Nursery Aids

[prsd4tim2]

I have been collecting the ideas from the Primusic Group about working with the nursery children. I have to admit that I haven't been diligent about doing music in nursery, and I have been feeling guilty. There were some great ideas on the Group site and I copied them into my personal music files. Unfortunately I didn't copy the contributor's names, so I apologize. I take no credit at all for any of the ideas posted here. If they are your ideas, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU and feel free to claim them. I think they will be a great help as I recommit myself to work with the nursery for 15 minutes each Sunday.

[prsd4tim2]

When I began teaching the nursery I followed a school teacher who had it mapped out beautifully. I have followed her plan. She said to stick to the same schedule each time and they will learn the songs and participate more and more. That's what I have done and she was right!! They giggle each time I come and I get a very excited hug every Sunday!

We begin with curly ribbon attached to a popsicle stick. We sing "I Am Like A Star Shining Brightly" After singing it once I chose one child to chose if we sing it fast or slow..they love this! Then we do twinkle twinkle, it is the only non primary song I do. The previous chorister did several and I felt like there were enough Primary Songs we should go with them, so I kept only one!

We put the stars away and pull out our shakers. (these are small tooth pic boxes that fit perfectly in their hands and I fill them with rice.) We sing Book of Mormon Stories. We put these away and "find our heads!" They think this is great, they say "I remembered to bring mine!" We sing "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" then My Hands Upon My Head I Place." Then Popcorn, Rain is Falling, Snowman. (in spring and summer we swap out snowman for In the Leafy Tree Tops) Then we sing "I Love to See the Temple" and "I Am A Child of God". Some of those little people know every word! It is so fun to see them learn those words!

Then we choose instruments, I purchased a small box of instruments, (we have 23 children so I bought 2). They walk in a circle with me and sing "Follow the Prophet". We do it two times so they can change instruments if they want.

Finally we all sit down and show me their frowny faces and we sing "Smiles".both verses. I give them a smiley sticker and we are done.

Hope that helps!

[prsd4tim2]

--- In primusic@yahoogroup s.com, Katharine Dodson <gottaluvkidz@ ...> wrote:

What I've been doing lately that the nursery kids really like is to have brown lunch bags with props in them. I fan the bags out for them and they chose the one they want and look inside. I tried to make enough props for each child to hold one during each song. My props are on craft sticks. I have pictures of Jesus and the children for "I Am A Child of God", shiny suns for "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam", Shiny stars for "I Am Like A Star Shining Brightly", mini Books of Mormon for "Book of Mormon Stories"(We sing it using our hands and our laps or the table as drums - tap 1 right, 3 left and then alternate tapping on the last note) and Snow men for "Once There Was a Snowman". I do use secular songs the kids know like "Three Little Speckled Frogs" and I have frogs on sticks, The Alphabet Song and the stick has an index card with the letters glued on it., etc. I figure I will wean them away from the secular songs as I find props for other primary songs.

So far the kids LOVE it. They don't sing that much either but they have a blast. Katie

[prsd4tim2]

A few things that worked well for me

1. Move quickly from one song to the next. Although I'm sure the older ones enjoy the process of picking songs I found that I kept everyone's attention by just moving quickly to the next song. And I agree with earlier posts about repeating the exact same songs each week.

2. If it wasn't an action song then I had something for the kids to hold. Very few will actually sing (or even do actions) but they do engage and having something in their hands keeps them engaged. You have to watch the youngest children that they don't put the song props in their mouth. If they do, I would set their props aside and spray them with Lysol after class. All of them really seemed to jive with the process of putting their prop back in the basket and waiting to get their next prop.

3. It is handbook-okayed to use songs that aren't in the primary songbook. I used lots of Primary songs but there are also other fun songs about animals and families and weather and I don't see how "Once There Was a Snowman" is any more sacred than "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

4. The littlest ones (18-24 months) do better sitting on chairs during music-time than on the floor (even on mats or circles).

5. One prop idea I came up with that the kids (2's and 3s) really loved were "pointers" - white lollipop sticks with colorful little puff balls hot-glued on one end. We used these to point to clip art objects on a picture that each child would have in front of them. This worked great for "The Nativity Song," Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked, My Heavenly Father Loves Me, and Thanks to the Father. We would then listen to the song on CD as we pointed to the objects mentioned in the song with our puffy pointers.

6. Some of the primary songs that worked really well for me were:

PRIMARY "REVERENT" SONGS
Jesus Said Love Everyone
When We're Helping We're Happy
I Am Like a Star
Quickly I'll Obey
Smiles - "If You Chance to Meet a Frown"
Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam
Thanks to Our Father

PRIMARY "ACTION" SONGS
Do As I'm Doing
My Hands
Roll Your Hands
Rain is Falling

OTHER SONG AND PROP IDEAS

Spider rings for Itsy Bitsy Spider (always played Hap Palmer's rendition on the CD player)

Dancing sticks and pom-poms for Justin Roberts' "Tickle My Toes." You can make dancing sticks by hot-gluing a strip of ribbon or fabric to the end of a pencil.

Counting songs with 3 laminated stick figures laid out in front of each child. Then as they sing the song they put the figures in a basket one by one.
"3 little ducks went out to play..."
"3 little monkeys swinging on the tree..."

Clack blocks together when singing the ABC song or counting from 1-10 or 1-20 (I used Dora the Explorer's rendition)

Hokey Pokey holding up any animal or seasonal figure ( monkeys, snowmen during winter, turkeys during Thanksgiving, bunnies during Easter, etc. - I would die-cut these and then laminate them)

I put my "monkey" up
I put my "monkey" down
I put my "monkey" up
And I shake him all around
I do the hokey pokey
And I turn myself around
Two stomps on the ground.

