Introducing "I Stand All Amazed"

I found this idea for teaching "I Stand All Amazed" from LDS.org's "How to use music in primary:"

March: “I Stand All Amazed” (Hymns, no. 193)

Divide the children into four groups. Give group 1 GAB 116, and sing the first phrase of the song to them. Discuss it briefly, and then have them sing it a few times with you. Continue with each group and each additional phrase (use the following pictures: group 2, GAB 108; group 3,GAB 57; group 4, GAB 56). Sing the whole first verse with each group standing, holding their picture, and singing their phrase. Invite the groups to switch pictures, and sing the song again. Repeat until each group has sung each phrase. Sing the chorus, and ask the children to listen for how many times you sing the word “wonderful.” Repeat the chorus a few times with them, and invite them to place their hands over their hearts each time they sing the word “wonderful.”

If you don't have all the matching GAB pictures handily available, I visited the church's image site and found appropriate pictures for each line of the first two verses of the song.

I wouldn't plan to go beyond verse 1 in Junior Primary but you might have time to go into verse two in Senior Primary.

          (verse 1)

1. I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me. Jesus with the children
   
2. I tremble to know that for me he was crucified That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died. Jesus praying in Gethsemane (chorus)
3. Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me Enough to die for me! Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me! Crucifixion (verse 2)
4. I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine, Jesus walking on water
5. That he should extend his great love unto such as I, Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify. Jesus knocking at the door

Winter Olympic Song Review

I usually like to do a songs-to-date review and sing other songs from the songbook on the last Sunday of the month, even if I feel like that month's song still needs work. The kids (and teachers) just need a break and a new song.

Our primary had Olympics-focused song reviews during the summer Olympics. The timing was perfect because they had learned most of the songs by then. This time, the timing is not as great, but chances are that the children are aware of the Olympics at least so I still think it'd be fun to have an Olympics focused theme.

I spent four weeks on the Olympics last time but the part I want to pull from is the fun ways to sing songs Olympics.

To keep it simple this time:

1. Find a picture of Olympic rings (Google "Olympic rings"), cut them out, and paste them to a jar.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Olympic_Rings.svg



2. Next, put different songs on one color of card. This way, you can put all the cards in one jar but just tell the child that comes up that they need to pick a "green" card, or whatever color.

Examples:

Put a bunch of green cards in for: (Make sure to include the page number so it's faster to look up)
Choose songs they are learning, as well as songs that fit this year and month's theme that they probably know, as well as songs from last year that we don't want them to forget!

"I Will Follow God's Plan for Me" - vs.1
"I Will Follow God's Plan for Me" - vs.2
"He Sent His Son" - vs. 1
"He Sent His Son" - vs. 2
"Families Can Be Together Forever"
"Heavenly Father Loves Me" - vs. 2
"If the Savior Stood Beside Me" - vs. 1
"If the Savior Stood Beside Me" - vs. 2

"If the Savior Stood Beside Me" - vs. 3

3. Next, put different ways to sing the song "Olympic style" on another color of card. You can talk about the different sport and tell the children what it is (ask them to help you explain) so they can have fun helping you define how that Olympic style is sung. Or even just print out pictures of the different Olympics styles so you can put the appropriate picture on the wall every time they draw it. Kids like visuals :)

I know this is from the last Olympics, but here's one of my favorite winter Olympians ever - speed skating ... I'd print out a pic for all of these sports. Easy to do when you search from Google Images.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/-olympics/news/20130117/apolo-anton-ohno-olympics.ap/

Examples:

1. Curling - They can pretend to be vigorously brushing the stone into the center.
Image here
2. Skiing - They can swish their arms from side to side
3. Snowboarding - They can pretend to catch "big air" and sing in a funny staccato every time they catch that big air, swinging their arms up wide
4. Bob sled - They curl up into a tiny ball, even get off their chairs, and sway as if they are turning around corners.
5. Ice skating - They can get up and turn every few seconds in a "lutz" - pick a word that appears in the song more than once for where they will spin twice fast, or maybe even assign two words, and talk about how the different dance routines only have the special flourishes a few times during the song.
6. Skeleton - They can stand up, put their arms at their sides, keep their chins up like they are on the ground, and sing to the ceiling, turning a "corner" (turning 1/4 away around) very time they hear a certain word.
7. Speed Skating - Have them reach down and touch the ground like they are turning a super tight corner, at the end of every line. Make sure to explain the sport enough that this makes sense :)

You can review all the Winter Olympic sports here: http://www.olympic.org/sports

Conclude
At the end, you can tie how the Olympics is like being put here on earth. We have something we are trying to accomplish (being with our families, returning to our heavenly family), and sometimes we mess up, but we keep trying.

