OH, WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE SUMMERTIME?

Three of my most wonderful grandchildren

Oh, what do YOU do in the summertime,
when all the world is green? 

Well . . . not as much as I would like to.

But I did have a fun weekend with my grandkids!

We had a Nana and grand daddy sleepover with our grandkids this weekend. Can I just say that grandchildren are the BIG REWARD

after surviving raising your own kids.

{{{{{GIGGLE}}}}}} 

SHHHHHHH! Don't let my kids know I said that.

Now with it being well into summertime,

you need to pull this song out for Primary if you already haven't.
It's a good ol' classic. 

"Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?"

is a song that

<<<<<SCREAMS>>>>>

out for using props to help teach it and of course, let the children follow along doing the obvious actions. Here are my grandkids being great sports hamming it up with my spur of the moment idea for them to help me out with demonstrating the song
with the props I use. . . .just before we did some slip 'n sliding.

OH, WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE SUMMERTIME

ACTION: "What?" 

WHEN ALL THE WORLD IS GREEN

ACTION: Make a world

DO YOU FISH IN A STREAM?
PROPS: Little hat and fishing pole
ACTION: Pretend to cast a fishing pole and reel a fish in

OR LAZILY DREAM ON THE BANKS AS THE CLOUDS GO BY?
PROPS: Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, cloud
ACTION: With fingers interlocked together, place them behind your head
like you are laying back and sway head side-to-side while looking up at the "clouds"

IS THAT WHAT YOU DO?

ACTION: Point to others

SO DO I!

ACTION: Point to self

DO YOU SWIM IN A POOL, TO KEEP YOURSELF COOL
PROPS:Swim arm bands and/or towel
ACTION: Make swimming actions with arms

OR SWING IN A TREE UP HIGH?
PROPS: With a marker, draw a tree shape on green poster board or
4 pieces of green card stock that have been taped together.
Cut the tree shape out along with a hole in the center for the face.
Laminate for durability if you want.
ACTION: Swing hips and arms side-to-side

DO YOU MARCH IN PARADES
PROPS: Flag and or parade type hat
Could make a paper hat—here is a link on how to make one
ACTION: March

OR DRINK LEMONADES
PROPS: Drink cup with straw. Could add some plastic or real lemons in the cup.
(In Primary the child would be standing up holding the cup)
ACTION: Pretend to drink lemonade.

OR COUNT ALL THE STARS IN THE SKY?
PROPS: A fun foam visor with fun foam stars cut out and glued to it
and/or could make a wand with a star on it to count with (make it
from a dowel, a star cut out of thick paper or card board and glitter—
or you could probably pick a star wand up from the $ store or if you have
a little princess in the house, I'm sure you have one floating around.)
ACTION: Pretend to count the stars in the sky

Close up of the cloud.
Cut a cloud shape out of card stock, poster board or cardboard.
Glue cotton balls or batting all over the front and back of it.
Punch a hole in the top of the cloud and tie a string to it.
Tie the other end of the string to a dowel.

 Hope you are having a great summer!!!!!

 

PIONEER CHILDREN SANG AS THEY WALKED

Here is a flip chart for

"pioneer children sang as they walked"

If you prefer to post the flip chart on the board, you could cut the feet out so you can make the feet "walk" to the next page whenever the "walked and walked" parts come up spreading the flip chart and feet out in a flowing zig-zagging pattern on the board as if it is a trail to follow as you sing. Depending on the size of your board, you may not be able to spread the feet too far apart. I've included a set of feet that go in the opposite direction if you decide to post the song on the board. Hope that all makes sense.
There are also some blank feet in case you want to use those for something like putting them around the room for the children to walk on. If you are strictly going to use the feet as is in a flip chart, there is a half page at the end for the last "and walked". You cut that page in half and tape it to the end of the set of four feet, so when you flip the page to the last page, the half sheet will flip down at the bottom of the page and you'll have all five of your "walked" footsteps.


MUSICAL WALKING GAME
As the children are learning the song, you could do a musical chairs type thing.

• Write one number on each piece of paper starting with number 1 up to number 6. Repeat numbering 1-6 on your papers until you have a piece of paper for each child in your primary. 
• Randomly place the papers around the room in a circle. It doesn't matter if the same numbers are sometimes next to each other. 
• Have the children walk around the circle as they sing the song. For SR you can have them only walk on the words "walked". JR will have a more difficult time with this since it can be a little much for them to concentrate on when to walk and stop, walk and stop, walk and stop.
• When the song is finished, they should be standing on a number.
• Roll a big die or have the numbers 1-6 on pieces of paper in a container to draw from. Roll or pick a couple of numbers. The children standing on those numbers get to sit down in the middle of the circle if you have moved your chairs out of the way, which I sometimes do for Pioneer singing time, or they can sit back in their chairs.
• Instead of numbers, you could draw simple shapes on the pieces of papers like squares, circles, crescents, triangles, Xs, half circles, etc. so it is easier for the really young kids that can't read numbers yet. Of course, you won't probably have a die with those shapes, so you will need to do the drawing from a container thing.
• Repeat this as many times as you want. 
• Let a child or two that sat down on a previous turn help roll the die or draw the numbers.
• Do not play until there is only 1 child left. Stop when there are about 4-5 children left so it doesn't get into a competitive thing especially for the JRs.
• If you are just learning the song, you could stop after each phrase and do the numbers/shapes or even if you want to speed it up after singing it a few times. 

