Potato Head Review

For Mother's day, I wanted to do something motherly-related for singing time.

I got the inspiration from this blog. She had real mom items to dress up with, but I didn't have enough of these things, so I came up with using the Potato-head toy.

This would work well for Father's day, or any day, for that matter.

This IS a "competition" game, which I generally try to stay away from. I did preface this game to the kids, by saying that we are often discouraged by competition games, because sometimes, the kids get too wrapped up in winning the game, instead of just having fun playing the game. Then I told them that I have been watching them for the 2 years that I have had this calling, and felt like it is something they could handle. I knew that THEY knew how to have fun, without making others feel bad, or getting out of control.

They did just fine. :)

Anyway. On to the game:

I had prewritten two posters with blanks on them. Except for the color of marker, the posters are the same.  I used heavy duty magnets, and posted them on the blackboard.

Each team gets a Mrs. Potato Head set.

(I think we had glasses and the purse too, but I forgot about these when I took the picture)

The game:

1) The primary sings the song continually, until the game is over (the poster is filled in).

2) Each person fills in TWO words on the poster, and puts ONE piece on the potato head.

(We had 11 pieces, so that makes 22 words to fill-in on the poster)

3) Once you have played, you can not go again. (I wanted to make sure that not the same 5 people were playing the game.) We let teacher's play as well.

4) First team to complete their poster and have the MOST complete Mrs. Potato head, wins. 

5) If you are caught NOT singing, I will pull off a part from your assembled potato head. I HIGHLY recommend doing this, or they get too caught up in the game, and forget to sing. I DID take off a piece or two during our game...

This was such a big hit, and I know THEY know the words to the song now. When the game was over, I didn't say anything about the "winner", but as soon as the winning team had one, I just stopped the game and said "Great job everyone! you guys did awesome!" and moved on to the next thing in my lesson plan.

June Song: The Holy Ghost

I appologize for my long hiatus! I've been trying to get my life more in order and give my kids more attention, and time just got away from me! I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post!

Also, our primary sings at a nursing home, twice a year, one which occured just last week, so I've been trying to get ready for that and Father's day. I haven't even introduced this month's song yet!

That being said, I really struggled with this song. I sat down shortly after my last post, all excited to create a  flipchart, and just couldn't wrap my head around how to put images to the words. It's especially difficult, as we are not to try to portray the "holy ghost" in any way.

However, HUGE thanks to Tiffany from Port Orchard, who e-mailed me HER flip chart! I think it's awesome and hopefully it will be of help to some of you

Word Document here and PDF file here

She also did the second verse, but I just didn't post the pictures here....

As far as introducing the song...if you haven't already, I love this idea HERE on Camille's primary blog page, and also HERE, on I Sing U Sing. Both are fantastic resources as well

Flipchart request

I'm in the process of making the flipchart for "Come Follow Me." I know, I like to ride it close to the deadlines...

I was wondering what verses you plan to do. I'm definitely doing the first verse, but not sure about all the others.

I think this song would be nice to make into more of a musical number, with a flute and/or violin. We have a few children in our ward who play these instruments, so it's great to give them the opportunity to use their talents.  There are lots of different instrumental arrangements for this song.


If you want flipcharts for the other verses, let me know which ones you plan on doing, so I can create something for you!

-Trisa

Guest Post: Song review idea

The flipchart is comin...I promise! I have some family visiting, and time got away from me! I'll work hard and get it on here as fast as I can!

In the meantime...

I love it when you e-mail me with your ideas. Laura G. sent me this one, and I think it is such a neat idea! Thanks Laura!!!

I love to sing.I love to teach. 
I love children. I love Primary.

(It just may be the funnest calling in the church.)

Here is something I put together. I invited a different child up to choose an object and each one represented a new way to sing the song we needed to review for the month.

Ex: Flash light: turn the lights out and sing.

Slinky: Loud or soft.
Tissue: plug your nose
A Boot: March to the music as you sing
Pointer: Invite a child to lead the music or point to the chartMittens: Clap the rhythm while singing
Pictures of friends (or Friend Magazine): Turn and sing the song towards a friend
Cap: Sing Acapella (without the piano)
Turtle: Slow
Racecar: Fast
Ball: Invite 2 children to toss and ball back and forth
and every time they drop it you have to start the song over again.
Lala stick
Girls Only
Boys Only
Bumble Bee: Hum
Whistle: Whistle the song
Popcorn: Sing Popcorn Popping
Teeth: Sing with your teeth clenched
 Glue Stick: Pretend to glue a part of your body and sing it that way. Ex: Glue your hands to your head. Or your elbows together.
Wiggle hand puppet: Choose a wiggle song & change it up a bit.Microphones: you sing with 2 friends
Sun glasses: sing with your eyes closed.
Egg shakers: Sing staccato.you get the picture....with 24 total or as many pockets you need to fill up!

