I thought I’d focus my Staying Organized series on how I organize a monthly routine. Someone asked this question so I thought I’d share what I like to do.
Obviously I use the 3 suggested songs for the month as my guide (more details on that HERE) but I feel there is more to singing time than just drilling to death 8 or so program songs. The poor kids get bored (okay, okay, and me too!).
I like to be able to incorporate songs around the holidays, seasons, and other events. So my primary kids may not know EVERY word to EVERY verse in EVERY song in the program, but I’m okay with that. As long as we have fun, learn the gospel, and feel the spirit through music I’m completely happy.
I’ve mentioned HERE in part 1 of my SINGING TIME ORGANIZATIONAL SERIES that I like to look at my schedule one month at a time. Every month I try to follow this flexible plan or routine when deciding on each weekly singing time activity:
- Two weeks a month are focused on learning that month’s program song
- Those same two weeks I also do a 5-minute song for the other 2 program songs we are NOT learning for the program. More details HERE.
- One week a month is centered around a holiday, season or event that occurs that month (I won’t touch the program song that week at all!)
- One week a month (typically the last week) I review of all the songs we’ve learned that year for the program with a review game
- If there is a 5th week, I usually take this week to catch up (due to Stake Conference, General Conference, Christmas, etc.) or we do another review activity similar to the 4th week. I just try to plan accordingly.
Here’s an example of implementing my monthly routine in January:
Week 1: I taught Here we are Together to introduce all the new kids/teachers in Primary
Week 2: Preview the songs for the year (because we don’t have any songs to review yet!). See how I do that with my sing along videos HERE.
Week 3: Teach January’s suggested song along with a 5-minute song
Week 4: Teach January’s suggested song along with a 5-minute song
And February’s:
Week 1: Teach February’s suggested song along with a 5-minute song
Week 2: Do a singing time around Valentine’s Day holiday
Week 3: Teach February’s suggested song along with a 5-minute song
Week 4: Review January and February’s song with a review activity. I have a big list of activities HERE.
And so on, through the whole year. This gives us room to learn songs for Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The real fun comes when the program is over though and we sing mostly seasonal and holiday things for a few months!!
This set up has worked great for me. We learn the program songs but also get to sing a lot of other songs in the songbook as well. Come program time, there are usually a few songs that we still need words for or maybe we didn’t get to all the verses but I’m okay with that. I mean, come on, even the Tabernacle choir gets to use their music when they perform – why can’t the Primary?
If you need help scheduling your month, I suggest checking out my Singing Time To-Go membership! Find more details HERE.
These posts are part of my Singing Time Organization Series. You can find all my posts in this series HERE.
6 thoughts on “SINGING TIME ORGANIZATION SERIES Part 3 – A Monthly Routine”
So, do you have a plan for teaching CTR? I'm doing it on Sunday for a stake thing and then for our ward on weeks 4 & 5 (I'm going to have a baby after church on week 5 and take February off. 🙂 think he'll cooperate?) Anyway, I'd love to hear your ideas…
Melissa, I just posted a rough idea of what I may do. I hope it helps!! Good luck, especially with your new baby!!
I am a brand new chorister for my ward. This is week 2 for me. I love your site you have so many cute ideas. I noticed that you have mentioned a Yahoo Group a couple of times. Could you share the link with me?
Thank YOU so much for all your great advice and help!!
On the weeks where you teach or work on the suggested song/program song, do you take the whole singing time to work on it? I know you have a short transition time right at the beginning, but is the rest of the time devoted to working on that song?
Hi Anna,
In short, yes. It’s usually all I have time for. If I happen to have extra time, we’ll do more wiggle songs or sing a few of the songs we’ve learned from previous months. You’ve probably read this post here, but it goes into a little more detail:
http://camillesprimaryideas.com/2011/12/staying-organized-part-1.html
Let me know if you have more questions.
~Camille