There are so many ways to do nursery singing time:
This is how we are going to start doing it: After we are done with regular singing time and the other children are in their classes, we, the music people, will bring the nursery children into the Primary room and do our little singing time with them. We will sing 4-6 songs. Sometimes the songs will be chosen from the songs we sang that day, sometimes they will be the few that we picked to sing all year long with the Nursery so they are somewhat familiar with some of the songs we have been learning. This has worked out SOOO well. They are so familiar with what we do during singing time. One of our big goals is that they will learn how to follow our actions and movements, so that when they are with us for the full 20 minutes they know how to watch us and follow us and in turn keep their attention. We also want them to be familiar with the music. Additionaly we have made sure that we are teaching them to:
In the past we have brought them into a portion of Jr. singing time, but since we are combined and the room is empty, we decided to do it this way. The songs we picked this year to sing more consistently with them are:
However we do sing other songs too. For instance one day we did:
As it got closer to the end of the year we wanted to test their stamina so today we did. They did great!:
Coming soon - a picture of the nursery singing time basket.
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This post is a specific example of how I am teaching the Gospel using music instead of teaching songs, and it is also about the tried and true teaching trick of using actions to learn. It is also an example of how the learning of songs will happen naturally if the songs are being used to teach the Gospel.
For instance, the example I give below is about the message of following. By adding in the chorus of Follow His Light to the lesson plan, we will become more familiar with a song we are in the process of "learning," AND we will understand the last line of the chorus. Over the next few times that I include the song in a lesson plan, we will get even better at the song, and will understand a different line or two. (I won't really take a chunk of any given singing time to dedicate solely to learning the song, but eventually we will have it learned.) To Get Started To emphasize a specific message I really utilize specific words in songs. I use actions to help with this. My actions are almost always focused on words. (As a side note, I don't do very much with focusing actions specifically on melody. With my pre-teaching, and singing with technology, and singing sometimes with melody only, we get that pretty solid without taking much of singing time for that specific task.) Let's use follow as the example. That is one of my lesson plans in Nov - How can we FOLLOW the examples of Paul and the Savior? After a super quick fun intro to who Paul is - TBD, I will let the children know that today we are going to sing about ways to follow the Savior's example just like Paul did:
As a side note, there are too many songs for me to use that have follow in it, however sometimes that isn't the case. If there didn't happen to be a lot of songs with the word follow in it, then I'm letting them know that if we "live like His son" and we are what we believe, and we and we are trying to be like Jesus, etc. then that is being, or living, like Jesus and following him. Or I might do ways to follow Jesus instead of sticking just with the word follow. Another way to do this is to pick a word, or two, or more and assign an action to it. Another trick is to change this up, do it different from time to time, or even each time. Using I Belong To The Church Of Jesus Christ as an example:
Another example would be Nephi's Courage. We might use actions to words this way:
I might add, we don't practice this, or any of the other action methods on this page, before we sing. We just sing and do. I want most of my talking words to be emphasizing the message. It's a really great way to sing a song twice if you want to sing a song again, because almost always you miss something, especially if you add in another element, like not singing the word, but doing the action in it's place. However, if we mess up on the actions it's okay. The point wasn't to get the actions right, but to keep them focused while we sing, and specifically to focus on key words. AND OF COURSE ANOTHER METHOD - This one is super good for most songs, but especially good when there aren't very many repetitive words in a song. Simply adding actions that mimic words - point to yourself on I, point to the lights on light, etc. I stopped taking time to teach specific actions. We just sing, and we do actions, whatever clicks in our brains. I will simply say that for this song we are doing actions that match the words and they can follow me, or they can do actions that they think of. Theirs might match mine, but they sometimes don't. A good example of this is LOVE. There are a few ways to use actions to portray love. (Using ASL in this mix is also great.) You will be amazed at how focused that they will be by simply adding in actions. You will be amazed at how well they learn and retain the songs as well. But again, it's not a sprint. By the end of the year they will know to memorization the ones that you wrap into your plan often. This is a trick I use in my classes at school because it utilizes our focused attention and memory recall. We almost never do the exact same actions and sometimes we have up to 6 actions. I will admit, if we decide to have 6 I post a cheat sheet, or I would never make it :) This was a weekend of great teaching reminders for me, and a time for reflection. On Friday we had our monthly professional development meeting at the school where I work and then of course Conference was fantastic! I Here are some of the highlights - these philosophies are what drive my teaching style and my lesson planning :
