2018 Primary Music CD

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 2018 outline (find my outline summary HERE) and picked songs for each month that go along with that month’s theme (usually I fill the CD with the extra songs found in the outline but I’ve been venturing out with a lot more unknown songs that still relate to that month’s theme).  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 sing in primary as all our opening songs throughout the year.

 

If you feel CD’s are a thing of the past, I’ve seen other primaries create digital playlists and email them out to families.  If you’ve done that for your primary, please feel free to share the details on how you did it!  My preference is a CD – simply because it’s a more tangible gift.  If families don’t do CD players anymore, the CD’s can always be downloaded onto the computer and put on digital music players.

 

To start, I created a document that contained all my songs that’s available to download.  I submitted it to my primary president to get everything approved.  But for easy viewing, below is my song list (I chose On a Golden Springtime for April, and Book of Mormon Stories (all the verses) for May as my “your choice” songs:

 

January

1. I Am a Child of God, p. 2

2. I Need My Heavenly Father p. 18

3. How Dear to God Are Little Children p. 180

 

February

4. My Heavenly Father Loves Me, p. 228

5. All Things Bright and Beautiful p. 231

6. I Think the World Is Glorious p. 230

 

March

7. If the Savior Stood Beside Me, Outline

8. Jesus Is Our Loving Friend p. 58

9. Jesus Loved the Little Children p. 59

 

April

10. On a Golden Springtime p. 88

11. An Angel Came to Joseph Smith p. 86

12. The Priesthood Is Restored p. 89

 

May

13. Book of Mormon Stories p. 118

14. I Want to Live the Gospel p. 148

15. I Want to Give the Lord My Tenth p. 150

 

June

16. When I am Baptized p. 103

17. I Like My Birthdays p. 104

18. Listen, Listen p. 107

 

July

19. Families Can Be Together Forever p. 188

20. Because God Loves Me p. 234

21. Home p. 192

 

August

22. A Child’s Prayer p. 12

23. If with All Your Hearts p. 15

24. Tell Me, Dear Lord p. 176

 

September

25. Go the Second Mile p. 167

26. A Happy Helper p. 197

27. I Have Two Little Hands  p. 272

 

October

28. I Will Be Valiant p. 162

29. Shine On p. 144

30. The Church of Jesus Christ p. 77

 

November

31. I’m Thankful to Be Me p. 11

32. Father, We Thank Thee for the Night p. 8

33. Thank Thee for Everything p. 10

 

December

34. Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus p. 36

35. He Died That We Might Live Again p. 65

36. When He Comes Again p. 82

 

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 and If the Savior Stood Beside Me can be found HERE (make sure when you download, you select “Vocals and Music”). **Make sure you allow plug-ins from LDS.org as a browser settings or you won’t be able to view/download the music.

 

I bought these CD-R’s and jewel cases from Amazon:

 

 

(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 “2018 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.

 

 

I also have 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, font size 8), trimming your list 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 can make free copies at the library.  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, etc.). A family with 4 nursery/primary aged kids would receive one CD tied with 4 treats.  I also attach a tag (signed by our ward’s primary name in the space provided).  These are also available for you to download (this year I simply altered a free online gift tag I found HERE).  I hole punch the top and slide it onto a ribbon.

 

Find my previous years of finished products all HERE.  Our primary president offered to package them so I don’t have photos of the finished product this year.

 

We’ll pass these out the Sunday before Christmas Eve (since we won’t have primary on Christmas Eve) 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 2017 Program Showcase, but using 2018 video flip charts.  I’ll have those video flip charts ready in January – I’m hoping some helpful choristers out there help me out with those like they have done in the past!!