How I Do It

1. The month before we plan to teach a song in Primary I read the song for the month listed in the Outline for Sharing Time and the Children's Sacrament Meeting Presentation and start memorizing the words.
2. I decide with the Presidency Member assigned to teach Sharing Time which weekly gospel principle coincides with the song the best.
3. Separately the Presidency Member and I prayerfully study the principle and song by reading the scriptures and referring to the gospel literature listed after the principle in the Outline and after the song in the Children's Songbook.
4. The Presidency Member and I--sometimes through email and sometimes in person--share ideas we have for teaching the lesson and points we want to be sure we teach.
5. Separately I type our ideas into a lesson plan. I've tried doing this with the Presidency Member and we just end up gabbing more than writing so I volunteer to type it up.
6. I try to be flexible when I write up the plan--the message is more important than teaching the song in a certain order. However, I make sure the whole song gets introduced.
7. I like to teach the song in small pieces so I alternate between the Presidency Member and Music Leader often.
8. After I write up the order in which we'll present our ideas I go back and write the amount of time I think we'll spend on each idea.
9. Then I go back and adjust the times to fit the amount of time we're given in Primary for Sharing Time and to make sure both the Presidency Member and Music Leader get about half the time. Rarely I have to cut out an idea to meet the time limitations. The times listed are just guidelines to help us know when we can spend a lot of time on a topic and ask deeper questions and when we need to just touch the idea lightly asking simple questions, taking the most obvious answers, and moving on.
10. I send it to the Presidency Member to edit. Sometimes I post what I've written before I get the edited copy back from the Presidency Member so keep that in mind when you see mistakes--most likely they are my own mistakes.
11. I like to print out a copy of our lesson plan at least a week in advance for the Primary pianist.