November 2, 2014

Follow the Prophet Singing Time- NOAH


Today I taught the Noah verse of Follow The Prophet (Children's Songbook #110)
We had so much fun & I really enjoyed getting this lesson ready and teaching it to the kids! The ideas came to me late on Saturday night, after a super busy week- and after a beautiful rainstorm!
I found this awesome arc print-out HERE, and my kids enjoyed cutting out the pieces and building the arc this morning!



Each raindrop has a question written on the back and we either sing to find the answer or for the BONUS questions, take a guess or ask a teacher! (For senior primary, you could even give them a verse to read the scriptures to find the answer!!) As we would pull off each raindrop to read the question, I would put it under the arc to form the "flood".

So to start out, I told them we would sing "Echo Chamber" style, meaning that I would sing a line and they pretend they're in a cave and get to be my echo! When I first started out as chorister, I was terrified of singing by myself (like super-highly anxious, stomach ache kinda nervous!!) But I watched THIS video one day and it really made me realize it doesn't matter how I sing, but that I do so with the spirit, and of course I always ask for help & have found the Lord has blessed my voice to be stronger and I'm much more confident now!

So, I sang the first line
"Adam was a prophet, called to preach the word" 
and they repeated it.
Then I picked a "reverent helper" from the stick system we use to answer the question. (We have a cup of large popsicle sticks with their name on each one. I draw a stick when I need a helper, and if they are being reverent--they get to help!)
-Question #1: Who was Noah? A prophet of God (see, we are going very simple here)
Re-sing the line if they don't know the answer and they will catch on quickly that the answers can be found in the song!!
-BONUS #1: How old was Noah when he built the arc? 600 years old! I had a 9 year old boy *guess* this answer!!
-Question #2: What was Noah called to preach to the people? The “word” of God/gospel.

Then we sang line 1& 2 together, they echo line 2:
"Tried to cry repentance, but nobody heard"
-Question #3: What does repentance mean? To say sorry & stop doing the bad things.
-Question #4: Who listened to Noah? “nobody” (except his family!) His family had faith that Noah was following God, and they went with him in the arc and were protected!
-BONUS #2: How many sons did Noah have? and What were their names? 3 sons- Shem, Ham, Japheth (the child who was picked had a Grandma who was a primary teacher in the room, so she asked her for help!)

We then sang lines 1-3, they echo line 3:
-Question #5: What were the people of Noah’s time doing? "Sinning"- very wicked & violent. Remeber to RE-sing that line if they need help answering the question! The more we repeat, the better!!
-Question #6: What did the Lord tell Noah He was going to do? Going to destroy every living thing on the face of the earth because the people were evil & would not listen. Rain for 40 days & 40 nights. Noah needed to build an arc to keep his family & 2 of every animal safe! (This was a very vague question so I took any answer- a sunbeam gave a great answer!) Pretty much just explain the rest of the story of Noah that hasn't been discussed yet :)

Then we sang the WHOLE song together & the chorus!! The kids already knew the chorus because of learning it this year for the program, but they only knew the first verse about Adam. So we stood & sang together & marched during the chorus. They love doing this!

We had a little extra time so I asked if they wanted to do a couple more BONUS questions and they all said yes!! 
-BONUS #3: How old was Noah when he died? 950! (I reminded them that he built the arc at 600 years old, the child guessed 1,000- so close!!)
-BONUS #4: What does the Rainbow Represent? The promise/covenant the Lord made with man to not flood the earth again. I also reminded them that we sing about rainbows in When I am Baptized because rainbows help us remember that we can start fresh & clean by repenting anytime we need to!

We then sang Rain is Falling All Around (CS 241) with actions-- to get their wiggles out before Sharing Time, and we sang it faster and faster with the pianist. It was super fun!

Anyways, it was a huge success, and I had a blast, the kids loved it and I will be teaching more verses throughout the next few months. I was so happy to read that Follow The Prophet will be a song in the 2015 program too!! I loved the line by line teaching and the questions added a fun twist. Let me know if you find this helpful!!

4 comments:

The Goodwin's said...

I love this idea! I can't wait to use it with the kids. We're only learning 3 verses for the program to simplify things.

Kami said...

This is fantastic! I found this post a little while ago and have been planning to use it to teach this verse to my primary, which I'm doing this Sunday! Thank you!

Unknown said...

Looking forward to trying this out this Sunday. Thanks for the great idea!

Anonymous said...

I was called last minute to substitute for singing time and found this post. It worked out GREAT! You're a LIFESAVER!