The Pealing of the Bells

Hand bells

Last Sunday, I experienced Primary music bliss.  I walked into the room carrying some black cloth cases, and the children's eyes got wide. They grinned, whispering excitedly to their neighbors as they pointed at what I was carrying. Yes!--I confirmed with a grin and a nod. It was hand bells day. 

I don't blame them at all! I feel the same way. The bells are colorful, the tones are clear, and the feeling of everyone working together to make beautiful music is just impossible to beat.

Choosing Bells

The bells that I use are a basic 8-bell diatonic set for the key of C, from middle C to the C one octave above, (meaning no sharps or flats). Mine are Schylling brand, from amazon.com, here, but there are different brands on sale all over. Each color is a different note.  There are also add-on packs with accidentals, higher notes, and lower notes. I mostly just have multiples of this basic set, in order to get more children playing at the same time. My senior Primary has 50+ children there every Sunday, so mass involvement is crucial to me!

The full set of hand bells

I also got carrying cases, since the initial packaging isn't really made for long-term use. 

Hand bells in their carrying case

How to Chart the Songs

I searched long and hard on Pinterest to get ideas for charts to go with the bells, and I settled on one from a blog called Imagine Our Life.  I don't know anything else about the blog, but this felt pattern and I fell in love at first sight!

Movable hand bells chart

I opted to go with this chart because it's movable. I don't have to make a new chart for each new song I teach with bells; I can just move the colored notes--which adorably match the colors of the bells--as needed, since felt adheres to itself pretty well.  I also love that it utilizes a music staff. I don't teach the musical notation at all, but the children who can read music find it helpful, and I feel that I'm helping to establish a foundation for all the rest.

I found all the needed supplies at my local craft store. I got a yard of white felt for the base, and the small colored felt squares were something like $.35 each. Nice.

Supplies for making a movable bells chart.

Here's a close-up of the ribbon, felt circles, and magnet clips that I use to hold up the chart on the chalkboard.  Well, the circles are basically circular. I used a toilet paper roll as my stencil.  If you're interested, hop over to the other blog for the tutorial.

A close-up of the chart components

In my picture of the chart above, you can see that I use the notes from the guitar chords listed in The Children's Songbook.  The song shown is "Did Jesus Really Live Again?"  I use a drop down menu on the Church's interactive music player to change the key of the song to C to match my bells, and the listed chords are transposed, as well. What a dream come true!  While in Primary, the children play the chords like an accompaniment, and we sing the melody over the top. I make sure to print out a copy of the transposed song for my pianist, so she can play the melody line with us.  Next time I bring in the bells, I plan on having the children play the melody line, to change things up. On my very favorite Primary music site, To Teach a Child a Song, there is an example of how to mix in harmony notes, too.

Introducing the Hand Bells

I've found I have to go over the ground rules each time I bring in my hand bells. When you get your bell, you immediately bring it to "resting position," sitting lightly on your shoulder.  You keep the bell there until your turn to play, and afterwards you return the bell promptly.  This ensures you can actually hear the desired notes. :)

Resting position is no joke.

Before I pass out the bells, I have the children practice the motion with me: hand on shoulder, straighten arm to play, hand returns to shoulder.  We practice again in unison, pretending to ring our bells at the exact moment I reach up and touch a chord on the chart.

Then we pass out the bells. I have roughly half as many bells as children, so I have them trade off with a neighbor after each time singing through the song. If you're new to using complex activities in your singing time, be aware that you might be singing the song completely by yourself.  Even children who know the song well may be so focused on their playing that they forget to sing. That's okay!  They are hearing the song over and over again, in a new and interesting way.

One final note:  be sure to bring in hand bells for songs with a slower tempo.  If the notes move too quickly, the children will find it difficult to keep up, and they will become easily frustrated. And after all, singing time is all about finding joy in music as well as in truth from Our Father in Heaven. :)

Happy Singing!

Egg Cartons Can Be Instruments, Too

The kids in my Primary love it when I bring instruments. I love it when the cost of them doesn't break the bank.  Solution? Egg cartons! 

