PIONEER CAMPFIRE SINGING

I guess I could have spent a little more time tucking in the tulle better
before I took the picture. I promise to make it look better for the kids.

I love to go  camping; albeit, in my 31 1/2 years of marriage I've evolved over the years from camping in tents and using the great outdoors as my lavatory (way before there were campsites with restrooms) to a comfy, cozy 5th wheel with indoor plumbing and a king-sized bed I grew accustom to from home living. I figured I did my time all those many rough camping years, I finally should be able to enjoy a little less roughing it now.

One thing I do love when I'm camping that no trailer can replace is sitting around a campfire with my family singing songs. So hey, why not bring a campfire to Primary? I did this once before a while back and the kids loved it. It was something different and interesting to do and it is a wonderful way to sing all those pioneer songs. Singing just sounds so much better around a campfire, don't you think? And what could make it even better I ask? How about a guitar?!?! I discovered a few months back that my pianist dabbles a little with the guitar. Now how cool will that be singing pioneer songs around a campfire to the musical strums of a guitar? Campfire singing can't get better than that.

HOW TO MAKE THE CAMPFIRE

Making a campfire is pretty easy to put together and cheap since you probably have most of this stuff around and outside your home. This is how I make mine. Put the campfire together in the order I've listed the items below.

• A large piece of cardboard to build the campfire on. This is optional, but it does make it easier to build the campfire ahead of time on it and then all you have to do is drag it out to the middle of the floor when it is Singing Time; otherwise, it would take too much time to build it right when it is time to sing.
• A piece of brown fabric to place over the cardboard to help give more of a dirt feel. My heavy duty cardboard is white, so if your board is brown, that can look like dirt on its own just fine.
• Rocks (they grow in my yard): enough to make a small, loose enclosure for a campfire. Don't want to haul more rocks than you have to.
• Christmas twinkle lights. I have a set that has about 7 different twinkling options on it. I like the wave and the sequence options for the most authentic campfire flicker.
• About 1 1/2 yards of red tulle and 1 yard orange tulle. If you just want to use one color, red of course is the way to go. Tulle is pretty cheap at about $1.50 per yard—even less if you have a 40% or 50% coupon.
• Circle the red tulle along the inside of the circle of rocks with an opening in the center and the cut edges of the fabric up. Tuck a little under the edges of the rocks so it doesn't fluff out so much over the rocks, like in my picture above.
• Place the orange tulle in the center of the red tulle with the cut edges of the fabric up.
• A few small logs: I use the dried limbs we cut from our apple trees. BTW, dried wood from fruit trees I've discovered doesn't smoke as much in campfires—just a helpful camping tip. It is probably the harder wood.
• Pull up the cut edges of the tulle and arrange through the logs to help make it look like some flames. It is hard to see the "flames" in the picture above.
• Extension cord for the lights—make sure it is long enough to reach the plug from where your campfire is.
• A ox 5-gallon bucket to haul it all in or some other container.
• And there you go. Just drag your fire out and plug it in when it's singing time.

As I mentioned in the Wagon Wheel Spinner Post, I'm going to do double duty and bring my spinner also for a way to pick the songs. I'll also share some little fun facts about pioneers. See the key sheet from the Wagon Wheel Spinner for the Fun Facts. So yeah, combining two BIG different things together, I think I will need my handcart to help me haul all this stuff to Primary. I think this will be the most stuff and the heaviest I will have hauled in for singing time. I'm sure my husband's eyes are rolling to the back of his head at the thought of this. I'm sure I'll have to massage his poor aching muscles afterwards. 

Of course, with the campfire you have to sing at least one song with the lights out. The kids will surely be disappointed if you don't. So, make sure you bring in some extra light if your primary room gets pitch black like mine does without any windows because the twinkle lights probably won't give off enough of a glow for the room. Don't want to frighten those young'uns. I will bring a battery powered lantern and a handheld tripod flashlight that I can stand up on the piano for the pianist to use.

