My approach

I am very fortunate to have internet access at home and at work, so when I need to teach a new song or a sharing time I make great use of these resources.

For sharing times, I tend to use the sharing time ideas in the Friend/Liahona and the CSMP outline. I almost never give the sharing time exactly how it's outlined in either place, but I combine what I like and put in a few ideas of my own. I then write out my lesson plan in my Primary book, listing the sequence of events, questions I want to ask, scriptures, and if there's something I want to say in a specific way I'll write it out. I use this notebook for all of my sharing times, so I then have all of my lesson plans in one place.

For singing time I tend to look a lot more widely. Some months the Friend has ideas for teaching the song under the Sharing Time Ideas. So that's where I start. Then I'll go to SugarDoodle. Under Primary, Music Leader there is an alphabetical list of all the songs in the Children's Songbook, and also Hymns that have been taught in Primary. There aren't suggestions for every song, but just about all of your common ones.

Other places I consult are other music leaders' blogs. There are lots out there, and I've included links to the ones that I follow. Some of the music leaders have dedicated Primary blogs, others include their personal lives in their blogs as well, but all of the ones that I follow have some great ideas.

So once I have all of these ideas I again do a bit of a mix and match and decide how I'm going to teach the song. I always try to not spend much money, and I hate using my colour ink unless I have to (stingy, I know...) so you'll find that my ideas are generally pretty cost effective.

And so that's how I do it. I'm going to try and post all of the songs that I've taught over the last 18 months and where I can still remember I'll always include the source of the idea. I have to be honest and say that most of the basic creativity comes from someone else - but I always put my own little touch.