Friend October 2021 “For Little Friends” Sam is making a necklace for his mom. Can you figure out the pattern? Which color should the next bead be?
Friend May 2020 “Mother’s Day Card” Make a pop up umbrella card.
Friend May 2019 “Funstuff: Mother’s Day Wreath” Write things you love about your mom on paper hearts, and then follow the directions and make a wreath with the hearts.
Mother, Tell Me the Story – pg. 204
Singing in sacrament meeting for Mother’s Day we put two songs together. We sang the first part of “Mother I Love You“, and then we sang “Mother Tell Me the Story”. At the end of that we sang the last part of “Mother I Love You” (Mother I love you, I love you, I do). I had the women teachers and primary leaders sing the mother’s part in the song, and I asked a violinist to play their part as they sang. We also did the combination of the mother’s and the children’s parts. It was beautiful.
Teaching the Song:
I used a visual aid idea that I saw several places on the Internet – I made the song into a story book. The children sang the song a couple of times as I showed them each page, then we started our memorizing activity. I had put the words on the pages with double-sided removable tape so I could remove them. I put black ribbons as bookmarks in-between each page. I had a child come up and choose a bookmark from the closed book. We opened the book to that page and I took the words off that page. They sang the song again. We did this until they had the song memorized.
Assembly:
I used four half sheets of poster board folded in half to make the book. After attaching the printed words and pictures, I laid the pages flat and poked two holes through the middle of all the pages, one towards the top of the pages and one towards the bottom. I put a shoe lace through the holes and tied the pages together. I taped the ends of the six black bookmark ribbons to the last page (which was blank) and then draped each ribbon bookmark in-between a page.
I gave copies of the song to the teachers after the children learned their part, and then we practiced everybody’s parts together. I let the teachers take the words home to memorize them.
Note: The pictures are from Microsoft Word Clipart and the Friend Magazine.
Note: I used this idea for Mother’s Day but it could be used with spring, summer, or fall flowers for reviewing songs.
Tell the children they are going to review the songs they will be singing in Sacrament Meeting for Mother’s Day. Show them the flowers and tell them you brought flowers as a visual aid because mothers love getting flowers on Mother’s Day. Point out that the flowers are very pretty, but they aren’t blooming yet or as pretty as they could be. They are like the Mother’s Day songs, they are beautiful but still need a little work. Explain that the flowers will take notice and “bloom” when the children sing their songs with amazing projection, presentation, and word recall.
Preparation
Presentation
Pull down on a string and the baggie will be pulled off a flower and the flower will “bloom”. Show the children the top of the flowers when pulling the string. (The above pictures don’t do the effect justice. It is really fun and amazing when the flowers “bloom”.)
Note: The above flowers came in a bunch for a dollar at Dollar Tree, but I think it would be more fun if all the flowers were different. The children would look forward to seeing what each one looks like when they open.
Mother I Love You – Pg 207
Preparation
Presentation
Introduce the song words to the children as you put each song page on the board. Have the children sing the song. (You may want to sing only a couple of pages at a time with junior primary, and then put it all together.)
Point out and show the heart clothes pins to the children. Assign one of the clothes pin colors to each side of the room. Explain that the children will only sing the lines that their color of clothes pin is pointing to. Have them sing the song. Afterwards have two children go to the board and mix up the clothes pins. They can put either color on any line. Some pages may have two of the same color. Have the children sing the song again, only singing the lines that their color is pointing to.
Have two more children mix up the clothes pins again. After they are done, cover up some of the words using the cardstock strips and double-sided tape. Have them sing the song again and see if they can remember the lines that are covered up. Continue in this manner, mixing up the heart clothes pins and covering up words, until all the words are covered up. This may be a review for senior primary so more words may need to be covered up at a time.
Another idea would be to change who sings what by assigning the colors to certain groups such as boys and girls, specific classes, blue eyed children and brown eyed children, etc.
Note: The song pages are a combination of a couple of flipcharts from Sugardoodle. Thank you to those ladies for the help.