And don't forget to wear your pioneer apron and hat!  I get too hot with the hat on, so I just let it hang down my back. An apron is rather easy to make. Here are some Pioneer Trek patterns for a bonnet and apron if you are interested in making them sometime.

Pioneer Apron Pattern

Pioneer Bonnet Pattern

WAGON WHEEL SPINNER

I know many of you probably have your Sunday planned, but if you are still looking for something to do, here is a fairly easy pioneer singing time to do or save for next time. (Sorry, another busy week with so many family get-togethers on top of the extra work load at work—a great employee from my department was rushed to the hospital for brain surgery for a brain tumor, so I didn't get the chance to post all I wanted to this week.) I still have other visuals for more pioneer songs to post...sometime.


Anyway, if you are really ambitious, you can make a wooden wheel spinner that I just posted about here to use with the wagon wheel or if you only have a little time to prepare, you could just draw and use the poster wagon wheel or...you say you have no time at all? Well then, just print and cut the pictures in the file and post on the board or let the children pick from a container.


I did this last year, but with the very busy week I've had, I'm pulling it out this year again, but with a few changes. I'm also going to combine it with the 
Campfire Singing I did another time.  I'll try and post the campfire singing next. I've seen many variations of wagon wheel singing over the years that others have shared. The two main sites I've gleaned from are here and here. This is my compilation of those great ideas along with some changes here-and-there.


HOW TO MAKE THE WAGON WHEEL

• On a poster board, find the center by drawing a light line down the center from top to bottom and and another line from side to side. Then draw 2 more lines in the center between the 2 lines you previously drew to give you 8 pie shapes.
• Make a handmade compass of string tied with a pencil on both ends (the length of the string between both pencils should be just slightly less than half of the smallest width of your poster). Place one pencil on your center mark and pulling the other pencil with the string taut, draw a circle around the poster.
• Untie one of the pencils and then retie it back on about 1 1/2" shorter and redraw another circle for the inside of the wagon wheel rim.
• For the axel circles, just use a small bowl, a glass or some other circular objects to help draw them or reduce the string length on your hand made compass to make the circles. I think I just eyeballed the inside of the axle circle. The axel is about 3 3/4" and the inside circle is about 5/8" in from the outer circle.
• The spokes are about 1" wide. I just drew a line 1/2" on either side of each of the pie shaped lines then erased the middle line.
• I colored mine in with chalk since I like how I can fill it in fairly quickly and blend it. I also like how I can erase any boo-boos if I happen to go over the lines. You can use crayons or markers or whatever takes you to your happy place when you color. If you use chalk, make sure you spray it with a FixIt spray to set the chalk so it won't rub off after you do the next step with the Sharpie pen.
• With a brown Sharpie pen, outline your wagon wheel and draw in some squiggly lines for the wood grain.
• Mounting the wagon wheel to the spinner (optional):

• See the 2nd paragraph under the "OH NO!" in the previous post on making the spinner for the placement of the hook side of the Velcro. 
• Cut four square pieces of the loop side of Velcro. Leaving the protective liner on the adhesive side of the Velcro loop pieces, connect the loop side to their counter hook parts on the spinner placing one at the top, one at the bottom and one on each side of the spinner.
• Remove the protective liner from only one of the Velcro loop squares and carefully place your wagon wheel poster centered on the spinner and press to adhere the Velcro to the wagon wheel poster lining up the spokes with the nails. Repeat removing one of the protective adhesive liners at a time. This will help to only have to fix one section if you place your poster crooked instead of all four pieces of Velcro. 
• Print, cut and laminate the pioneer pictures from the file below. There are 10 pictures but only 8 spots on the wheel which is usually enough to fill the time. The extra pics are just some added options to pick from or if you need a couple of more songs to sing. There are also two versions of a campfire. I couldn't decide at the time I made this which one I liked best so I kept both since I had an empty space to fill anyway. Pick the one you like.
• Place a square piece of Velcro hook side to the center between each spoke on the wheel poster.
• Place a square piece of Velcro loop side to the backside of each of the pioneer pictures.
• Place the pioneer pictures on the wagon wheel spinner and you are ready to go.

