Music that Invites the Spirit

We have an amazing music leader in our primary. She does lots of games and activities to encourage the kids to sing and learn new songs. She has no problem being silly with them or encouraging their imagination. She is awesome!!! We decided we wanted to do an activity about appropriate music and finding music that invites the spirit not only on Sunday but even during the week when we have the radio on or we are listening to a cd in the car. Along with this we decided to have the girls help make props for our primary music leader. And as fate would have it, my partner could not be there that night so our music leader stepped in to be the other supervising adult at activity days that night.
I bought several 8x10 pieces of felt in various colors, found some fish outlines online and cut out various fish (flounder, angel fish, star fish, seahorse, etc.). I did them big enough so I was getting about 2 fish per piece of felt. Armed with puffy paint, gems and tacky glue, my girls went to town decorating the fish. I also numbered each fish with puffy paint so our music leader could associate each fish with a song. We ended up with some pretty eclectic yet fun fish. I took them home and let them dry for a couple days (puffy paint is annoying like that) and then I glued a washer to each of their mouths. I made a fishing pole with a magnet on the end (make sure your washers and magnet work well together before gluing). Now every time they get used in primary, the girls get giddy and like to point out the ones that they made.

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Pray Pillows

Sometimes it can be difficult to get little girls to do the daily testimony builders on their own. We decided to do a few activities over the course of several months that would encourage the girls to memorize their articles of faith, read their scriptures daily, keep a personal journal, and say their daily personal prayers.
This particular activity we focused on personal prayer. We talked about the importance of daily personal prayer and how even though we may be saying prayers together with our families, it is important to also have personal communication with Heavenly Father. We discussed some of the things they have concerns about that they can ask Heavenly Father about as well as the personal blessings they have received that they should thank Him for. We talked about spending the extra quiet time on your knees listening to his response or feeling the spirit touch our hearts.
As a reminder to say their personal prayers, we made prayer pillows. They were super fast and easy so long as the prep work was done ahead of time.

1) you need about 1/3 yard of cotton quilting fabric for each pillow. So long as there isn't too bold of a print or too many different colors, whatever you think your girls will like will be fine. Sew up 3 sides and leave one side open to stuff later (and big enough to get a piece of brown paper bag in and out of to use to keep the fabric paint from seeping all the way through to the other side of the pillow).

2) you will need brush on fabric paint in colors that will look good with the fabric you got but will stand out when painted on. Obviously, you will also need paint brushes, paper plates to squirt paint onto, cups of water to rinse brushes, and paper towels for the inevitable mess.

3) wax paper to use as an iron on stencil. If you pre trace the letters P R A Y and cut them out with an exacto knife you will save yourself a lot of headache the night of your activity (don't forget to save the dots from inside your letters to also iron on).

4) You can either pre-iron all the stencils onto the pre-sewn pillows or you can do it at your activity (before saves time and energy). Iron the wax paper stencils wax side down onto the fabric (don't forget your cut out dots for any letters that may require it like "P" of "A"). Make sure the steam on your iron is turned off else you could cause other problems you really don't want to deal with.

5) When the girls go to paint, make sure they understand not to use tons of paint or else they will make the stencil start to fall apart and also that there is a piece of cardboard or brown paper bag inside the pillow to prevent the paint from running through. So long as it isn't too thick it should dry fairly quickly (this would probably be a good time to have your lesson on personal prayer).

6) Have the girls stuff it to however soft or firm they would like it or however much batting you have for each girl then one of the leaders can just sew up the end on a sewing machine (easiest if pinned first).

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