In this post I have a flip chart with beautiful pictures, a flip chart with mostly just words, hand motions to go along with the song, a way to sing the song with scarves, and a memorization puzzle. I will keep updating this post as more ideas come to me :)
Flip Chart
Here is a file with my flip chart that I like to use for this song. You can see my favorite way to use a flip chart in the photo above. I tape them together so they can fold up accordion style. This way, when I get to church I can easily add them to the board using push pins or magnets. I have a separate one that I hole punch for my 3 ring binder for when we perform. You can access the flip chart here. As a tip, if you are viewing this from your phone, click the three dots in the upper left hand corner and select "print layout" for easier viewing:
I also just made a flip chart of "mostly" just the words for this song. Sometimes when I have a review week, we will sing 6-8 songs, so it is nice to have a flip chart that I can hang over my binder. Then I just flip the pages as we sing. I find I use hand motion, actions, and instruments so much, that flipping a chart to often can get hard. So on those days, when the songs wont all fit on the board, I just use mostly the words. These are also great for when you want to review a song as they come into primary. They have the words, but you are mostly just using your hands to lead. In this "Just Words" flip chart, I did leave in a couple of pictures because the chorus is so much shorter than the verse. You can see that flip chart here:
Hand Motions
I made a video with the hand motions that I like to use for this song. It is a mix of hand motions and ASL. I usually try to use whatever I think will stick most in their heads. You will notice I chose the praying hands hand motion for "Gethsemane" since that was a big part of what he did in Gethsemane. I love to emphasize the meaning behind the hand motions when I teach them. I don't explain each hand motion, just the ones that will help the get the meaning behind the words. So when I taught this I emphasized the sign for "pain" and talked about how he feels all that we have felt or ever will feel. I also like to emphasize how the song says "Jesus loves me." We know that He loves all of us, but He also loves me personally.
Scarves
I made a video with singing this song using scarves. You could also alter this for using ribbon rings or ribbon wands as well. My kiddos love the action we used for "the hardest thing" in this video. So hopefully yours do too! In this one, when we spin around, I love emphasizing that we spin around because no one was with him and how He was all alone. The older kids loved making the flower for Spring. It took a minute for some of them to get, but they really enjoyed that part. I also made sure they knew that the heart for "love me" should end close to their heart because of the love He has for each one of us. This one was a hit with my primary, so I plan to use it again this week as we have a fun St. Patrick's Day singing time!
Picture Puzzle
Since we are performing an Easter song and a Mother's Day song this year, and Easter happens to be later this year, I decided to do my Easter focused lesson a week before Easter. My plan is to review our Easter song "Gethsemane" and talk about the different parts of the story as we sing the song.
Gethsemane is a beautiful song, but it often touches on the long dark night, and the hard parts of the reality of Gethsemane. So I thought it would work out perfectly to talk about those parts as we build a puzzle to the happy ending of the story, the Resurrection. After all, it is why we celebrate Easter! While scrolling through the Primary Choristers page on Facebook, I saw this amazing puzzle file that you can print up by JaNeil Tooley. It is 16 pages but the image prints up awesome! Here is that file if you need it:
So I printed up the file on cardstock, and then I reformatted my flip chart to fit portrait style (instead of my usual landscape). Then I printed it off on normal paper. After both copies were printed up, I put them back to back in sheet protectors and cut off the holes portion of the sheet protector (ensuring I didn't cut the part where it seals together to hold the papers in). I wanted to make this activity be something we could do again and again each year if I wanted to because it seems like so much fun!
Now that you know how to make it, here is how I hope to use it. I plan to use this to help with memorization of the words. I will post the words side using heavy duty magnets on the rolling chalkboard in primary. Then I will tell them we are going to work on remembering the words and I will be looking for super singers to help me choose pieces to flip over to see what image is underneath. I plan to pick at least 2 singers each time to flip over words. Then we will sing the song again, and keep flipping it over until all the words are covered. If I find I am short on time, I will pick more singers as we go along to make sure we can flip all the words over. It should be a fun time!
I plan to lead them using my hand motions as we sing as an extra visual reminder for them. I like to lead them using hand motions to help the little ones remember the words as we perform in Sacrament Meeting. I also have my husband flip the flip chart so that kids have multiple ways to remember the song if they have missed a week or just get a little nervous. So it is okay if they don't have it all memorized, but this game is a great way to aid in that memorization process.
Here is the file for my flip chart in case you are singing Gethsemane too. As a tip, if you are viewing this from your phone, click the three dots in the upper left hand corner and select "print layout" for easier viewing:
Happy singing!
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