Fly Swatter Game
 

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Version #1:  (Credit Unknown) I tried something new today for reviewing a song.    I wrote several words from the song randomly up on the chalkboard. Then I asked for a volunteer and handed them a fly swatter. We started to sing the song and then we would stop just before one of the words on the board. The child with the swatter had to try and swat the next word of the song on the chalkboard. The children thought it was fun. I only did this with the Senior Primary. I thought about having two children with swatters and try to see who did it first, but I thought it might be too competitive. Anyway, it worked out with just one and I had the attention of the children and many of them wanted to try.

Version #2: (Credit Unknown)  I also used a Fly Swatter game today. I did it to review the program songs. I placed the names of the songs on pieces of paper and placed the paper on a table. I split the room into two teams (I only do Senior Primary), chose a child from each team and gave them each a fly swatter. I had the pianist play one of the songs (her choice) until one of them swatted the right song. Then we sang that song. They really liked it.

Version #3: (by Margaret Johnson)  Have a child and the child's teacher come to the front. The child must reverently "shout" :) out the next word in the song and then give the flyswatter to her teacher. The teacher then finds the word on the board and swats it.

Version #4: (by Patti Buhler) This is the way I did it. I put the names of the songs on card stock and spread them out on a table. I had two fly swatters and did boys against girls. One stood at each end of the table. They had to start with swatters raised. The pianist started playing. When they recognized the tune they "swatted" the paper with the song's name on it. If it was correct I stopped the pianist, if it wasn't I let her continue to play until they got the right one. Once swatted the swatter had to remain on the paper. If they both swatted the same one the swatter on the bottom was the winner. I only had one time that the swatters didn't overlap and I didn't see who hit it first so we had a "do over". The kids loved the game.

Version #5: (Anne) When we did this, we called it "Whack-a-Bug".  I put a picture of a bug on a balloon that corresponded to a song. Then I explained to the kids what it meant to get the bugs out. I told them that we needed to make sure there were no bugs in our songs. I picked a reverent child to pick a balloon and then we sang. If it needed some work, it went back into my bug catching trash bag. If the song was great and got the thumbs up from the official bug expert, then the child was able to whack the bug with the fly swatter (with the thumb tack taped to it). It worked well for two obvious reasons. The kids wanted to pop the balloons so they all sang really well. Also they wanted to be picked to pick and pop (hopefully) the balloon. on a side note, there was one song that they needed help with so we put it back into the bag. The kids begged to have another try. It's amazing what they will do to hear a balloon pop.

Version #6:  (Suzanne) It required almost no preparation, and used things I already had in the house (and I printed some really cool bug images from microsoft.com's free clip art).  My kids LOVED it. They sang their little hearts out.  This game really took on a life of its own, and every single child got very excited about it. In junior primary, I picked names using our popsicle stick in a jar method. Once I'd pick the last name for the last balloon, I looked out and literally two boys were crying their little eyes out. These were not like sunbeams ... I'm talking two seven-year-old boys. In senior primary, the older boys got a little crazy and ended up mauling me trying to catch the bug print outs from the popped balloon.