Monday, September 26, 2011







Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Will your teacher STAND for you?

My presidency gave me an idea that they've seen done in the past. I thought it was great and I'm going to use it this sunday when we have our entire primary combined to practice for the program that is the following week.

As we sing each song, the teachers should stand according to how well their class is singing. If they're loud-the teacher stands up tall; singing just ok-the teacher will 1/2 stand; not singing too great-teacher crouches even lower. The teacher should stand if even one child is singing but stand taller the more of their kids that sing. He/she can play with it and go up and down during the song if their class doesn't sing as loud in some parts. The kids will have a blast watching their teacher go up and down and hopefully they'll aim to have them stand tall! Our teachers will get quite a workout-you may want to prep them before hand. :)

Monday, September 12, 2011

Freeze Frame

I'm always looking for new twists to the standard wiggle songs. This morning, while watching a cartoon with my daughter, i thought of this: while singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" i'm going to shout "Freeze!" at which point everyone holds their current pose but the pianist keeps playing. Then i'll shout "go!" and we'll pick up singing from wherever the pianist is at in the song. I plan on having the pianist play the song through 2 times so we can stop and go several times. This activity would work with any song really, as long as you assign an action to be done during the song. I love how it requires us to pay attention and follow along in our heads with the pianist so we'll know where to start singing again when i say "go".

*i had another chorister send me a cute idea for popcorn popping. In portuguese, popcorn is pipoca (pronounced pee poka). When you use that word instead of the English translation-popcorn-it becomes quite a tongue twister! Try it!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Cantare Con Me...stile italiano!

Translation: Sing with me...Italian style!
Write the following words on the board: (the italics indicate how to lead)
Forte-very large movements
Piano-very small movements
Allegro-very fast
Largo-very slow
Staccato-sharp, robot like leading
Legato-very wavy and flowy leading
A capella-cut off motion to pianist, then lead normally.
Choose a different way to lead for each song (or several diff. ways for one song). See if the primary children can guess how they are supposed to sing simply by watching you lead. Using multiple dynamics for one song takes lots of practice and good eye contact and that's just what we want, right?? :)