I recently picked up a copy of the 2014 Outline for Sharing Time, Families are Forever! I found it at the Distribution Center here in Salt Lake City.
Now that our program is over (PHEW!) I can start to focus on next year! It looks like another great outline. If you don’t have your copy yet, there are a few options:
- Ask your Primary Presidency if they have received their copies from the Bishopric (or ask the Bishopric directly!)
- Head to your local Distribution Center (if available)
- Download it online HERE.
I’ve been thumbing through it to get my 2014 CD song list ready to go. I just need to get it all approved (mostly just the 2 songs I picked for May and June) from my presidency before I go ahead and get CD’s all burned (our primary hands out CD’s as a Christmas present from the Primary each year – I’ll have more to come on this soon!). If you want to see my subject-to-change song list, you can check it out HERE. I picked Keep the Commandments p. 146 for May’s song choice and Family History-I am Doing It p. 94 for June’s song choice.
When we sing in Sacrament Meeting for Easter, I think we’ll perform March’s program song, I Stand all Amazed as it’s totally appropriate. For Mother’s Day I think we’ll sing April’s song The Family is of God, as it fits well too. I’m all about killing two birds with one stone!! And come program time, the congregation will never remember that we sang two songs earlier in the year ;).
As I’ve been looking through the 2014 Sharing Time Outline, there are some great tips and teaching advice:
- Page 1 has a “Singing Time” section which gives simple instruction on how singing time should run, how much time you get, etc.
- Page 7 has a little sidebar about Games: “Appropriate games in Primary help preserve a reverent atmosphere. Games give variety to lessons and allow children to interact with each other. They also reinforce the gospel principle being taught in a fun way.” I appreciated this little tidbit as I like to do a few games for singing time ;).
- Page 8 has a tip that was appropriate for this year’s theme being “Families Are Forever” and the touchy topic it can be: “As you teach about families, be sensitive to the family situations of the children in your Primary. Encourage all the children to live worthily and prepare so they can have eternal families of their own someday.”
- Page 13 mentions songs: “When singing a new song with the children, sing one phrase to the children and have them echo it back. Repeat with each phrase.”
- Page 15 talks about music: “Include Primary songs in your teaching. This will help the children remember what they’ve been taught. ‘We are able to feel and learn very quickly through music…some spiritual things that we would otherwise learn very slowly.’ (Boyd K. Packer, in TNGC, 46)” Isn’t this the entire reason we have singing time in Primary? Love it!
- Page 26 – 17 is a goldmine for us primary music leaders and I don’t recall there being this much detail in past outlines! These pages contain simple ways to teach EACH of the monthly program songs (with the exception of the “your choice” songs, for obvious reasons). I’ll definitely be referencing this section each month as I plan my singing time lessons.
Anyway, there you have it, a brief outline of 2014’s Sharing Time Outline. If you haven’t looked through it yet, you should!
2 thoughts on “2014 Outline “Families Are Forever””
I just wanted to thank you for posting a quick and easy way to skim the outline. I have just been called to primary chorister for the first time and though I'm used to leading, teaching the words with pictures and not sheet music is a big change. I really appreciate your experience and advice.
I love the reminder about games. Towards the end of last year I was assessing my own singing times, and I realized we needed more reverent games. Reverent AND fun! There are a lot of cute ideas out there that get the kids' attention, but they can make it hard to reinforce gospel principles.