Thursday, October 9, 2014

LDS Primary Program activity - Sing or Dare

Back when I was the music leader (for 3.5 years) in primary, I came up with a game that we played after the primary program each year.  The kids and teachers are usually pretty frazzled, and so this game is a great refresher for everyone! It is light, doesn't require much set up or mental work, and recaps the program, involves the bishopric, does not involve sugar or a video, and is fun for everyone.

Sing or Dare

Materials needed:
1 office bell (game show, or business office type - around $5 at Office Depot)
Silly hat
4 brown sandwich/lunch bags
Bishopric member

Print & Cut the following lists into the appropriate brown lunch bags

List #1 – cut these into strips and place in a brown lunch bag titled  “Dares”

Stand on your chair and shout “I love Primary!”
Hug a teacher
Hop around the podium on one foot three times
Do five push ups
Name 3 Latter Day prophets
Give the Primary President a high five
Give everyone in the room a high five
Switch chairs with someone
Sing I’m a little teapot – wearing the silly hat
Sing a Solo (without a partner)

List #2 – cut these into strips and place in a brown lunch bag titled “Songs”

Sing Book of Mormon stories, with actions
Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam – jumping as high as you can
Serenade your teacher while singing her favorite primary song
Fill in the blanks “For the temple is a _____ _______, where we are ________ ________.
(Holy place, sealed together)
Sing your favorite primary song in a Mormon Tabernacle Choir voice
Do as I’m Doing, patting head, rubbing belly, marching in place
First verse of Follow the Prophet – marching around the room
Sing a duet with 1 friend – Latter Day Prophets

List #3 – cut these into strips and place in a brown lunch bag titled “Trivia” (personalize based on your ward’s primary parts)

Whose part talked about a cat?
Name someone who shared a scripture
What was the first song the primary sang?
Who mentioned the Ft. Lauderdale temple in their part?
Who sat next to the Bishop?
Who talked about their great great grandfather?
Whose part mentioned a dinosaur?
Name one thing the Bishop said
What was your favorite part of the program?
How many songs did we sing?
What is the primary theme this year?

List #4 – cut these into strips and place in a brown lunch bag titled “My Mystery Partner(s)”

The person in the first seat on the front row
The person in the back row, in the fifth chair over from the door
Someone or everyone with brown eyes
Someone or everyone with freckles
Someone or everyone wearing white socks
Someone or everyone not wearing socks or tights
The person in the second row from the front, third chair from the door
Your sibling
One person of your choice
Your teacher
A member of the Bishopric
Someone or everyone with eyes
Someone or everyone whose name starts with A, B, C, or T
Someone or everyone in your class
A Bishopric member (throw in a couple of them)
A member of the primary presidency
The song leader
Someone or everyone wearing something orange

How to Play
  1. Choose 1 child to come to the front of the room as the first contestant, and let them choose a partner from the “Mystery Partner” bag to be their competitor.  

  1. Let the new partner choose a question from the Program Trivia bag. 

  1. Line the contestants up across a table, and read the trivia question. Whoever dings the bell first, gets to answer the question.  If they answer correctly, they get to move to the next round and their partner takes a seat.  If they are incorrect, they sit back down in their seat, and the other contestant attempts to answer it.  If it isn’t answered correctly, both contestants take their seats, and another round begins. 

  1. The remaining competitor decides whether they want to do a “Sing”, or a “Dare”, and chooses a task from the corresponding bag.  They choose a partner from the “Mystery Partner” bag, and they are their partner perform the task. 

The newest partner becomes the next contestant and the game repeats. 

October 2014

This morning, I'm ever so tired, and thinking of my daughter.
We went to bed at the same time, and got up at relatively the same time, we didn't get much sleep.  She's got school all day, and a football game to march in with the band all evening.  And then another band practice for most of the day tomorrow - the day she is off of school.

