Singing Time should be just that --- a time for SINGING. I always feel bad when I visit a Primary Singing Time and watch the Song Leader spend most of the time fiddling with ineffective ways to choose helpers. Last week I visited a Primary in a small ward where there were only 10-12 kids in each of the sessions. Surely she could provide something for each of those children to help her do without wasting time pulling names out of the hat of mostly kids who were absent. The children barely got to sing one verse of a song three times, and two other review songs just one time each. Out of the 20 minutes allotted, that meant THE CHILDREN SANG FOR LESS THAN 5 MINUTES TOTAL!!!!
This particular Leader had some interesting activities for the kids to do such as "Find the Action Word" in the verse of the song, then think of an action they could do as they sang that line. However, that business was very time consuming. It was also a wasted activity because these older kids could read well enough to follow the words on the chalkboard. Besides, it seemed clear to me that they knew that verse already and were bored.
In this particular group were nine boys and one girl. The boys basically dared her to get them to sing, which wasn't very successful. This was unfortunate because there were a couple of boys who I could tell really loved to sing and had good voices. I have the feeling that if they had BEEN ALLOWED TO SING MORE, they would have done just that, and set the example for the rest of the boys to join them.
Being an effective Song Leader means to USE TIME WISELY. If each song or verse takes less than 60 seconds to sing through, then surely there is enough time to sing several songs through several times in 20 minutes. The trick is to plan activities and transitions that take less time so that there can be more singing. It can be done, and I promise that the children will be more engaged as you move the activities along!
One thing that I always found effective is to do a "walk and talk." As one child was doing his "helper" activity, I would have the children sing that phrase with me or echo it, mostly without piano accompaniment. That could get a lot of learning done quickly. Then we would string phrases together with the accompaniment. The goal is to get to the MAGIC 7 MARK. Children need to sing and experience learning the words and phrases 7 times each week for maximum learning. Gotta work EFFECTIVELY!!!!!
This particular Leader had some interesting activities for the kids to do such as "Find the Action Word" in the verse of the song, then think of an action they could do as they sang that line. However, that business was very time consuming. It was also a wasted activity because these older kids could read well enough to follow the words on the chalkboard. Besides, it seemed clear to me that they knew that verse already and were bored.
In this particular group were nine boys and one girl. The boys basically dared her to get them to sing, which wasn't very successful. This was unfortunate because there were a couple of boys who I could tell really loved to sing and had good voices. I have the feeling that if they had BEEN ALLOWED TO SING MORE, they would have done just that, and set the example for the rest of the boys to join them.
Being an effective Song Leader means to USE TIME WISELY. If each song or verse takes less than 60 seconds to sing through, then surely there is enough time to sing several songs through several times in 20 minutes. The trick is to plan activities and transitions that take less time so that there can be more singing. It can be done, and I promise that the children will be more engaged as you move the activities along!
One thing that I always found effective is to do a "walk and talk." As one child was doing his "helper" activity, I would have the children sing that phrase with me or echo it, mostly without piano accompaniment. That could get a lot of learning done quickly. Then we would string phrases together with the accompaniment. The goal is to get to the MAGIC 7 MARK. Children need to sing and experience learning the words and phrases 7 times each week for maximum learning. Gotta work EFFECTIVELY!!!!!
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