Focusing in on depth of knowledge teaching. This is learning at a more engaged and higher level. In a nutshell, not just memorizing for recall and defining - rote repetition and memorization are not the focus. The question we want to know is can they feel it, and can they express it? It's about growing your capacity. To grow your capacity you need an engaged environment where it can thrive. Really engaging lessons, with best teaching practices, that live in depth of knowledge will help the children grow their capacity. Then the memorization and fact recall will just happen naturally, without that being the object of your lessons. This whole conference, including last week's meeting, is also like this. Helping the children of this generation grow their capacities. Can they feel The Spirit, can they feel the burning of a testimony, can they feel the fire of the covenant and the excitement of these latter days? In turn can they express it? Can they share it? Can they live it? I don't have years and years to do this. I have 20 precious minutes each week to help them help themselves and their families. I hope that by the time they end the year next year they will be able to:
My "engaged" lessons will continue as they have in the past - following counsel from The General Primary Board to sing, sing sing - let the music do the teaching. I will have:
(For those who don't know, I get to teach all 900+ children in my school social and emotional learning skills. The children range in age from Kindergarten - 8th grade. I get to teach 1st - 5th graders every week and Kinder every other week and 6th - 8th grade once a month. I teach 26 classes each week.) The question I get a lot is how do you memorize when you sing so many different songs?
The answer is simple: I treat it as a marathon and not a sprint. By the end of the year we will have more songs memorized than just the program songs. (Although I feel super fine singing songs in Primary that aren't memorized.) We have sung 62 songs this year and 37 they can easily sing without the words. I don't have to reteach. Have you ever taught a song in January, just to try it out in July to see where it is for the program and the children have completely forgotten it? Have you ever gone to sing last year's songs and the children have forgotten them? In school terms we call it the summer slide. The children who do not read, etc. during the summer will slide backwards from where they ended in May. It is proven that if you put something to the side for too long, you will forget it. Especially if you have only worked on it 4 times. My general rule of thumb is to sing a program song at least once every other month. If it's a new one, then once, or twice a month. So my thinking is if I don't sing 6-8 songs each week how am I going to avoid reteaching? By clicking on the link below you can see how my plan for next year is laid out, including singing songs enough times that we will have it memorized by the end of the year and retaining songs that we already know. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P76dgx2awsR_YHIg5KfF4UKBtqmLw6mgoApTjnXrGHs/edit?usp=sharing This is actually something I have done for years. So I was super glad when the new program rolled out with these recommendations. (When the General Board came for training last year they were specific on using these numbers.) I quite literally teach line upon line and I don't throw in extra things to learn. We focus on the music and the words.
This is how I do it. It's quite simple, I make teaching the Gospel the priority. Everything I plan starts with a CFM message and then my next priority is deciding on my 6-8 songs. Then I teach the message using the songs. I flipped my thinking from teaching songs/music to teaching a message using those songs as my MAIN way to teach the message. Then there may be an activity that I think of, or come across, that supports these 2 main goals. As I do this they naturally learn the songs. (You do need to wrap the songs around in some kind of rotation.) Here is my plan for next year: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P76dgx2awsR_YHIg5KfF4UKBtqmLw6mgoApTjnXrGHs/edit?usp=sharing I also don't do all of the verses every time we sing a song. Sometimes it might only be the chorus. Sometimes it might only be verse 2, etc. For example when we sing I Am A Child Of God, we sing all 4 verses and only sing the chorus at the end of the 4th verse. How does singing so many songs teach the Gospel message? Because most, if not all of the songs that day, support one theme when we sing those words I either point at them on my flip charts, or emphasize them when we sing them, emphasize in the very short "recap/aha" at the end of the song, and/or use them as part of a challenge. By the end of the day we have sung 6-8 songs that have supported a message. It's kind of like reading several stories, etc. to teach one thing. In the process you have also taught those stories. The best way to see this is to refer to my lesson plans. On my lesson plans the green is pretty much the only talking that I do. I point to those words/ideas as we sing, and/or emphasize them just with intensity. Then I also use the rest of the tips and tricks on my blog. One of my posts mentions switching gears. If we have a song that I feel like I want to do it more than I had planned then we may drop one of the other songs. Are they bothering anyone?
