So, the hand mapping thing did. not. work. with my primary. It was actually hilarious watching these kids wave their hands around. AFter a few repeats, I stopped. It was pointless.
As far as the rest of the "plan", it went okay, but not as well as I had hoped. Did you have success? Did you do something different? I really thought my kids knew this one, but apparently, they have never heard it. Made for a fun 20 minutes of singing solos for me. (ACK!) I'm going to have to do some serious brain storming this week!
I used the Door #1 and Door #2 idea from TheCrazyChorister, and it was a big hit. The kids in junior primary only got through about 2 questions and 2 answers though, it was really wordy for them and they got bored easily, even with the game.
ReplyDeleteHowever. My senior primary was VERY familiar with the song, and had the whole thing learned by the end. That should make for a very very interesting rest of the month!
As for the "mapping," I try to do this with a lot of our songs on my own, but don't ask the kids to do it because of the same reason you listed. (flapping like birds) Instead, I usually work with them on rhythm. (for example, one side of the room claps while the other side does la-la-las...or girls snap while boys clap.)
Can't wait to hear the rest of your ideas for the month, and I'm glad I found your site!
-Sheryl, Saratoga Springs UT
The plan worked really well for Sr. Primary, but I did lots of solo singing in Jr. Primary -- they had a hard time with all those words.
ReplyDeleteIn Sr. Primary the kids started noticing and pointing out patterns, like "The first three questions start with 'how could the father show/tell the world'" and "The answers all start with 'he sent his son.'" I was impressed with their pattern-finding, so continued it by having them think of the rhymes in the answers that match the questions.
The hand-mapping didn't go so well. In the past, I have had the kids do pitch-leading with their whole bodies (bend knees when we go low and get on tiptoes when we go high) and that seems to work better than having them pitch-lead with their hands.
I've been using a lot of hand motions, as suggested in the January helps for the music leader. I have my Sr Primary help me come up with hand motions, and within a couple of weeks the Jr Primary has learned both the motions and a lot of the words.
ReplyDeleteI used a combination of your suggestions and Crazy Chorister's, i.e., I had doors 1 & 2, but used gospel pictures like you had. The correct picture was behind one door while an unrelated gospel picture was behind the other. After singing each phrase, a child would guess which door and we would open it to see if that pic went with the song. It worked well. I so appreciate your help and ideas.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
I did not do the hand mapping, I felt that if I had them doing it they may not pay as good of attention to the song. Other than that it went by really well for my primary. Junior Primary will take some work, they didn't know the song ver well, but Senior Primary knew it really well so it was easy for them. Thanks for the great idea.
ReplyDeletejr - not so good
ReplyDeletesr - awesome
I haven't done much hand mapping so I didn't d othat . . .
I had the kids learn the song by going through each question. After they got a "question and answer" momorized, I had a class come up and help me make a cake using the odd ingredients that I had - soy sauce, chili pepper, flour, etc. At the end I had something that resembled more of a marinade than a cake, but that was where I brought in the Spirit and focused on the meaning of the song - that God did not send us into the kitchen without a recipe - He sent His Son. The Spirit was really strong and clear, and the kids had a great time mixing stuff. I did this for both Jr and Sr. With the Sr I did bring the attention that most of the lines were about what God had given us whereas the last couple of lines it states what God asks of us.
ReplyDeleteI LOVED your hand mapping idea, and it worked really well for me. We actually introduced the song last week (just sang through it with pictures twice) since they had learned "I Know My Savior Loves Me" quite well.
ReplyDeleteI think it helped that they had sung through it last week, and were familiar with it.
I practiced the hand mapping by myself during the week, so I could lead it without looking at the notes. I had the pianist slow the music down a little bit while we did the hand mapping. The line that says "He sent His Son to die for us, and rise with living breath" was good b/c it goes up high--they really stretched up tall for it.
Last week I talked about Feb. being the month of Valentines when we give gifts of love--our Heavenly Father obviously gave us the greatest gift of love when He sent His Son to earth. I put each of the "questions" from the song on a pink or red heart, and put all the visual aids in a Valentine's box--we then pulled them out, put them in order, etc.
Yesterday I used the "Magical Singing Water" (vinegar in a cup with a spoon of baking soda hiding food coloring....I think I saw it on your site). All the visual aids were on the board in order, but I taped a little square of colored paper on each one. Whichever color the water turned (purple, red, blue, or yellow), we pulled those pictures down. Each time we sang the song we did it differently--hand mapping was one of the ways. The kids sang really well b/c they wanted to be one of the ones to stir the water.
I'll try and do another Valentine's activity this week.
sorry about the long post! You're incredibly helpful to me!
I did the pictures game and the kids did awesome and really liked it. I decided to have the kids focus on the questions this week, so they asked the questions--then I would sing the answers. Then next week I'll do the reverse. I'll have the pictures up for the questions, and then the words w/pictures up for the answers.
ReplyDeleteI'll also have whoever is singing stand up, then sit down while the other person sings. The 3rd week, I"ll divide the room into two and have one side ask, the other side answer.
I did posted all the questions, then had the children choose the right answer, for each answer we sang a song that went along with it. For example: the first answer, a newborn babe, we sang Away in the Manger. For Jr. I added a few more movement songs. I made sure to put January's song in there too. After we went through all the questions and answers we worked on the song. I had one side sing and the other side answer. Jr. primary struggled a little with this, but Senior primary was able to complete the whole song.
ReplyDelete