Teach Me to Walk in the Light (3rd verse)
Mother’s Day
Last year I used the last verse of “Teach Me to Walk in the Light” and the song “Teacher/Mother Do You Love Me” for the Mother’s Day Primary songs in sacrament meeting. I exchanged the word “guidance“ for the word “mothers” in this verse to help it go with the Mother’s Day theme.
Preparation
Presentation
Explain that the verse starts out like a prayer.
Point out that we use the same type of prayer language in this verse as we do in our prayers. Ask if anyone can identify the special word we used to address Heavenly Father. (Thee)
In the song “Mother Do You Love Me” it talks about our Savior’s love lighting the path home. The Savior shows us the way back to our Heavenly Father. In “Teach Me to Walk in the Light” we end with saying “gladly, gladly we’ll walk in the light”. Which means we will gladly do the things Jesus has taught us to do. (Put this song page on the board.)
Have the children sing the verse. (You may wish break it down and sing a line at a time with junior Primary.)
Memorizing the Verse
To help the children remember the words, have a few volunteers act it out.
“Father in Heaven we thank thee this day” – Have a child kneel as if praying. (You may wish to put two chairs together so the child can kneel on the chairs and be seen easier.)
“For loving mothers to show us the way” – Have a mother hug her child and show the child the way by pointing to a picture of Jesus.
“Grateful we praise thee with songs of delight” – Have a child hold a hymn book with the words “songs of delight” taped to the cover.
Gladly, gladly we’ll walk in the light” – Have a child hold a flashlight or lantern and then walk in the light it casts. Explain that the light of a flashlight shows us the way to go in the dark. The words “walk in the light” means doing the things Jesus has taught because he shows us the way to our heavenly home.
Temporarily take the song pages off the board, and show the children the individual word cards. Have the children tell which acted out part each word card goes with. Review the words to each part as the word cards are placed. Have the actor hold up their word card during their part.
Put the song pages back on the board and have the children sing the verse again. Point to specific actors as the children sing their part.
Remove a song page and the child acting out that part, and sing the verse again. Continue removing pages and actors until the verse is memorized.
Teacher/Mother Do You Love Me
Mother’s Day
Last year we did two songs for the Mother’s Day sacrament meeting, and they turned out beautifully, so I thought I would share them with you. The first one we did was a modified version of “Teacher Do You Love Me”. We changed the lines to “Mother Do You Love Me”. I asked a mother and daughter to sing the main lines, and then I had the primary children join them in the chorus. I changed a few things, because I wanted the daughter to sing the questions and the mother to sing the answers each time before singing the chorus. I included a copy of how we adjusted the lines.
Preparation
Presentation
I explained to the children that the song starts out with a child asking her mother if she will love her no matter what she does. After the mother answers, we start the chorus by singing to the mothers – “I need your love, I need your light”. (Post these song pages on the board.)
The next part says that a mother’s righteous example and teachings will show her children how to be like Jesus. Jesus is who we are supposed to strive to be like. (Post the song page “to show me how to be like Jesus” on the board.)
The next line is “The Savior’s love will light the path.” (Post this song page on the board.) The Savior loves us and has shown us the way to go by his example and teachings. If we follow the Savior’s example we will be led safely back to our home with our Heavenly Father. (Post the song page “to lead me safely home” on the board.)
(Have senior Primary sing the entire chorus at this point.) (Have junior Primary go over the words again, and then have them sing half of the chorus at a time.)
I tested the children to see how well they were paying attention. I took down the visual aid pages and asked the following questions:
Have the children sing the chorus again. Go over any areas they have difficulty with, and then have them sing the chorus once more. (If needed put the song pictures on the board once again, and have the children choose two at a time to take down after each time they sing the song.)
Review
I used the small flipchart to review the song the following week. The red pages had the first half of the words to each line on them. The children had to tell me what the remaining words were to each line. I flipped the page for them to check and see if they were right.
The second song we learned was the last verse of “Teach Me to Walk in the Light”.
