Primary Singing Time

No pictures to go with this.

Last week I had the best idea for singing time. The almond trees were in bloom and when the weather stays cool as it has for the most part this year, they bloom with no leaves on the tree. They do look like popcorn popping. I had it all mapped out. I would ask someone in our neighborhood if I could cut off a branch or two and then I would show the children the flowering branches and we would talk about the song "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree". Afterward, I would pull out a branch loaded with popcorn balls and let the children pick popcorn balls (which they would be able to eat) and we would sing the song associated with that popcorn ball. Unfortunately my weekend last week was so busy, that I could not follow through with this inspiration.

Fast forward to last night. It was fairly late in the evening when I decided that I would try to do this activity. I tried to drive by the homes with the almond trees in their yards, but couldn't see if they were in bloom. I decided to do this activity anyway and I would go by around 9 am today, Sunday, and ask for a branch or two.

I got up at 7 am and started the popcorn balls. I used dental floss to prepare to hang them on the tree. I cut them, made loops and then formed popcorn balls around them. While I was making them, I made sure to make enough for all the children in Primary. So far so good. I went looking for flowers. Uh Oh! There are no flowering almond trees in my neighborhood. The rain yesterday washed off the last of the blooms. While I was out, I went to the Church and made sure the popcorn balls would stay on the tree branch I had cut last week and used and stored in the Primary cabinet.

New plan! I found a picture of a flowering apricot tree on the internet and prepared it for display.

I got to Church and went to hang the popcorn balls on the tree. The tree branch kept falling out of it's stand. Eventually, I was able to balance the popcorn balls and they stayed on the tree without it falling. Pretty frustrating, but success at last.

Primary Singing Time started and we practiced the current song and then I pulled out the picture and explained the song a little bit and then pulled out the tree. It kept falling down. Thankfully a very helpful teacher held the tree up for the entire singing time. Another problem, the popcorn balls kept falling off the tree. I had ended up tying them with ribbons onto the tree. Another issue, it was not impossible, but with my time constraints, improbable that I could affix numbers to the popcorn balls to match the songs we were going to sing (they were all numbered). Each child picked a popcorn ball and a number between 1 and 10. Despite all my issues with this project, it turned out fine and the children enjoyed it a lot and tried hard to sing well.