HOW TO PLAY

• Select 8 pioneer pictures and mount on the wheel.
• Have the child spin the wagon wheel (or pick a picture if you are not using a spinner) and whatever it lands on or is picked, remove the picture, share the Fun Fact and sing the song according to the picture. 
• Whenever a child spins the wheel and it lands on a blank space where a picture has been removed, let another child take a turn to see if they can spin and land on a picture. This allows for more spins on the wheel. If time is short and it lands on a blank, just do the next closest picture.
• I've attached a key sheet file. The first half is an example key sheet of what I plan on doing and the second half is a blank version to add your songs you would like to do. There are the 10 options to choose from on the key sheet but you will only need to select 8, because like I said, you'll probably be lucky if you even get all 8 on the wheel done in your 20 minute time especially if you end up singing some of them twice like I tend to do on newer ones or the more unfamiliar ones that they may stumble—mumble through the first time singing it.

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF OTHER IDEAS IF YOU DON'T USE THE SPINNER

• Have the pictures placed around the room for the children to select from.
• Use objects like toys and stuffed animals to represent the items and place in a box or basket for the children to select from.

Pioneer Wagon Wheel Ways to Sing Pics-Nalani

Pioneer Wagon Wheel Ways to Sing Key Sheet-Nalani

THE OXCART

Here comes the oxcart,
oh, how slooooooow!

When I first heard this song, I thought what a slow and boring song, but after listening and singing to it a few times and being a little silly as I did, I realized that if you go with the flow of the sloooooooooow—ness of the song and sing it like an ox would, it is rather fun. The kids love to sing this ever so slooooooooowly while singing in a deep voice.

I also like to use a fluted tone block  and fluted rhythm sticks. You tap them on the first beat than slide the stick along the flutes on the second beat and keep repeating that rhythm throughout the song. I have a few children help out playing the instruments. These instruments help to give it a little wooden, creaky feel. If you don't have these rhythm instruments, maybe you could find something fluted around the house or make some sand blocks that can be clapped together then rubbed together on the beat (2 wooden blocks with sandpaper on one side of each block) or just clap a couple of blocks together or maybe you have an old hinge that creaks that you can use, of course, minus the door. ;-)

Another way to sing this song is to first explain that pioneers usually teamed up a couple of oxen together to pull a wagon. They used what is called a yoke to keep the oxen together. Have the children pair up for an oxen team and standing side-by-side to each other, link one of their arms over each other's shoulder to make a "yoke". Have them sway side-to-side to the music as they sing the song. Of course, sing it slowly and in your deep voice for the full effect.


And to top it off, this song is easy to learn to boot.

The Oxcart—Nalani

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

THE HANDCART SONG

PIONEER DAY

is coming up.

Guess it's time to start posting

some of the Pioneer song visuals.

The Handcart Song

is an easy one to do with actions.

Here are the actions I've come up with.

• When pioneers moved to the West: With thumb extended, pivot the arm back and forth as if you were thumbing for a ride. If possible, make sure your thumb is pointing to the west.
• With courage strong they met the test: Flex your arm muscles.
• They pushed their handcarts all day long: With hands in a fist, make a pushing and pulling motion with both hands in front of you.
• And as they pushed they sang this song: ASL for sing. With one hand positioned like you are holding a book in front of you, lead with the other hand back and forth in front of you.
• For some must push and some must pull: With both hands in front of you, make a pushing motion on "push" and a pulling motion on "pull".
• As we go marching up the hill: March in place.
• So merrily on our way we go: With both pointer fingers, point to a big smile on your face while you nod your head side-to-side to the beat.
• Until we reach the Valley-O: With both arms above your head, make a big "V" on "valley" (and besides, it's shaped like a valley) and then an "O", obviously on "O".

The Handcart Song—Nalani