I’m guessing a lot primaries this week will be working on preparing for singing in Sacrament Meeting on Christmas Sunday (I’m curious – is anyone holding 3-hour block meetings on Christmas Sunday and need a lesson plan for that day?).
Our primary was asked to sing Away in a Manger combined with the 2 other primaries that attend our building (we are having a joint meeting Christmas morning – should be fantastic!). So I’ve been brainstorming to come up with an activity that will keep the kids singing over and over and over again that has a low-prep Christmas-themed activity (no need to add singing time to all the crazy, right?). So I came up with:
Naught or Nice using these guys:
Any form of Santa/Elf puppet, figure, etc. will work – I just have these. I saw these homemade face puppets on FB HERE (thank you for sharing Alycia) that were DARLING and looked simple enough to re-create that would be fun for this activity:
Or if you want really low-prep, no prop is even necessary!
The activity is a spin-off of Silent Singer. A child is called out into the hallway. The primary chooses another child to be “naughty” and not sing. They are to only mouth the words but make no sound (in essence, pretending to sing). The child in the hallway is called back in and receives a prop, thus becoming Santa. They are to figure out who is being “naughty” and not singing. My little props have bells attached so I’ll just have them shake the Santa when they know who it is. But it’s not essential.
When the naughty child is found, repeat with new children. If you have big primaries, choose 2 or more kids to be Santa and 2 or more kids to be “naughty.” I’ll tell the kids that only good singers will get to go out in the hall to be Santa and if anyone is being “naughty” when they weren’t chosen, will not be allowed to play Santa or officially be “naughty.”
If I find that it’s backfiring with the older kids, I’ll move to Alycia’s activity with omitting words instead and the chosen child has to decide what word was not sung. Similar to my Word Nerd activity HERE.
I also printed a flip chart HERE that I’ll post on the board. I will gradually remove pages from the chalkboard as we repeatedly sing the song.
3 thoughts on “Naughty or Nice – Christmas Silent Singer Review”
Does Silent Singer work well in junior primary?
Junior Primary has been tricky for me with this game, but I say give it a go since every group is different. Maybe have 2-3 kids in the hall that can work together to find the 1 "naughty" singer.
Hi Elizabeth!
I have no idea – fingers crossed it's a good motivator for the little kids :). Maybe pose this question on FB to see if it worked for others who have already tried it.
~Camille