Learning "When I Am Baptized" ... and preparing for Father's Day

This is at least the third year in a row that my primary children have learned or reviewed "When I Am Baptized" for the primary program, AND for many it is their favorite so this is a song they know and love.

I will re-teach this song to the Junior Primary to give the Sunbeams a chance to learn the song as well. Most of Junior Primary knows this song though, so I will spend a lot of time working Father's Day songs - just reviewing the songs with the actions, mostly.

Senior Primary

In Senior Primary, I will ask the children what a rainbow represents, then have them look up the scripture referenced with the song, but otherwise, I am not going to spend any time teaching it to Senior Primary because they know the lyrics very, very well.

Senior Primary needs a quick review of the second Father's Day song we are going to sing so I'll bring out my bells and have them sing and play "Dearest Names" and "Love is Spoken Here."

Junior Primary

Last year, I had the class help me make actions for the song. This is one of their all-time favorite activities so if you haven't tried this, I highly, highly recommend recommend this method. However, I don't want to do that every single time, especially when I already did this last year for the same song.

This year, I am making rainbow sticks for Junior Primary.


My rainbow sticks were inspired by the London 2012 Olympics ribbon twirling competition, and I've been waiting to use them in June. However,  as I went to find this picture on the left, I realized that there are a LOT of ribbon wands on the Internet that people have invented and re-invented for weddings, birthday parties, and all sorts of fun events. I think this is a popular choice for many primary choristers, too. Therefore, you might want to look around for other ideas on how to make the wands and how to use them with the song. My version is a fast, simple, and cheap version. I have seen some fancier versions since I made mine. I looked into screwing a hook into a dowel but the dowel was too slim, and I was worried it would split the wood, but I have since seen others succeed at this. I didn't check to see what they did ... Here's my version, including a couple of tricks to be efficient and simple:

These are some of the actions I am going to teach, which are repeated throughout the song:

Learning "When I Am Baptized"

I just found this draft for a post that I never published. Better late than never? I obviously meant to publish it over a month ago ...

The theme for this month is Repentance and Baptism, so the theme song is "When I Am Baptized." The children already know this song, and in fact, it is a favorite of several of the youngest children that learned this song last year. There is a whole new group of three-year-olds that never learned the song, though, so I am would like to help them learn it this week.

Junior Primary Activity #1 - Introduce "When I Am Baptized"
I will draw pictures on the chalkboard and ask children to raise their hand as they recognize what song I am drawing. I like to draw, but even if you don't, this will be easy because each line of the song can be so easily represented by a simple object.

"I like to look for rainbows" - draw a rainbow

"Whenever there is rain" - draw a cloud with rain coming out

"And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again" - draw the earth

I will then say, "keep your hands up if you want me to call on you to guess the song."

Talk to the children about what it means to be baptized.

Junior Primary Activity #2 - Learn "When I Am Baptized"
To help the three-year-olds to catch up to the older children on learning this song, I would like to have them help me invite hand movements that represent each line of the song. That's it! Simple, fun, and easy.

We talked about this activity in our Stake Primary Chorister training, but I have also read about it before. I think our instructor that day may have learned this at Worldwide Chorister training, but also, the primary manual talks about how well little children respond to hand movements and things that they can copy. I have also taught the children sign language for one song and part of another song, and have seen how much they love to follow me. In short, the frequency with which I have heard versions of this idea or even experienced versions myself, confirms for me that this is an activity that will be appropriate and helpful for these children.

I will start out by giving an example, for instance, "I like to look for rainbows" could be holding my hands to my eyes like binoculars, or shading my eyes to help me see better. I could also sweep my hands out to form a rainbow.