"If the Savior Stood Beside Me" - Week 2 (Memorizing, continued)

I had a great time teaching the children the music to "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" this week, asking them specific questions about my flip chart, e.g., "Why do you think I used this picture of the Savior being baptized for this line about being an example?" or "Which child in the picture do you think is behaving like the Savior is standing beside them? Why?"

The Junior Primary was generally not familiar with this song at all, but since it was taught in 2008, most of the Senior Primary knew most of the words. Therefore, we made it through verse one with the Junior Primary, and we made it through all the verses with the Senior Primary, but both classes need some work.

Week 2 will go as follows for Junior Vs. Senior Primary:

Junior Primary - Junior Primary memorized one verse and discussed the lines of the song. We will hopefully be able to learn about and memorize the remaining two verses, following the same method. The children were able to raise their hands and interact with me a lot, so I had a high level of participation and interest. So, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," right? Well, not if it's only for two weeks. After the third week, I'd be worried that they felt like I was drilling them.

I may ask them to listen for "Savior" and rhymes, depending on how the lesson goes. See below for further details as I will be doing this in Senior primary.

Backup for Junior: I will bring my Super Singer Glasses and put those on if my junior primary need encouragement singing. (Purchased at dollar store - reward good singers with the opportunity to wear them, and to pick out the next super singer.)

Senior Primary - Senior Primary already knew most of this song but I could already hear some "problem" lines that they were a little less confident about, so I'm going to do three things, time-pending.

Verse 1

1. First, put up the flip chart for verse 1 only. Sing it with them one time through.

2. Turn over the entire flip chart for verse 1 only. Sing the verse one time through again (with no flip chart). Ask them to count how many times they hear "Savior." Write that tally up on the board. The intent here is to get them to focus on the words, but also give them something to motivate them to really listen and sing, where they don't feel like they are singing the same line over and over.

3. Sing the verse one time through again (with no flip chart). Ask them to use their hands to go up and down on the melody (they see me doing this with the Articles of Faith every week, since I rarely spend time on them).

4. If they are still struggling with some of the words of the song, which I doubt, I'll spend a little time singing that line with them.

Verse 2

1. Put up the flip chart for verse 2. Sing only verse 2 with them one time through.

2. Turn over the flip chart for verse 2 only. Ask them to count how many times they hear "Savior." Add it to the tally on the board.

3. Sing the verse one time through again (with no flip chart). This time, ask them to listen carefully. There are two sentences that end in a rhyme. I will give them the example that the verse rhyme is "... would I do the things I do? Would I think of his commandments and try harder to be true?" Then ask them to listen for the rhyme in the second verse.

Verse 3

1. Put up the flip chart for verse 3, except the last line, because they should know that for SURE by now. (And I will say that to them.) Sing only verse 3 with them one time through. I will point out the parts where I know they were a little fuzzy this week.

2. Turn over the flip chart for verse 3 only. Sing the verse one time through again (with no flip chart again). Ask them to count how many times they hear "Savior." Add it to the tally on the board.

3. Sing the verse one time through again (with no flip chart). This time, I will ask them to clap out the rhythm of the song (the variables of "fast-fast-slow-fast-medium-medium-medium-slowwww- fast-fast-slow-fast-slow-slow-slow-slowwww") as we sing, pointing out that it ends differently.

Combine it all together

Sing all three verses together as a final review, especially to hear the interludes between the verses and how the third verse ends a bit differently.

Backup for Senior (which I honestly don't think I'll use so I hope someone does, ha! I might do a bigger song review with a more carefully elaborate crossword puzzle, where identifying the word is a hint to identify what song we will sing. Might as in - I am planning on it for a future song review, as long as I don't end up doing this one! More after I teach next Sunday.)

This was quickly designed and very easy to make. I took what was essentially a piece of butcher paper (I started saving packing paper from packages in the mail) and folded in half, then in half again, etc so that I had a grid. I then drew boxes to match the number of letters per word, until I had my little crossword puzzle. I sketched lightly, in the corner, the letters that the boxes represent so that I don't have to worry about making mistakes during Primary.

Hints:
The tricky part with this crossword was that I used two phrases "watchful care" (4a and 4b) and "always near" (5a and 5b). so, I'm going to explain that to the children but I also put in some letter prompts for those ones.

If I made this its own activity, then after we identified the words of the crossword puzzle, I would have some fun with them and ask them to identify a primary or hymnal song that sings about this word. For example, for "commandments," they could say, "Keep the commandments." For "kind," they could say, "Jesus Said Love Everyone," and for "Reverently" they could say, "Reverently, Quietly."