Find my most current year’s CD HERE.
Every year for Christmas, our primary hands out a primary music CD as our Christmas gift. It contains all of next year’s program songs plus an extra 2 songs for each month (36 songs total – 3 songs per month).
I’ve gone through the 2016 outline and picked songs for each month that go along with that month’s theme (a majority of the extra songs are found in that month’s sharing time as suggestions). I figure a CD with only 8 songs is kind of a waste so I include a few for each month which I will eventually use as all my opening songs throughout the year.
To start, I created a document that contained all my songs. You can download my list at my Resource Library. Instructions for access to my Resource Library are at the bottom of this post.
I submitted my list to my Primary President to get everything approved. But for easy viewing, below is my song list (I chose Beautiful Savior for April, and Search, Ponder and Pray for June as my “your choice” songs).
Here’s my 2016 Primary Music CD song list:
January
1. If I Listen With My Heart 2016 outline
2. Scripture Power
3. Seek the Lord Early p. 108
February
4. I Will Follow God’s Plan p. 164
5. I Lived in Heaven p. 4
6. My Heavenly Father Loves Me p. 228
March
7. Stand for the Right p. 159
8. Follow the Prophet p. 110
9. Keep the Commandments p. 146
April
10. Beautiful Savior p. 62
11. I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus p. 78
12. Love One Another p. 136
May
13. Praise to the Man Hymn #27
14. The Priesthood is Restored p. 89
15. Book of Mormon Stories p. 118
June
16. Search, Ponder and Pray p. 109
17. Faith p. 96
18. The Holy Ghost p. 105
July
19. I Love to See the Temple p. 95
20. Families Can Be Together Forever p. 188
21. Truth from Elijah p. 90
August
22. The Lord Gave Me a Temple p. 153
23. I Feel My Savior’s Love p. 74
24. The Word of Wisdom p. 154
September
25. We’ll Bring the World His Truth p. 172
26. I Hope they Call Me on a Mission p. 169
27. I Want to Be a Missionary Now p. 168
October
28. I Pray in Faith p. 14
29. If With All Your Hearts p. 15
30. A Child’s Prayer p. 12
November
31. Reverence is Love p. 31
32. Kindness Begins with Me p. 145
33. I’ll Walk with You p. 140
December
34. He Sent His Son p. 34
35. Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus p. 36
36. The Nativity Song p. 52
Once approved, I created a playlist using iTunes with these songs. I own all the Primary Songs on CD which I’ve uploaded to iTunes. But if you don’t own the CD, you can download all the songs in the Primary Songbook HERE, Praise to the Man can be found HERE and If I Listen With My Heart can be found HERE (make sure when you download, you select “Vocals and Music”).
I bought CD-R’s and jewel cases from Amazon this year (apparently Costco no longer sells anything that has to do with a CD – dated material I suppose):
(note, these aren’t the cheapest that Amazon sells but I prefer the Sony brand compared to the no-name. For some reason, it makes for easier burning and I have less “non-usable” cd’s – just my experience!)
Then I started burning a million CD’s! Once burned, I simply took a Sharpie marker and wrote “2016 Primary Songs” on the actual CD. I did take a few random CD’s and put them in my CD player to make sure they burned correctly.
We give one CD per primary family. For our Primary it’s about 30 so I’ve burned 35 to have as a few extras to keep in the cupboard just in case we have move-ins, someone loses theirs, or sometimes a few families ask if they can have another copy, etc.
For a 2016 Primary Music CD cover, I created this…
You can get the document also at my Resource Library along with a blank one without the song list (just in case your songs are different than mine).
To use the blank one, I suggest typing up a list that looks similar to mine (the font I used it just Times New Roman), cutting it so it will fit within the blank square space and taping it on. When you make photo copies, you will never know that you literally copied and pasted.
I do like the black and white cover only because I make copies at the library and they are free. I also tell the kids they are welcome to color their CD cover to make it more personalized. The artwork I chose is from LDS.org found HERE.
Once I have my copies made, I cut around on the black lines with the exception of down the middle. I fold it there and simply slide it into the cd jewel case. The size, once cut out, measures 5 inches and 5.5 centimeters both across and down, making it a perfect square.
I then tie on Christmas ribbon and attach a treat of some sort for each child (we’ve done ring pops, tootsie roll suckers and Now & Laters – I need to find something for this year – thoughts??). A family with 4 nursery/primary kids would receive one CD tied with 4 treats. I also attach a tag (signed by our ward’s name on the bottom):
Find the document at my Resource Library. I hole punch the top corner and slide it onto the ribbon.
Here’s my finished 2016 Primary Music CD:
We’ll pass these out the Sunday before Christmas and deliver them to the kids who are not/less active.
And that’s that. Pretty simple and nothin’ fancy but if you know me, you should expect that ;).
Another option instead of doing a CD is a DVD. They would be similar to the lesson I did HERE for our 2015 Program Showcase, but using 2016 video flip charts.
Check out this quick tutorial video for accessing the Resource Library:
These printables are filed on my Resource Library page under Category Title > CD > 2016.
12 thoughts on “2016 Primary Music CD”
Thanks for creating this! I was looking for this earlier in the week. When I didn't see it, I started making my own. I'm glad I didn't get too far! One thought– on your song list, you have My Body is a Temple for the song in August. The title should be The Lord Gave Me a Temple. Thanks for sharing all your hard work!
Ack! I'm so glad you caught that!! I'll switch everything – I hate mistakes!!
~Camille
I have seen a full year schedule for 2016 primary singing time. So grateful people are so organised 🙂
https://fa2paitos.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/2016-lds-primary-singing-time-schedule/
Love this idea!! I think I might record a song or two each month that the primary sings and give that to them for their Christmas present instead. This could also make it fun for them to sing it well enough to record them. I'll have to play with that idea but I love that you do this! Thanks!
I love that you do this! I used your template last year for our kids. It is a great way for them to learn the songs for the Primary Program. Thank you so much! 🙂
this is fabulous! I hope to see one for 2017!! I can't believe how many years you've been doing it. And the monthly challenge is one of the best things I've seen. THANK YOU for sharing
Camille,
Have you (by chance) done this for this upcoming year (2017)? I just was called as the Primary Chorister and this would be a great lead-in for the upcoming year!
Hi Julie Austin!
My program is over and I just got my 2017 outline so I can get to work on it. I usually try to have it posted before Thanksgiving :).
~Camille
Camille, this is such a fun idea! I love that you include more than just the program songs. I would like to do this for our primary, but I would like to include a few songs our primary has sung that are not in the children's songbook, like Gethsemane and the Miracle. Do you have any experience with trying to get these recordings and do you know if there are any copyright issues if I am burning them and handing them out to our families?
Thanks!
Hi Anita!
I would assume with songs not in the songbook that there would have copyright issues…I rarely venture out from the songbook so I'm not sure what to tell you. I would maybe pose the question on the choristers FB group and see what others' experience has been. Sorry I'm not more help.
~Camille
I love your idea and would love to put it to use this Christmas. I clicked on the link but was unable to get the gift tags in Google Docs so that we could edit it for our ward. Could you, please, help me?
Hi Andelin,
The link worked for me, I'm sorry you are having trouble. Try copying and pasting this link here into your web browser to see if it will work:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B25xtUXUMEE-SGw0UFYwNkQxb1U/view
If it doesn't work, send me your email address via the "Contact Me" feature on the right side bar and I'll email the document to you.
The document isn't editable, however, if that is your trouble. You can just download it as is.
~Camille