I Will Follow God's Plan - week 3

This week's sharing time lesson is "The Body is Created in the Image of God."

I would love to review "I Will Follow God's Plan" by focusing on this theme.

The object will be to review the words of the song, but we can use a set of cards that emphasizes different features about the body in a sensitive way. Print these out onto cards, and have kids come up and draw them.

For example:

All of the boys in the room, please stand up. Let's have the tallest three boys in the room come to the front. All right, we're going to start singing this song, and when we pause, you need to fill in the blank together.

Before you end for the day, make sure to tell them that we are all different from each other, but we were all created in the image of God.

Other features you could use:

1. Darkest curls. (Have everyone with curly hair stand up. Have the three with the darkest curls come to the front of the room.)
2. If you can curl your tongue. (Choose that your praise for being reverent to come up.)
3. If you have a hitchhiker's thumb.
4. If you can wiggle your eyebrows.
5. A child that is being really reverent (just throw that in every once in a while).
6. Red hair
7. Dark brown hair (and you are wearing red today ... + ... to narrow it down)
8. Light brown hair
9. Brown eyes
10. Blue, green, or grey eyes
11. etc. ...

To add a visual to this, every time they come up, you could have them build a visual, like cutting out a tasteful picture of one of the heroes from the scriptures, to assemble together in a puzzle on the chalkboard, to build a picture of someone that was made in the image of God. 

I Will Follow God's Plan - Week 2

Did I already mention that I love how beautifully this song lends itself to strong visuals?

I was thinking about how to better tie the song into the lessons for this month, and with this month's song, it is particularly easy to do ...

This month's lessons for sharing time are:

Week 1 - Heavenly Father has a plan for his children.
Week 2 - Heavenly Father commanded Jesus Christ to create the earth as home for His children.
Week 3 -  My body is created in the image of God.
Week 4 - Agency is the gift to choose for myself.

So, keeping the lessons for the month in mind, I see the weeks breaking out as follows:

Week 1 - Introduce the song (last week)
Week 2 - Review the song with the "lovely home on earth" part of the song.
Week 3 - Review the song with the "body is created in the image of God" aspect of the song.
Week 4 - Take a break - Review Month 1 song, Month 2 song, and all the songs from Year 2013 so they don't forget them!

Week 2 - Reviewing a lovely home on earth

Make this a game by having the children assemble a picture of a home on earth. Either a house or the earth ... or even make the earth a backdrop and assemble the house on top of it, but I think it's easy to make the parts for a house.

 

You will tell them that they are putting together the line of a song by finding pictures about the whole song so part of their interest here will be the challenge of trying to figure out what they are building (which is why the house works better for this than the earth.) Children take turns coming up to the front of the room and pulling an object out of a bag. If they pull out an image, they get to find the matching number on the poster board to finish putting together the image. If they pull out a "dud" image they have to finish the sentence for a line of the song. However, they can call on a "lifeline" - someone else in the primary - to help finish if they don't know the missing words to fill in the blank.

 For this song/activity, I like keeping the images very geometric and using bright colors. I used a program to quickly draw a few shapes or this post, but I would just use colored construction paper. Part of the appeal here is that it will take them at least two turns to figure out what they are assembling if the images are subtle enough (by being so geometric).

Another way to do this - if you have Lincoln Logs, it would be fun to just have them add a log to the house (get them started with a base to save them time). Each child that comes up gets a log for answering a question correctly. You can make up simple questions (Fill in this line of the song -or- Is this picture of xxx something that helps us follow God's plan -or- True or False ...).

Sample questions:
1. My life is a __________?
2. What did I choose to do? Hint: "My life has a purpose, in Heav'n it began. My choice was to come __________________"
3. What does this song tell me I need seek to direct me from birth?
4. What two things does this song say I need to hold fast to?
5. This song says I will work, and I will ______?