You could change it and be creative with anything you can think up!!!!

PS. I don't explain them ahead of time. Just as we go. Turned out to be a HIT! 

Mo reasons to love Momo

Arnold's Conan did a few impressive things.  He lifted a giant bowl of green soul.  He pushed a giant wheel.  He... *sigh* knocked out a camel with a punch.

He didn't, however, rip a man's tongue out through his own throat.

I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honour. The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs. The rain will fall on your rotting skin... until nothing is left of you but bones.

You'll notice Drogo doesn't even seem to register the flesh wound on his chest from the khopesh (and we seriously need a moratorium on those, they're getting like the katana for the 21st Century), treating it with no more concern than a nettle sting.  Also, that he drops his two tiny knives during the fight: he is Khal Drogo, he doesn't need weapons to kill a man. And to top it all off, he goes all Ken-"Fist of the North Star"-shiro with a final quip.



As with the last showcase of Momo's talent, I really hope Nispel and the gang gave Conan a scene remotely as badass as this one.  Literary Conan certainly had his share of highlights, and it would be nice to have one that doesn't involve animal abuse or lifting heavy things, and hopefully not just rip off one of those moments from the stories.  If there's one thing we can probably depend on, though, it's ingenuity in gory fight scenes.

* I will note that the scene isn't perfect, for the same reason the last one wasn't: Dothraki extras in Game of Thrones suck.  They really suck.  Suuuuuuuck.  In the last video, they didn't seem nearly as fired up as Momoa, reducing the impact of the scene entirely.  I've already talked about how I hate their visual design.  In this case, it's Drogo's "opponent" - more like Drogo's victim.  That guy who challenged Drogo looks like no threat whatsoever to Drogo: surely if you want to show how badass Drogo is, you give him an opponent that looks like he could pose a challenge?  Then, when Drogo defeats him he looks even more dominant? I wasn't remotely worried about Drogo here, and arguably we probably got that point - but that doesn't make it a fight, that makes it butchery.

When Conan fought someone, they were usually treated as dangerous threats.  Howard wrote about their victories, size, deadliness, prowess.  Sergius of Khrosha, Zaporavo, Baal-Pteor, Shah Amurath, the Adventurer, Olgerd.  Conan defeated them all, and while the difficulty of those victories varied, Conan either came out more imperssive because he made them look like nobodies, or because he just barely managed to survive against a truly formidable opponent.  This guy fighting Drogo's a nobody, Drogo defeated him like a nobody, and all I thought during the fight was "how's Drogo going to defeat this nobody?" I'm not going to recall this fight scene as "do you remember when Khal Drogo defeated that challenger to his rule," but "do you remember when Khal Drogo owned that cocky little punk?" Considering we'll (probably) never see Khal truly fight in the series, it's a shame this one fight scene wasn't what I was hoping for.  Ah well. 

Script Status: Weiss has turned in a draft

Orson Scott Card posted on Hatrack that "D.C. Weiss has since turned in yet another draft. But Hollywood being as it is, don't count on any of these versions actually being what is filmed."

S.H.I.E.L.D.W.A.L.L. Operation Illuminate

============================

WARNING: CLASSIFIED MATERIAL

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL BE DETECTED, OBSERVED, AND SEVERELY DEALT WITH TO THE FULL EXTENT OUTSIDE THE LAW

THIS IS YOUR SOLE WARNING
============================

07/06/11

Shieldbearers,

I'm mobilizing for Operation Albanach Invasion as we speak, so I'm not going to be able to engage in operations for a while.  But that's no reason I should keep all the fun from you folks, so I'm going to post the review in its entirety now, and invite you to comment in the comments section: I'll be updating this alert with my analysis in due course.  I'll just say that Subject Bittertree has some very good company in Zack Davisson - if the latter's advance review for Savage Sword of Robert E. Howard is any indication.

