The 2nd hour of church has significantly changed for Sunday School, Relief Society, Elders Quorum and all youth classes. However, Primary received a minor change that you might not have noticed.
There have been BIG changes with all the auxiliary changes starting this month! Primary has basically been on this new schedule since original changes to the new 2-hour block were announced in 2019.
Primary has split the 2nd hour between singing time and class time. It has worked wonderfully and I’m excited to see the rest of the auxiliaries follow suit!
But if you look closely, Primary and singing time received a slight tweak in their schedule. I almost missed it had it not been for this article from the Church’s news article entitled What changes for Primary in the new Sunday schedule? It points out that:
The changes to the Sunday class meeting schedule, effective Sunday, Sept. 6, mean five more minutes for Primary.
And more specifically, CLASS time has gained 5 more minutes. With all the adults and youth heading to class within a 5-minute timeframe, it makes sense that the Primary children will need to do the same.
Primary Worldwide’s Instagram page shared the following schedule:
It makes more sense to divide the time this way because it gives both opening exercises/singing time and class time a full 25 minutes.
This is especially helpful if you have both a Jr. and Sr. Primary. Since each section is allotted the same amount of time, the two groups can simply switch places without one group losing time.
Before, if you needed to switch between Jr. and Sr. Primary, one group would end up with 25 minutes while the other only had 20 minutes.
Sadly, I will definitely miss those 5 extra minutes of transition time to do a little more singing! But I still suggest singing as much as possible during transition time!
Come Follow Me also introduced a new Fast-Sunday lesson to be taught each month in classes. This doesn’t effect singing time, but singing time curriculum slightly changed as well!
Coming 2027, there are 3 suggested songs to teach during singing time instead of 2. When Come Follow Me was first introduced, it contained 3 songs. Then it went down to 2 and now it’s back to 3.
I LOVE that there are 3 suggested songs! It fits my schedule SO nicely!! In fact, I’ve kept 3 suggested songs even when it dropped down to 2. Now I just don’t have to choose that 3rd song.
The changes might seem insignificant, but they can often have a big impact. I love that Church leaders are always striving to streamline the time we spend at church. And change is always part of that process.
Leave a comment with your thoughts about all the change going on!
Church music is changing too! Make sure to stay caught up with all the new music that has been published!
Singing time just got even easier! With my Singing Time To-Go, all you have to do is print! Be prepared for the entire month – every month!
Be prepared in singing time for the entire month – every month! And all you have to do is print!
Teach the beautiful gospel truths of where we lived before earth, why we are here, and where we will go after we die with these I Lived in Heaven Primary singing time ideas! Help children understand Heavenly Father’s plan and how they can one day return to live with Him again.
Try This Google Trick to improve your Google singing time searches! You’ll save time and get the best singing time search results!
Invite your Primary children to listen to When the Savior Comes Again while they color pictures inspired by the lyrics! This activity allows them to look at and think about this beautiful children’s hymn, making it a great addition to singing time.
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Singing time just got even easier! With my Singing Time To-Go, all you have to do is print! Be prepared for the entire month – every month!
Hundreds of printables organized by song title and category that coincide with my singing time lesson plan posts!
2 thoughts on “Minor Schedule Changes for Primary & Singing Time”
Camille,
I was relieved this past year that we were only asked to teach 2 songs, so I could add in seasonal songs, and songs we were asked to sing for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc. without feeling so much pressure. I know you love 3 songs, and added three songs even when we were asked to teach only 2. I want to know how you teach 3 songs with 4 weeks to teach them, and some months we don’t even get 4 weeks, with General Conference, Stake Conferences etc. Am I trying to teach the songs so they are performance ready and worrying too much about if the children know them by heart? What is your secret? I’m feeling pressure again for next year trying to figure out how I squeeze in 3 songs, and still have time to do the fun seasonal songs, and special music put out by some of the LDS song writers. Help!
Hi Christi!
Before I start into anything, just remember the songs are suggestions and you don’t have to sing everything. It’s like having to teach everything in the manual. There’s not enough time, but they give you plenty of content so you always have lots of options.
So…are you familiar with my singing time zones?
https://camillesprimaryideas.com/2012/01/staying-organized-part-3.html
At the very least, watch the video linked there!
But in a nutshell, each month I love to take 2 weeks to work on the suggested songs, 1 week for seasonal and 1 week for review. The 2 weeks that I work on the suggested songs, I choose one of the 3 to be in the program. So we’ll work on it for those 2 weeks. The other 2 songs I use as a 5-minute song, singing one each week of those 2 weeks. Where we simply “play” with the song for 5 minutes. The kids aren’t learning/memorizing it, just doing something fun with the song and we move on.
If it’s a month where we need to learn something for Mother’s/Father’s Day, Easter, etc., I swap those 5-minute songs for songs we need to learn to sing in sacrament meeting. And occasionally, I’ll even use the program song we learned in January or February as our Easter/Mother’s Day/Father’s Day song. It works great!
As for implementing the new songs, I typically only choose 1 of those every year. They are usually longer, less familiar and harder songs. So singing too many is way too overwhelming. And looking at 2027’s curriculum, I don’t know that I’ll be adding in a new big song because there are so many new songs we’re learning from the new hymnbook. But I’m still deciding.
Does that help at all?