ACTIONS, PROPS AND MOVEMENT

Another activity is to have them walk in a circle around the room on the words "walked" and when they are not walking, you do the obvious actions in the song or use sign language or just have them walk in place.

This song also lends itself to props as well in teaching the song.

Here is a list of actions and props you could use. Of course, you do the walking action on the "walked" parts. The first under each phrase is the action and the second are props:

• They washed at streams: 
• wash hands
• towel/wash cloth, soap and or bucket.
• And worked:
• digging with a shovel, chopping wood or mixing something in a bowl
• small shovel, hammer, mallet or mixing bowl and spoon
• And played:
• bounce a ball, jump rope or patty cakes
• ball, bag of marbles or jump rope
• Sundays they camped:
• make a tent shape with your arms and hands above your head
• a little lantern/flashlight, small blanket or some other small camping equipment
• And read:
• make a book with your hands together and palms open
• book
• And prayed:
• fold your arms or clasp hands together in a praying fashion
• a picture of a child praying

CHAIR HOPPING GAME

This song is also great to do Chair Hopping with since there is the word "walked" in it several times. This is more for SR, but I have used it for JR. You may not get as much singing out of JR though. Again, it may be too much concentration for them to sing and chair hop, but it is still fun to do it at least once with the JRs unless most of them are really young. 

In case you don't know what Chair Hopping is, the children must move over one chair each time the special word is sung. In this instance, the special word would be "walked". You need to make sure everyone knows in what direction they need to go. Starting in the back and moving forward, the back row moves to the right, the next row moves to the left, the next row moves to the right and so forth. The person at the end of each row will move to the row in front and the person at the end of the first row moves to the back row. Basically, they are zig-zagging in the chairs. If you have an aisle down the middle, you can either bring the chairs together to get rid of the aisle (that could be time consuming to do) or they just need to make sure they know to move to the chairs across the aisle.

Another variation of Chair Hopping is to have enough empty chairs to one side for how many times they will need to move over for each phrase. For example, in this song "walked" at the end is sung 5 times, so make sure there are at least 5 empty chairs at the end of each row on the same side. When the first phrase is sung, they will move over 4 chairs to the left. On the next phrase, they will move back over to the right 4 times and on the last phrase they will move over 5 chairs to the left. This version may be easier to do if you only have a couple of long rows or for JR.

Hope this gives you some fun ideas to use with this song.

Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked

MY MOTHER DEAR: PROPS (OBJECTS)

Flip charts and posters are great ways to visually teach a song; but it's not the only way. Props are another great way to visual portray a song and its message. Select an item(s) that best portrays a word or phrase for each part of the song. Sing the song to the children giving them discovery questions to listen to for the answers as you sing. Then as the children answer after you have sung, have them come up and hold the props as you work on each section at a time.

Simple and Easy!

Here are the 4 simple items I use for the song.

Here is how I have used props teaching"My Mother Dear".


PROPS

• Sun: The child raises the sun up.
• Flower Spinner: Something I picked up at the $ store once—the child spins the flower—or use a bouquet of flowers or even cut some from your garden now that spring is here.
• Stuffed Bluebird: My bird is a pull toy that the child pulls the bird down while holding the ring and the bird flutters back up to the ring. For a stuffed bird, have the child make the bird "fly" of course, I don't mean "fly" by throwing it. You always have to be on your toes with how you give instructions. Those kiddos know just how to twist those words into something silly. 
• Picture of a mother: The child holds the picture with one hand and with the other hand, does kind of a "Vanna" thing or the child could draw an imaginary heart around the picture with his or her finger. (Just a side note, that is a picture of My Lovely Mother Dear  whom I wished could have been here on earth to have seen and known her grandchildren. I missed having her here when I became a mother. I  love you mom!)

DISCOVERY QUESTIONS YOU COULD ASK

• Listen to find out who this song is about? [My mother]
• Have the child that answered correctly come up and hold the picture.
• I'm going to sing about THREE springtime things that help to remind us about our mothers. Listen to find out what they are. [Sunshine, Flowers, Birds]
• Have the children that answered correctly come up to hold the props in no particular order.
• Oh, do we have these in the right order? Let's find out. Listen again as I sing. [Receive the answers and have the children move into the correct order.]
• The children should be ready to begin singing the first phrase with you.
• As you sing through each phrase you could ask more discovery questions and then have the answering child come up and take a turn at holding and using the prop.
• You could also have the children sing the first half of each phrase with you and you sing the second half by yourself so they can listen for the answers and then everyone sings the final phrase together.
• Here are some other questions you could ask for each of the phrases:
• How is our mother like sunshine in the morning? [She awakens day from night]
• The song describes our mothers like flowers in the springtime. Why are they like flowers in the springtime? [Because they are colorful and bright]
• Bluebirds sing happy songs. How are our mothers like the happy songs of bluebirds? [Because mothers also fill the air with cheer]

I'm sure you can find all sorts of objects around the house for all sorts of songs and activities. I certainly was able to and I've SQUIRRELED them away in a storage tub to pull from for all sorts of activities and songs. Someday maybe I'll show you my little, hidden stash! 


P.S. I'm trying to upload the completed flip chart of "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" on Scribd, but the file is pretty large and is having a difficult time uploading. Maybe I'll have to split it into verses.  Just keep checking "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" post for the updated link to the complete flip chart.