Children in Primary Music

Let's face it, teaching children's Primary music in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is different than teaching music anywhere else. In no other group of music teachers will you hear conversations about praying for guidance, seeking revelation, and the literal saving of souls. Yet despite our differences from the rest of the educational world, the similarities between us are striking. I am currently pursuing a Master's degree in gifted education, and the more I learn, the more I realize how much secular theories of education and instruction are useful in a Church setting. Every time I learn a new teaching strategy, I am eager to apply my knowledge in my gospel teaching. As I've done so, I've started noticing and focusing on the gifted children around me, and the outcomes have been amazing. So, today I'd like to combine some of my experiences to explore the question, How do we better teach gifted students in Primary music? I'd like to share with you some of the principles that I've learned. This post will cover 1) a brief overview of what it means to be gifted and 2) strategies for teaching gifted children in your Primary music class. What Does It Mean to Be Gifted?   The Gifted Range of IQ Distribution The term gifted as used in the teaching community refers to a student whose educational needs are advanced to the point where those needs cannot be met by regular curriculum. That's the idea in a nutshell. The chart on the right shows this idea in a more quantitative way, if that's how you like to think of it. IQ, or intelligence quotient, is only one way of measuring intelligence. An IQ of 100 is smack dab in the middle of the pack, so 50% of people on earth are above 100, and 50% of people are below. The gifted range is roughly 130 and above, so the top 2%. It is careful to note when discussing gifted students that we are not suggesting that gifted means better. Not at all. Perhaps the best way to describe gifted students is students who develop asymmetrically, where they develop at varying rates in intellectual, physical, social, and emotional areas. Most gifted children are very strong in one area, while at the same time they are very weak in another area. The main point to remember is that students on the extreme ends of the IQ chart need to learn in a different way than our other students. The lowest IQ students on this chart are classified as special education, and we understand we must give those students different experiences to help them learn at their level. Gifted education strives to provide that same individualized education to the highest IQ students, who also need special teaching in order to actually learn and progress. The next section in this post offers a handful of ideas to help you see how this could look in your Singing Time. 4 Strategies for Teaching Gifted Children in Primary

1. Find Out Who Your Gifted Students Are

Do you know who the gifted students are in your Primary? Are you sure? Not all gifted students are alike. I had one gifted 10-year-old who piped up during Singing Time and started talking about the various minor chords we were using. I didn't have a clue what she was talking about! It was easy to see that she was gifted in music. I discovered later that I had another gifted 10-year-old, this one with ADHD, and I hadn't known how much he understood because--being bored--he was always playing around with his friends on the back row. But he also was an advanced learner, and he just needed more.

You probably won't know which of your students are actually classified as gifted, but a formal designation isn't what will concern you most. If you'd like to focus on students who are advanced, then look for those who need to learn a little more, a little faster, a little deeper. You can talk to your Primary presidency, the teachers, the parents, or your Father in Heaven to try to get a sense of which students these are. In fact, just this new perspective might be enough to help you recognize these students on your own.

2. Vary the Types of Learning Activities

My Primary music mentor, Sharla Dance, heavily focuses on 8 different learning styles. She took these from Dr. Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which he first wrote about at Harvard University in 1983. I give an overview of their application to Primary music here. While these principles are beneficial for all children, they are especially crucial for the gifted, who usually develop strongly in one area to the neglecting of other areas. So, it becomes vital that we not choose one teaching method and then never deviate from it. Even if it's a great activity, it simply cannot reach all of our learners. Variety is key.

3. Build in Layers of Difficulty

One of the hallmarks of a gifted student is that she will learn more quickly, with fewer repetitions. After mastery, additional unneeded repetitions will actually reduce her brain's ability to learn. But the rest of our students need tons of repetition, right? So what do we do? Panic?! Well, sometimes...but it's better if we repeat but with variations. 

Let's say the current learning activity is a pattern with sand blocks (read my post on DIY sand blocks here). You start with a simple pattern of scrape-scrape-hold-scrape, but after one sing-through, your quick kids will have it. So the next time, you add a piece to the pattern. The next time, you mix up the pattern completely, using symbols on the board to represent the different sounds/motions. Then, you could add in a partner clap. Then, you could have a child come up and rearrange the symbols on the board into a different order. Here is a post that outlines this type of progression in more detail. Using layers of difficulty like this will completely engage your gifted learners while providing the repetition everyone else needs.

4. Engage Students Individually

Many gifted children are used to not being challenged, and so they don't put forth effort anymore. The job of any teacher is to help apathetic students reengage, but with gospel teachers, our responsibility is of eternal importance. When you notice a child choosing to not participate on a regular basis, sometimes he just needs a chance to help out. 

Once, I reached out to one of my almost 12-year-old girls (who was just counting down days 'til her birthday) with help leading the second part of "A Child's Prayer." I went to her house, we practiced together, and then she helped me lead during Primary. We both loved the experience!

Not all of your students will be capable/willing to lead music, and that's okay. Maybe one child would be willing to learn a tricky instrument pattern beforehand, to help you demonstrate it. Or maybe one would draw you a poster. Just seek for inspiration on what they individually need.



Entire degrees are devoted to studying the characteristics and needs of gifted children, so there's no way I can express everything there is to know in one blog post! However, I hope this has provided you with an opportunity to see your students through more aware eyes and thus discern how better you can serve them. Please feel free to comment or email me with any questions you have. There's nothing more important we can do than help our children.

Happy singing!

Singing Your Way Through the Christmas Story

Let them help with kid-friendly nativity sets There are more beautiful Christmas songs than we have time to teach in our Primaries. And let's face it, we don't have time during the holidays to think of the perfect way to teach all of those songs, anyway! Here is a super simple idea to get your kiddos some exposure to a song they may not know. Bonus: it takes almost zero prep time. ;) What You Need -Several kid-friendly nativity sets with separate pieces (ideally one per class) -A song that lists several of the figures in the story of Christ's birth. "The Shepherds' Carol", "Picture a Christmas", and "The Nativity Song" all work well. Modeling the Activity First, model the activity yourself (or with one of your own children, if that works for you). Have your pianist play just the melody line while you start singing the song by yourself (or some kids can join in if they know the song). When you reach the point in the song where a figure is mentioned, take that piece out of a bag and set it up on a table in the front of the room. For example, here's "Picture a Christmas." Add each piece when the bolded word is reached. "Picture a stable in Judea. Picture a sacred, silent night. And can you hear the angels near, and see the star so bright. Picture a little baby Jesus, think of His life and works so dear..." etc. Ask if anyone would like to help you this time, and then repeat with a few responsible children in front of the Primary. Involving the Entire Primary Ask if anyone else would like a turn, and then go over your rules briefly. Have teachers supervise their classes at stations around the room with tables and nativity sets, and tell the children they have 30 seconds to decide which classmate gets to hold which piece. If there are not enough to go around, tell them you'll repeat it so everyone gets a turn. Then start singing again!

This activity will not fill a whole Singing Time, but that's okay. It gets the children out of their seats, and it gives everyone a turn to participate. 

Happy singing!

Looking for more?           For some other posts about Christmas ideas, try chimes or a full Singing Time plan with a sampling of Christmas songs.