Of course - you want to make sure the children sing - so have them sing the line of the songs that they pull out of the bag. If they don't know the answer to the question, have the class sing it, while they listen for the answer. Throw in singing the song staccato or legato or get them moving by having them stand up and spin every time they hear the word "life," and clap their hands above their heads every time they hear the word "I." You can sneak this in bit by bit by adding one new motion every time they pick a new card but only having them sing every third card so that they aren't singing the song a million times in one day.

Introducing "I Will Follow God's Plan"

This song is great because it has such visual words. This will be Fast Sunday, so of course, singing time and sharing time tends to be shorter, but I think in Junior Primary you could almost stick to just the intro and begin the object game, to be finished on a second Sunday. My senior primary knows this song well so for them, this is just a review, but I think this type of activity is fun even if you already know the words of the song.

The great thing about this activity is that it teaches the song in an attention-getting way, but only takes about 10 minutes to prepare the lesson. The rest is up to you to make sure you have learned the song :)

I. First, introduce the song

Pick a fun, new way for children to select papers that let them read clues about the song. I haven't done my Singing Notes in over a year, so I'd bring that back (in short, find a fun visual, hide clues under the papers, and let the kids throw bean bags or something, or even put blind folds on them, to let them pick a note, or whatever other object you made).  Or, since Chinese New Year is this weekend, it would be nice to put the clues in the traditional red envelopes. 

Clues for "I Will Follow God's Plan":

1. The words and music for this song were written by Vanja Y. Watkins.

2. This song is about Mosiah 2:41.

3. This song is on page 164 of the Children's Songbook.

4. This song was written in 1981.

5. The writer of this song also has six other songs in the Children's Songbook, though this is probably her most well-known. She also wrote "Easter Hosanna," "Thank Thee for Everything," and "For Thy Bounteous Blessings."

6. Play two notes of the song. (Add two notes if two notes have already been played.)

7. Play two notes of the song.  (Add two notes if two notes have already been played.)

II. Introduce the words and meaning

Option #1

I did this activity two years ago in January 2012;  basically, have a "right" and a "wrong" option for key visuals in the song that will help the children to remember the song. Then, call a reverent child to the front of the room, tell the child the line of the song, but without the "missing" word, and have them guess the correct object use. I had all the objects set up on the table, but would hold up the two that were relevant to that line of the song (which I had jotted down on notes in front of me so I wasn't scrambling to find the correct object to use).

For instance, the first line of the song is, "My life is a gift." Therefore, you could have two objects - a wrapped present and a banana, and say, do you think it is, "My life is a gift" or "My life is a banana?" 

My life is a  - or - My life is a ??

As the children correctly sort through the objects, have them sing lines of the song, and hold up the objects for them to remind them of the words that they will sing. This helps them to do the repetition that is so crucial to memorizing and learning, but without them feeling like they are singing the same words over and over. In addition, it gives you a chance to talk about each line of the song, and why the appropriate word was used.

I made recommendations of what objects to use below. Make sure your "wrong" object is clearly the wrong choice. 

Line of song	Correct object	Wrong object
My life is a GIFT;	Wrapped present	Banana or other piece of fruit
my life has a PLAN.	Draw a little map that replicates what the presidency has been teaching during sharing time, showing a person on the left, the pre-mortal world, earth, and returning to our Father in Heaven.	Bike pump
My life has a purpose, in HEAV'N it began.	Arrow pointing up (draw this on a piece of paper with grass below and sky above so it’s clear that you are pointing up, not down).	A necklace
My CHOICE	CTR ring or giant shield	Spatula
was to come to this lovely HOME	Small house statue or picture of a house	Shampoo bottle
on EARTH	Globe	a keychain
And seek for God's LIGHT to direct me from birth. I will follow God's plan for me,	Flashlight	Etc … other suggestions … scissors, a pen, an ipod, a box of tissues … small things that are neutral and might cause a couple of giggles but are also not disrespectful!

Option #2

Another fun way to do this is to write all the words out on a poster board, put the pictures on the chalkboard, and let children pick which image is correct to fill in the blank. This way is harder because there are some pics that could potentially go in some of the spots but would not be the correct picture for that spot. 

Use velcro stickers so the children can add the picture to the correct spot on the poster board as they identify the correct pictures.

