Saturday, November 22, 2008

Thanksgiving, Turkey, and Singing

Like any creative person out there, I absolutely rely on other people for my creative inspiration. When I see a good idea I snag it - thus I must thank the blogger "Arizona Girl" for the following idea that I am planning for tomorrow. Anyone out there who happens upon my blog tonight can use it for yourself as well! After all, isn't that why we are here for each other? The following, including the pictures, is taken directly from this other sweet sister's blog:

The way the activity would work is the children would tell me something they are thankful for and then tell me a song that goes along with what they are thankful for.
Making the Turkey: The body of he turkey is 4 pieces of brown construction paper with just a one corner rounded off, all at the same time. Connect the four corners opposite from the rounded side, matching up the founded sides. Cut a long piece for the neck, and a large oval piece for the head (the more oval like the better it will look). You don’t want to make the beak a perfect triangle, make one side more wide for the bottom of the beak. And just a 2 inch piece with a rounded bottom for the hanging piece. I used a black marker for the eye and wing.The Feathers: I cut lots of feathers. I wish I had cut more of the orange and red, the children really liked to pick those two colors and I ran out during Jr primary. I used the paper length wise and cute them the length with one rounded side. I could get 5 out of each piece of construction paper. The activity: As the child said what they were grateful for, they picked the color of feather, and I wrote their name and what they were grateful for on the feather. Then it was placed on the turkey, so the more songs we sang the fuller the turkey’s tail became.
The concept of finding a song that related to what they were grateful for was harder for the JR primary- we sang “I am a Child of God” 3 times, and one child said he was grateful for his dog and choose “Popcorn Popping” for the song. On the other hand the SR primary really got the idea, they got it so well they started picking songs they wanted to sing and then trying to think of something that related to it to be grateful for. It was a good activity. We had fun and sang a lot of songsBecause this other fabulous chorister mentioned that JR PRIMARY struggled slightly to think of songs, my twist to this activity will be to print out some clipart images of things we can be thankful for - "House" "scriptures" "Food" "Family" "Church" "trees" "animals" etc. and think of a few songs to go with each image. I figure I will tape these images up on the board and let the children either think of their own thing that they are thankful for, or use one of the ideas from the board. If they pick an idea from the board I will give them a couple of song options and let them pick one.

Happy thanksgiving everyone...if I get to write on one of my feathers tomorrow it would say that I am grateful for the wonderful network of other sisters out there who share their great ideas and make my calling easier!

3 comments:

Misty said...

Hi,
My name is Misty. I hope you don't mind me reading your blog, but I too have been called the primary chorister position, and have absolutely no musical background whatsoever :), so.... I hope you don't mind me looking to you for ideas. I think they're great. I'm trying the Jeopardy game this next Sunday. So thank you.

Misty said...

Hi Chelsi,
I'm glad you responded, and no I do not find you creepie at all. I love the birthday idea, thank you! As you could tell, I'm new to this blogging thing. I have been following my friends' blogs for a while, hesitant to do my own, but decided to for this very reason. I think it helps us come in contact with sweet people like you. I happened to come across your blog from another one that I happened to google "lds primary chorister", and landed on yours. To tell you the truth this is the first time I have ever left a comment on someone's I didn't know, so I was afraid of being the creepie one :).
Anyway, one fun idea I did my first Sunday..... I found a crazy turkey hat at a party store. I took turns picking children from the classes, and had them watch for the class singing the best. The class that sang the best the child then had their teacher wear the turkey hat. It was hilarious to see the adults get into it, I even got picked at one time. The kids loved it. I chose the songs ahead of time and made a turkey with feathers that they could pick the songs from. I will definately do it again, possibly for a different holiday...
Okay, probably to much commenting for one day, sorry. I look forward to more of your fun ideas.
Misty

Michelle said...

I took this idea and switched it up a bit and did an indian headress instead. Then the child could either wear it while we sang the song or choose someone else to wear it. They loved it.