The good news is that she's never ridden the bus to school in the am, so even though she doesn't love seminary, she is okay going, because it gets her to school (on time too!).  5:50 am is awful early to begin a school day!  I'm proud of her that she goes.  And I feel tired. And bad that I didn't send her off with breakfast today, but glad she can get something at the school.

Life at our home has slowed - just a bit finally.  Thankfully.

I am in charge of all of the children at church and we just had our annual program. Where every kid between 3-12 gets to share their thoughts about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Sometimes, primary leaders just write down parts and assign them to the children.  I'm all about NOT doing that.  This year, I just asked the kids to tell me about a time when they felt the Holy Ghost, had a prayer answered, or maybe a spiritual experience that they had had.  It was amazing to hear their answers, and see the faith of these little ones.  They believe and know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love them!

They shared their experiences with me, and I wrote them down, and we added in 11 songs, and practiced for a couple of weeks, and it was great.  And it is over. And I don't have to worry about it for another 4 or 5 months until we begin getting ready for it next year, teaching the new songs etc.

My most memorable moment was looking over at our first speaker who is 5.  He was sitting next to me.  I glanced up, and saw (to my horror) that he had a complete chocolate goatee.  And I had nothing.  No tissue, nada.  After making eye contact with his mom, and seeing her eyes "widen", I leaned over and said here, let me help you - and started to wipe off his chin.  He got the idea and joined in.  It was nicely smeared.  I said, "lick my finger" so that we could finger wash him.  He said, "I'm not licking your finger!"... and so it went.
It wasn't quite as noticable by the time he went up.

Now that the primary program is over, I've switched gears as we plan for our congregation's annual "Fall Festival."  Our biggest church activity of the year.  But, we've got a good committee, and thanks to tradition, it will be mostly potluck - a chili cookoff, and dessert bakeoff, and festive foods cookoff...right up my alley. Then we'll have a carnival for the kids while the adults get their cars ready for a trunk or treat. Then we'll go home.  I should probably be more anxious about it, but I'm not.

I"m currently the president of our HOA, and it has turned into a part time consuming job.  It has been an interesting year.  This past weekend, we watched the general conference of our church - listening to talks by the prophet and 12 apostles.  One of my takeaways from the weekend, was the message of degrees.  Meaning, the shift of a very few degrees on a plane or boat can make all of the difference in the world regarding our final destination.  I'm contemplative about my continued role on our HOA, and some other things as I am not sure how important they are in my life right now.  They seem to take a lot of time and energy, and yet, give me little return, for me, and my family.  I'm still praying about and taking that under consideration.

How is my shaking husband you might ask? Well, about the same.  I think some things are shifting inside of him regarding his outlook on life.  For example, I've been the COO and CFO of our home for 17 years.  He hasn't really wanted to be very involved in figuring out how to make everything work financially.  We've had some great moments when we sat down and charted out our goals and figured out financial plans, but day to day involvement hasn't been there.  That's changing, and it is exciting to work and plan together, and for him to know what is going on. Small steps.  But he still continues to shake. He had some interaction with a prominent family member this week, and it threw him for such a huge loop.  2 hours later, he couldn't stop shaking, and the normal remedies (essential oils, meditation, breathing, putting things in a box mentally - everything) didn't work.  It's hard to see, just hard.  Life is hard sometimes.

On a happy note, our house has been full of music.  Music from Les Miserables.  Last week, we took our girls to see Les Miserables at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater.  Wow!  I loved the intimacy of the stage (meaning there wasn't one) and the smallness of the venue.  It was so great to even make eye contact with the performers.  Our girls LOVED it, and our home has been filled with the music as melodies are picked out on flutes and the piano, and people walk around humming favorite songs.  It was an eye opener for our girls - they didn't have any idea what to expect, and were quite surprised at how much they enjoyed live theater.

Off to start a new day - taking a friend to her work this am in Orlando, and cooking up a storm before my afternoon and evening of music lessons and football games.  Yippee!