Wednesday, August 21, 2013

We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet

We started by doing what was suggested in the 2013 Primary Program book: I made word strips in different colors with each half of a line and then put the second halves of lines around the room. The first halves of lines (on the left) I put in order, taped on the board (because I hadn't figured out the yarn trick at that point).
Then I had the kids try to pick out the second half of each line. Some kids picked up immediately that the colors corresponded, the first half of line to the second half, but most kids really struggled to think which of the word strips came next.
After we had a line put together we sang it. That got boring, so I had 1/2 the kids stand up and sing the first part of the line and then sit down while the other half of the kids stood and finished each line for them. That was fun. Most of my directing was getting the kids up and down. With the teachers' help in the classes, the kids got the words.
The words are hard for kids and we did discuss them some.
I also brought in props to go with each:
Lines 1-2) The conference ensign with our prophet's picture on it
Line 3) A picture of the golden plates
Line 4) I drew a picture of the sun in chalk and talked about how the gospel makes us feel good, just like rays of the sun make us warm (very hard concept, yes)
Line 5) An apple, since food is a blessing (which the kids wanted to eat. Don't eat my prop!)
Line 6) A picture of a hand
Line 7) Work gloves for service
Line 8) A heart for love

Now I found that many word strips really cumbersome to magnet up or take up, so I bought a hot glue gun (just $3) and glued it to yarn. These fold up, and you can just hang them up.
You can also turn individual pages backwards when you're memorizing.

I also had the music coordinator in Sacrament have the congregation sing this as a hymn about a month after the kids started learning it.

No comments:

Post a Comment