Gathering Supplies

Collect those egg cartons!

Like most Primaries, ours doesn't have much of a budget for buying instruments.  So, whatever I want I buy for myself, and the supplies just belong to me instead of to the Primary.  With Heavenly Father's blessing, surely (surely!) I'll get to teach Primary music more than once in my life, so it will be worth it.  What am I saying? It's worth it anyway. :)            

However, my personal budget isn't limitless, either, so I sent a Facebook call out to my nearby friends, asking them to save their egg cartons for me.  I received a decent number that way. A friend of mine said that she just asked her grocer for extra cartons, and he gave her a huge stack. Either way, it is pretty painless. For a drum stick, I used rhythm sticks (which my darling mother-in-law gave me for Christmas), but you could use thin dowels or even pencils, instead. Ideally, you would have one carton and one stick per child, but you can do just fine with only enough for half your children. Then, they can take turns and hear the song repeated even more times. :)

The Skills

 I have two main ways that I make music on an egg carton: a tap and a scrape. The tap is just as it sounds. I hold the carton open, bottom facing up, and I tap the stick on the lid of the carton.

The tap

The scrape is made on the sectioned side of the carton. I touch my stick to one end and then drag it down the egg cups, ending on the other end of the carton. Go grab a carton out of your recycling bin and try it right now. It sounds great. :)

Starting position for the scrape

For Junior Primary

Many a Primary music leader has been frustrated by an activity that worked well with one age group but flopped with the other age. For ease of planning--and to minimize the carting around of materials--I normally try to come up with different version of the same activity for Jr. and Sr. Primary.

For Jr. Primary, I keep the beat and pattern extremely simple.  Remember, you have tiny Sunbeams (3-year-olds) in your class, and it's all they can do to stay in the general vicinity of their chairs! My pattern for Jr. Primary is normally this:  8 scrapes, 8 taps, repeat. If you go less than 8 times, the littles ones will be completely lost.  However, by the end of the song (We did this activity with the Enoch verse of "Follow the Prophet" (The Children's Songbook p.110), the older children are getting bored.

To take it up a notch, I ask them to face a partner. You play the scrapes on your own carton, but you play the taps on your neighbor's carton. I ask a child to be my partner and help me demonstrate first. The older children in Jr. Primary love the added complexity, and since the Sunbeams don't pay attention to you once they have an instrument in hand, they aren't confused. Win-win! ;)

For Senior Primary

The pattern for Senior Primary

I think it goes without saying that if you tried the above pattern with your Senior. Primary, you'd completely lose the children's attention. They would feel like you were babying them.  Frankly, they'd be right. These kids are smart, and they want a challenge!  Here's part of the pattern I did with my Sr. kids last Sunday.  (See photo on right.)

If you can read music, you will recognize the simplified notation.  I don't explain the symbols to the kids. Rather, I make it a code that they have to figure out. I write this up on the board, with exactly this placement and coloring, asking them to see if they can crack the code.  Then I sing and play the egg carton through the song by myself.  Here's the interpretation:

Black=scrapes, red=taps, blue=rest or instructions.  Single line=one action per beat, lines connected at the top=two actions per beat, squiggle=scrape back and forth quickly during the assigned beats.  The x2 means to play that line of code twice before moving on.

Once the children have this pattern down, add in the partner like in Jr. Primary.  They'll likely have that down in one repetition, so then you can have them form groups of four and stand in a circle.  In this configuration, they'll tap on the carton of the person to their right.

This past Sunday was my first time using the groups of four. Let me tell you from cold, hard experience that if you don't demonstrate how the groups of four work before telling the children to go do it, they won't understand what to do. Since they don't know what YOU want them to do, they'll come up with something different that THEY want to do.  *sigh*  Next time, I'll know better! :)

Regardless, I love this activity. The children get to move with the music, and although you may be singing by yourself a lot (even kids who know the song will have to concentrate a lot on following the pattern, so they might not sing), the children are hearing the song over and over. And repetition is key in learning a song!


Happy Singing!