The last Sunday of the Month

Don't forget to take a break from working on your January song. The children (and teachers!) are going to get bored of working on the same song over and over again, and you're only on Song #1 of the new year. I know it's so hard to break it up sometimes when you think "I have only one month before I have to move onto the next song, or I'm going to get behind!!" However, it always works out - this year there are many songs that have been in recent past programs, which means the senior kids at least only need a refresher.

One tip if it makes you nervous to skip a Sunday of working on that song, is to use the song for either opening or closing exercises.

Some fun options for singing time this Sunday:

1. Chinese New Year is coming up at the end of the month. Ask them if anyone knows what special holiday is coming up at the end of the week. I'll bet this answer will vary depending on where you live in the United States.

You can pick up the traditional red envelopes that are given in honor of the holiday (usually with money in them) at Asian markets at this time of year. You can also make your own red envelope, since the kids aren't likely to realize that it doesn't look authentic! However, instead of putting the traditional money in the envelope, put either a song they know, a trivia question, or some other fun option in each envelope. Since this month's song is a series of questions and answers, it would be fun to have the trivia part be the questions from "He Sent His Son," but to actually leave that song out, and have all the other envelopes be other songs that are related to the theme for the month, "Heavenly Father Prepared a Way for Me to Return to His Presence."

2. Puzzle. Valentine's Day is coming up and I NEVER seem to have time to do a Valentine's Day theme. Cut out a giant, red heart. Cut it into five pieces, then stuff them each in a balloon before blowing it up. Children get to come up, pop the balloon, get out the puzzle piece, and sing the song on the balloon. You can tell children you are going to choose them by how well they are singing, or how reverent they are during sharing time, etc. I would focus on having them sing songs from the theme this month, and reviewing 2013 and 2012 songs ... "lest they forget." :)

3. You can be really theme-based by cutting out footprints and putting them on the ground. Children will be invited up to choose a footprint. They will be able to read what is on top of the footprint, which will review something they learning in sharing time this month, and then the song underneath. Sometimes it will be blank so they will not have a song to sing. Or maybe instead of being blank, it will have a question asking them how they can show that they are preparing to follow Jesus Christ to live with their Father in Heaven again.

For footsteps about things they learned, refer to the sharing time manual, but here are some ideas:

1. Psalms 82:6 tells us that we are children of God and can be like him someday.
2. Christ’s Atonement is like a bridge that will help us return to Heavenly Father; if we repent and obey the commandments, we will be able to live with Him again.
3. Jesus Christ is our perfect example. He showed love to others and wants us to do the same.
4. We follow the example of Jesus Christ when we serve others.
5. Heavenly Father loves every one of us and wants us to feel his love for us.

Learning "He Sent His Son"

Our primary sang "He Sent His Son" for the Christmas program last year so they actually learned this one fairly recently. I also ended up having our bishopric 1st Counselor introduce the song last year. I was not in primary that Sunday, but he told me that the primary already knew the song fairly well. So, I never used Week 1 of my lesson plan from 2012. Here's what I planned out last year to prepare this song for the Christmas program:

Week 1 - "What Song Am I" followed by an image-matching activity

Week 2 - Traditional "Cover the Flipchart" game and the bell game

I really did not spend much time on this song last year because they knew it so well!!

This is a great song though, for using the two sides of the room - one side sings the questions, and the other side sings the answers. You can do this a few times, then swap sides, etc.

My biggest win last year was successfully encouraging the Sunbeams to participate during singing time, with my "latch board" activity. I was super excited by how well this activity worked, and would use it again to kick off 2014, but with new hints and pictures behind the windows and doors for the new song.

Hints for What Song Am I? game:
1. This song was written by Mabel Jones Gabbott, who was born in 1910.
2. The music for this song was written by Michael Finlinson Moody, who was born in 1941. President Moody has served several missions for the church.
3. Moroni 7:48 talks about this song. (Look up the scripture.) ... or for the easier hint: John 3:16
4. This song was written in 1982. This means that in some cases, you parents weren't even born yet when this song was written!
5. The same two people who wrote the music and words for this song also wrote the music and words for "Sleep Little Jesus" and "Have a Very Merry Christmas." (This clue is significant for our ward because we did not knowingly pick two Christmas songs to learn that were written by the same two people!)
6. Play the first two notes of the song.
7. Play the first three notes of the song.