Week Four: Sharing & Singing Time - Listening and Wiggling Ideas

In my ward I am responsible for doing sharing time and singing time the third week of each month. This is a lot, and this was my first week covering the entire two hours, but I think it went well. The Sharing Time theme was "Heavenly Father Loves the Children All Over the World." For Sharing Time I did a couple of different reader theaters in each primary, if anyone wants those scripts or more details, leave your email address and I will send them to you.

For a big portion of singing time in both JR and SR primary we worked on learning the song "Children All Over The World" because the kids don't know this one yet. To teach them this song I had them first listen to the music. In JR Primary one of the things that works best to get the kids to focus on this is to do the following:

Say: "Ok - we are going to listen to the music first, so everybody pick one of your ears to listen really good with."

The kids will all follow your lead and grab one of their ears.

Say: "Stretch it out and get it ready to listen"

They will tug on their ears for a minute.

Say: "Make your ear big like an elephant's and lean towards the piano so you can hear really good."

Cup your hand around your ear and lean toward the piano. They eat this up. And it is so cute to see them sitting so still, focusing on getting their one ear to listen to the music.

(Since SR Primary is older I tell them to just focus on the music, and we do that by turning off the lights and closing our eyes, so all we can hear is the music)

To learn the different language ways of saying "Thank You" I printed off pictures of each countries flags and we posted them all up on the board. After we practiced saying all the different versions of thank-you I would randomly point at one flag and ask "How do you say thank you in German?" I would point more and more quickly and try to trick them by sometimes pointing at the same flag twice in a row. They did well. We then practiced singing the song. After singing it through once or twice I told the kids I would be listening for those singing really well to come and be my helpers.

I picked (older) kids from the Primary and brought them up front where I gave each of them a flag sign, We sang the song again. In JR Primary I had the child holding the Tongan Flag jump up when we came to his word. In SR Primary I had the child holding the flag be the only one who said the word when we got to his/her part.

We practiced this for most of singing time, until they stared to get wiggly, at which point I switched over to songs they knew. Before switching songs I told the kids our tongues had gotten all mixed up from speaking those different languages, and we needed to do some wiggling to loosen them back up. I had the pianist play "Ducks Quack in the Pond" and told the kids they could wiggle their bodies and tongues until the song was over.

We followed that up with folding our arms and singing "The Chapel Doors" to get calmed down again. Then we sang one or two more and dismissed.