Singing Time Plan for May 17

Junior Primary

"Help Me, Dear Father" (p.99)- ribbons.  Ribbons on wands are a fantastic way to help children move to a slower, smoother song. I'll do actions such as two big circles on one side of my body, then two big circles on the other side, then big rainbows over my head, etc.  

Ribbon wands

"He Sent His Son" (p.34)-order to pictures.  I have one picture to illustrate each line of the song, mostly from the Gospel Art set that the Church publishes, here.  However, I don't just hold the pictures up, flip chart style.  The children need to actually interact with what they're seeing in order to make the experience meaningful.  So, I have the pictures up on the board, all out of order, and I call one child up at a time to place a picture in order as I sing.

"The Church of Jesus Christ" (p.77)-march around the room.  In a simple game of follow the leader, I'll march in a big circle around the room and invite the children, row after row, to follow me.  My junior primary is about 20 kids, small enough to make this possible. 

"I Know That My Savior Loves Me"-ASL.  We just finished learning the whole first verse.  I'll stop and freeze at various points to check the children's signs, and then we'll sing it straight through.

Senior Primary

Melody Map for "Baptism"

"Baptism" (p.100)-melody map.  I can take no credit for this one.  I took the idea straight from a workshop presented by Sharla Dance, and you can read her explanation here.  I made my own melody map to mimic one of hers.  My chart pictured here corresponds to the line, "Jesus came to John the Baptist."  Pitch is represented by height, length of note by size of dot, and topic by color.  (Yellow for Jesus, green for John, blue for baptism or water, red for everything else.)  

Movement with ribbons

"Help Me, Dear Father" (p.99)-ribbons.  I'll make the movements more complicated than I did for junior primary, and I'll change them more quickly.  I'll write symbols on the board to represent the movements, similar to how I did sand blocks, here.  

"The Church of Jesus Christ" (p.77)-crossword.  I made a crossword puzzle, with most of the clues being fill-in-the-blanks from the lyrics of the song.  There are lots of free crossword puzzle makers online, and I used one to help me.  You can view and download my puzzle here, if you'd like to use it. I didn't include the finished puzzle. You'll have to solve it yourself. ;)

"I Know That My Savior Loves Me"-ASL

I received a request for the whole melody map for "Baptism," so here it is. *Note: the handsome cat in the corner is not part of the map. :) 

Happy Singing!