Even though he is one of my favorites, I will be the first to admit that Robert E. Howard was not a great writer. He was mediocre at best, with limited style and skills, stilted dialog, often hack-kneed plots, and shallow, one-dimensional characters. But somehow, through some mystical confluence of inspiration and muse, when Robert E. Howard wrote Conan he was transfigured; he became a great writer, one of the greatest. But only when he was writing Conan.

Okay, so I'm being uncharitable. Howard also did a good job with King Kull, Solomon Kane and a few others. His work was character-driven; if he had a good character, he produced good writing. If he had a great character, he produced great writing. And if he had a mediocre or completely lame character… well, you can guess what level of writing he produced.

Dark Horse took on a daring challenge with Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword: to take these lesser-known, lesser-written characters and make good comics. Sailor Steve Costigan. The desert gunslinger El Borak. Dark Agnes de Chastillon, who would be combined with another Howard creation Red Sonya of Rogatino to become the comic character Red Sonja. The Viking Niord. Not exactly household names. There are six stories in total, two of them continuing serials, one a reprint from 1970s fantasy anthologies, and one an illustrated version with Howard’s text. That makes for a good mix, and allows new readers to pick up any issue while still encouraging ongoing collection.

I am impressed with the results. One of the benefits of using the lower-grade Howard pantheon is that the writers are more free to write their own stories. When I read Conan comics, I am constantly comparing them to Howard’s Conan and am nitpicky about the departures. But when I read this El Borak story, I just sit back and enjoy.

The showpiece of this anthology is El Borak, the Texas-Cowboy-in-the-Middle-East who makes his first comic appearance here. Rendered by writer Mark Finn and artist Greg Scott, El Borak is remarkably well done, with cinematic pacing and imagery. This story is an original piece by Finn, set as a sequel to Howard’s El Borak adventure Hawk of the Hills. Finn and Scott have obviously studied their desert adventure flicks from the period, because they captured the look and feel just right. The sword duel between El Borak and Hakim Khan was fantastic -- beautifully written, beautifully drawn.

The Dark Agnes is another original story, which is not surprising as Howard only wrote three Dark Agnes stories. This Dark Agnes is still a “She-Devil with a Sword” but don’t expect her to run around in a chainmail bikini. Written by Marc Andreyko with pencils by Robert Atkins, Dark Agnes is one of the two continuing serials. Andreyko gave Dark Agnes a more feminist theme than Howard probably intended, but then he was a 1930s Texan. Atkins’ art is good enough, but not particularly memorable.

I have never liked Sailor Steve Costigan, and the story here didn’t convince me otherwise. He is one of Howard’s “fighting characters,” a tough guy who gets into problems then settles them with his fists -- basically Popeye will all the mirth sucked out. Writer Joe Casey and artist Pop Mhan do their best to make something out of the meager source material. Mhan in particular draws some interesting faces, while Casey tries to weave some twists and turns into the tale. But ultimately it is a typical Sailor Steve Costigan adventure, and he just punches people until he wins. The following Sea Cruise, which combines Howard’s original text with illustrations by Tim Seeley, is a far better story. The scene of a corpse getting its eyes eaten out by crabs is one of the best in the book.

The Valley of the Worm is the sole reprint, coming from 1972's Supernatural Thrillers #3. Story-wise, this may be the worst in the book. It is a typical Howard device of a modern man experiencing his wild past life where he was a powerful barbarian warrior. The story is entirely saved by Gil Kane’s perfect art, looking even more beautiful with modern coloring.

And finally comes Conan. There is something primal about Conan. He dominates the book as soon as he steps on the page. You get the feeling that Conan would easily take down everyone else in this book without dinging his sword raising a sweat. Paul Tobin and Wellington Alves do the Conan story The Jewels of Hastern, and do it well. I haven’t heard of either Tobin or Wellington, but they get right into the heart of Conan with a story that's all blood, women, jewels and strange gods -- the way a Conan story should be. Artist Wellington did a great job on the armor and castle setting of the story, and Tobin leaves the story on the edge of a climax, leaving the reader wanting to flip the next page but being forced to wait until the next volume of this anthology comes out.

I don't think there's a single sentence in this document that I can leave without comment.  However, time is of the essence: I invite all S.H.I.E.L.D.W.A.L.L. agents and allies to address this review, utilizing the Utterance Device located below. As ever, keep the mantra of savage courtesy in mind.

Shields Up,

--Agent Taranaich