I put my "monkey" in front
I put my "monkey" in back
I put my "monkey" in front
And I give my knee a whack
I do the hokey pokey
And I turn myself around
Two stomps on the ground.

I touch my "monkey" to my head
I touch my "monkey" to my toe
I touch my "monkey" to my head
And I shake him to and fro
I do the hokey pokey
And I turn myself around
Two stomps on the ground.

Hope this helps someone.

[prsd4tim2]

I made an apron with 12 pockets. It is about to my ankles. 1 pocket has
stickers and the rest has a laminated piece of clip art that represents
a song. I also have a basket that I carry that has some props I use
with the children.

These are the clip art pieces and the songs we sing:

a box of popcorn - Popcorn popping

Book of Mormon - Book of Mormon stories - with actions

A girl singing - Singing a Song is Fun to do - with this song I strung
some jingle bells on a pipecleaner and twisted it into a circle (I put
a dab of hot glue on the ends to keep it together and not have a sharp
point.)

(Separate pieces) A dad, Mom, boy and Girl - I love Mother She Loves Me

Snowman - Once There Was A Snowman

A boy & Girl with I Am A Child Of God T-shirts - I Am A Child of God

(Separate Pieces) A Snake, A butterfly, An Elephant, a seal - Do As I'm
Doing (we act like the animal). Which ever animal they pick is what we
do. That way if I have more than 11 children we can do it again as a
different animal.

Mom with children working - When We're Helping We're Happy

Sun - Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam - I have suns on popcicle sticks for
each child in my basket. When we sing "sunbeam" we hold our suns up
high, then sway back and forth for the rest of the song.

Seed Packet - Little Seeds Lie Fast Asleep I have a "Magic Wand" that
makes a noise when you kind of jerk it. They all lie on the floor until
I touch them with the wand and say grow. Then they pop up. (It's so
cute, we've been doing this for a while and when they see the seed
packet they all flop down onto the floor, it makes me chuckle).

Picture of the Prophet - Follow the Prophet chorus. (I have a picture
that i mounted on a paint stirrer in my basket. Whoever picked this
song gets to hold the picture and we all march around the room
"following" the child holding the picture of the prophet.

We sing the same songs every week. Sometimes not all the songs. After
we finish each child gets a little sticker on his/her hand. Our nursery
is very young also (and large we have about 30 children in primary and
about 12 - 14 in nursery). They don't all sing, but I've had several of
the parents ask me if I've taught the children one song or another
because they hear them singing it when no one is around. Because they
are so young, I don't wait until everybody is ready we just move
forward. After you do it for a few weeks they will start participating
better.

A cute story: we clap and say "Yayyy" after each song. I also play the
organ for Sacrament meeting. One week we sang I Am A Child of God for
one of the songs in Sac. Mtg. After we finished one of the little
nursery boys clapped and boisteriously said Yayyyy. Of course the
mother tried to quiet him down, but I got a big smile on my face
because I knew why he was doing it. It made me feel really good.

I hope you have great success. I absolutely love, Love, LOVE going in to the nursery.

[prsd4tim2]

--- In primusic@yahoogroup s.com, Cindy wrote:

We actually had a Stake meeting and their focus was on Nursery - They had us make up pictures of animals and we sing Prophet Noah had an ark..... (instead of Old McDonald had a farm) - I have since gotten stuffed animals and puppets to do this - they LOVE it! I have also made small paper plates for If You Chance to Meet a Frown. Our nursery leaders are great - always after we sing (and it's not our kids so much yet, either) - we clap and say good job.....
Just a couple of ideas......

> Cindy in Utah

[prsd4tim2]

Thanks for this idea! We've been doing "Old MacDonald" and I thought I'd try Prophet Noah instead. I'm so glad I did! I started by showing the picture of Noah and the Ark and the kids recoginzed it right away. Then I handed out the puppets with several additional choices (no lions or tigers on the farm, but plenty on Noah's Ark!) The only glitch was having so many animals sound the same (bears, cheetahs, lions, tigers...) The kids had so much fun--this is a keeper!

~Becky

[prsd4tim2]

Also, I've found that my nursery kids favorite song is "When we're helping". We all hold hands and walk in a circle singing,
"When we're helping we're happy and we sing as we go
And we like to help mommy 'cause we all love her so"
Then when we get to the Tra-la-la-la part we all move forward to the center and meet each other and then on the second Tra-la-la-la we move back. (hope that makes sense). They absolutely LOVE it...in fact, so does the jr primary when we use it as one of our wiggle songs!

[prsd4tim2]

The children in our nursery love visual aids. (They all want to hold something.)

We always begin by singing "Here we are together in our nursery" - no visual aid with this one

Here are our visual aids - with corresonding songs:

* Book of Mormon - Book of Mormon Stories
* Star- I am like a star
* Puppet - I am a child of God
* Sun - Jesus wants me for a sunbeam
* Face from the nursery manual- Smiles
* Savior- I´m trying to be like Jesus
* Musical instrument - Singing a song is fun to do
* Temple - I love to see the temple
* Bird - In the leafy treetops
* House - Home
* Family with popcorn bowl - Popcorn popping
* Church - When I go to church
* Mother - Happy Family
* Snowman - Once there was a snowman
* Ribbon wand - song of your choice
* Grandma- Grandma song
* Grandpa - When Grandpa comes
* No props - Head, Shoulder, Knees and toes
* No Props - Quickly I´ll obey
* No Props - the wise man and the foolish man
The songs they always ask for are: I am a Child of God, When Grandpa Comes, and the grandmother song.