Our Primary’s Sacrament Meeting program was on Sunday, and the kids did so well! For my non-LDS friends, every year the children at church do a presentation during the general church services, which includes several songs and speaking parts. It’s about an hour long. This is my fourth Primary Program since I’ve been in Primary (the fifth if we count the Christmas program the Primary was in charge of one year) so this year I wanted to make it as painless as possible. The older kids (the ones who could read) had words printed on the top of their parts that told them what their topic was (“Prayer”, “Scriptures”, etc.), and I had pictures that went with each word, so when I held up the picture of the scriptures, for example, all the kids who had “Scripture” parts would come up and read their parts. For the younger kids, whenever I held up a picture of a smiley face, they knew it was their turn to stand up and come to the microphone. That solved the problem of the long silences in the program where we were trying to figure out who was supposed to speak next (or get the child's attention!), and the kids paid better attention because they had to watch for their pictures.
There were a couple of funny parts, mostly involving the younger kids who tried to eat the microphone, or who wanted to tell the congregation something other than their part. The little Sunbeams (3- and 4-year-olds) were supposed to gather around the smaller, portable microphone to sing the song “Home is Where the Heart Is” and a fight almost broke out around the mic. One little boy wanted to hold the microphone like he was a rock star, and the rest of the kids kept trying to pull it back toward themselves. There was more fighting than singing during that song! I think that was the congregation’s favorite part.
I had asked a five-year-old boy and his dad (Ryan and John, for those who know them) to do a duet of “I Love To See the Temple,” because I thought it would be a sweet song for a duet. The first time we practiced it, though, (two weeks before the program) Ryan was so scared that he woudn’t sing at all and he hid his face in his dad’s chest the whole time…and the room was empty! I talked to his mom the next day and told her that I didn’t want to terrify the poor kid, and told her we could just have the whole Primary sing the song if Ryan didn’t want to do it. She suggested we give it another week and said they would keep working with him at home. He did a lot better during the next practice, so we decided to keep the duet in the program. On Sunday, Ryan stood up fearlessly with his dad and sang loudly, right into the microphone. I was so proud of him!
Our ward really does have the best kids (and parents!). There were 22 kids there for the program—the largest Primary we’ve had all year!
4 comments:
Hooray! Congratulations. I'm glad your program went well. I loved Sunday. It was a good Primary day! I can just imagine the Sunbeams song, thanks for the post.
Ours is in two weeks, Kenzie knows her part but whenever I ask her to do it for somebody other than me,she hides her face. We keep telling her, she needs to practice so she can talk into the big microphone...I really hope she does it. Her part is...I learned and accepted Heavenly Fathers plan.
The picture idea is a really good idea, I might tell my presidency about that!
Yahoo! It sounds like you did a great job. Ours was last week, too. It was nice...and LONG. The meeting went 45 minutes overtime! Seriously, who does that? That is a long time for kids to be reverent on the stand. Some of the Sunbeams just left and headed down for their parents and some toys.
I'm so glad it went well and was (relatively) easy! Ours is in a couple of weeks - I was in the library talking Sandra Drummond today when the primary chorister came in and told her Cortland had volunteered to sing a solo, and Sandra totally cracked up since Cortland can't sing a note. :) Should be good times. I always like hearing about things like the earth and popsicle glory.
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