Saturday, January 16, 2010

Primary Music Maestros





I've had several of you ask me how I teach the Primary Children to lead the music. I have found a really fun way that I would like to share with all of you.

1. Purchase a bag of straws. I like the ones that have the bend on the end.
2. Give each child a straw.
3. Have the children stand and place the hand that is holding the straw in front of them and the other hand behind their back.
4. Tell the children that they have now turned into Maestros. Maestros lead the music!
5. Have the children pretend to tap their straw on the pretend music stand. This is a lot more fun when they make the tapping noise. TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP...Hands up!
6. Proceed to teach them how to lead 2/2 time, 3/4 time, and 4/4 time.

For 2/2 time I instruct them to go DOWN -UP
With 3/4 time I tell the children that they are going to make the shape of a triangle. DOWN - AWAY FROM THE BODY - UP
4/4 time is the trickiest! We go DOWN - ACROSS THE TUMMY - AWAY FROM THE BODY - UP

Once the children have learned these simple motions...have them count them out with you.

1-2-3-4, etc...

To really have fun...add music and have them march at the same time.

Enjoy!!!

3 comments:

Lynn said...

Oh, thanks Jennifer, just in time for tomorrow singing time~ You are so gracious~~~
I'm doing it~
I'll let you know how we do~~~

Lynn said...

Jennifer,
I have a question about the poppers you used at New Year's. I have planned to use them this next week in primary singing time. I wanted to ask you how you had the children open them. I had two ideas but wanted to know what worked for you. One idea was to cut a slit in the middle of the toilet roll before I wrapped it up, and then have a child crack it on the edge of table or rip it in half and it should be easy to pop open. Or the simple way just to let them unwrap it. But I kinda liked the popper idea. What way did you have them opened.
Curious!

Jennifer said...

Hi Lynn...

So glad to hear you got this idea before Sunday. I used it Sunday too and we had a blast! You should have seen the little sunbeams trying to follow along. It was precious!

As for the poppers...HAVE NO FEAR!!! Once the children understood how to open them...they had no problem. I didn't put a slit in the middle, but I like that idea. The children in our ward went wild unwrapping the poppers and stuff flew out if they weren't paying attention. Either way it will be exciting, I promise!

Have a BLAST!!!
Jennifer