Some children may just sit and listen. I figure most of the time that I listen to music I don't actually sing to it, but I do enjoy listening, and I still get what the song is saying. If they are bothering people how can I make my lessons more dynamic and inclusive, where they will feel compelled to join in? (Maybe not at the start, but . . .) What connection can I make with them? Say hi before Sacrament meeting. Find out their favorite songs to sing. What challenge can I give them? I'm not talking about challenging them to behave because they are the oldest - although this may be just the thing some need. I'm talking about a super hard challenge in the song. I had a young man who was too cool to sing when I started this calling a year ago. This past Sunday I said ----- it's been a pleasure singing with you and he looked startled. He didn't realize that they weren't going to have the older kids come to Primary that day and he was actually disappointed. In my classes at school I have the best behavior when I have the most participation and I have the most participation when I have planned an engaging lesson. Here are some tips:
Now you may wonder where are the incentives like filling the jar for good behavior etc. and where are the get attention sayings/songs? Where is the stand and wait until everyone is listening? I don't use them because these work. (My 3,2,1 and we're back is all I use, with a very occasional "I'll wait.") Do they work immediately? No, it took me about a month with this group of children when I became chorister this time around in Jan. They soon found that they loved the songs we were singing and boy do they sing out. I had only 8 for Father's Day and everyone could hear them. As a side note: this year at our school we stopped doing rewards for expected behaviors. As one of the children said when we rolled it out "we shouldn't get a reward because we sharpened our pencil when we were supposed to." It has been amazing! There are no longer any what do we gets? or I don't like that. Do we still do challenges? absolutely! In my post where I talk about the class that can line up in 8.47 seconds that is a challenge that I have had for the first quarter. But, most importantly we focus on creating engaging lesson plans, solid teaching practices like proximity, and clear instructions. This is My tips are actually pretty simple, but they are tried and true: Follow A Song Order
Teachers Help Pass Things Out And Gather Them Back In
I'm Selective On What "Props" I Pass Out
We Sing, We Move, We Get Back
We Sing, We Move, We Do, We Want To Know What's Coming Next
Clear But Concise Instructions
Sing Sing Sing!! Focus on singing. Back stories: Year's ago I had a class of 14 Sunbeams and 13 of them were very active boys. At the time we didn't have enough people for 2 adults in every class so I was by myself. When I first got called I was like oh boy I have to be super prepared or this will never work. I rigged up a Science Fair board with clips and velcro so that I could walk in and have everything ready to go. Stories and pictures in folders on the velcro, or clipped onto the board. I do a similar thing now with my school classes. I go into 26 different classes each week to teach social and emotional learning skills and I have 20 - 30 minutes for most of those classes - a small time to teach important lessons, sound familiar. Over 1/2 of the time the class is already there and ready for me, however, the easiest way to lose children is to have a pause while you get ready. I started the year with all my lesson plans for each grade - I teach Kinder - 8th grade - in file folders by grade level in a rolling crate cart with a tote on top for the misc things I need like a bell, sometimes puppets, etc. It actually took longer than I wanted to give and left the door open to lose a few children. So I added two kitchen cupboard organizers to the side to put 3D type things in. It works brilliantly. I walk in and I am instantly ready to teach 22 - 30 children/tweens. Here are my top tricks for smooth transitions for Singing Time - before (interesting note that this is now 3 months after I posted this and my Primary President just asked me how I always was there and ready without skipping out of Sacrament meeting early.) :
I have tried sooo many ways and these are by far my favorite. For the following reasons:
1/2 Sheet Of Poster Board Version
In Sheet Protectors With Binder Rings Version
With this being said, I am now also going to be playing some song videos on a tv. Still working out these logistics, but that's another option I'm looking into for some Sundays. I won't do it too often because:
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Here are my tried and true tips/tricks based upon my past experience, CFM, Preach My Gospel, and also using my teaching strategies/philosophies that I also use in my day job.
Most are simple directed listening (Focused Attention) based for easy memorization and then also focusing in on topics for internalization of the Gospel messages. Lot's of my different ideas on a few pages :) Archives
March 2021
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