There are two goals listed in the Faith in God booklet that suggest learning a song. Under Learning and Living the Gospel is:
Learn to sing Choose the Right (Hymns, no. 239). Explain what agency is and what it means to be responsible for your choices. Discuss how making good choices has helped you develop greater faith.
and in Developing Talents:
Learn to sing, play, or lead a song from the Children’s Songbook. Teach or share the song in a family home evening or at Primary. Discuss how developing talents helps prepare us for service to Heavenly Father and others.
Part of our weekly routine has become to practice a song every week as a gathering activity. When the first girl arrives we start singing and as others arrive they join in until it is time to start the actual activity. As the occasion permits we talk about the words to the songs, or how to sing clearly, or loudly, or nicely etc. We’ve been doing this long term with an ongoing goal of preparing a song to perform in Sacrament meeting, at primary, or another activity.
I arranged with the ward music specialist and picked a date for the girls to sing as a special musical number in Sacrament meeting, and we practiced Choose the Right until that date- almost 3 months. Since then we’ve been singing songs from the Primary songbook that they don’t know, with a goal of picking one to practice then sing in Sacrament meeting at a yet undetermined date.
Part of what makes this easy for us is that I’m okay at playing the piano and can play for them both at activities and in Sacrament. Since we’re not doing any fancy arrangements doing this requires little more effort that a few minutes each week, and showing up at sacrament meeting.
It feels like besides Primary singing time, there aren’t many opportunities to consistently learn new songs in a smaller group where one could have a discussion about the words. What a great idea!