Focused Activity: He Sent His Son

Idea 1: Match Game

I am going to play the Match Game at least one Sunday this month. Mount the pictures onto all the same color of construction paper. Have a picture with a line all on one side. One for each line, separate the question from the answer. Put them up face away from the children. Have a child come up and pick two, do they match? If so, sing that question and answer set. If they don't know, have them sing the whole song, then identify if they went together. If you put the question set that has 2 questions (What does he ask? What do the scriptures say?) up twice, there are 6 (12 squares), also to get 6 you could have a "you pick a song" to match to another "you pick a song" to get 6 squares. Since Sunday is Valentines day, I decided to mount my pictures and lines on hearts.

Idea 2: Sing the Answer
Or it could be called 'sing the question'. This idea came from singing "A Child's Prayer". The older children love singing songs where they do an echo, or sing a different times (favorite is boys separate from girls). By doing an activity where we split who is singing each part will get them more involved waiting for their part. Here are some ideas of ways to split it up. Each example can be flipped- answer/question also.

• You sing the question, then have them sing the answer. You'll be silent during that part- listening to them only.
• All adults sing the question, then the children sing the answer.
• Pick one class to sing the question, everyone else sings the answer.
• Boys sing the question, girls sing the answer.
• Left side of the room sings the questions, Right side sings the answer.
• Give them the answer and have them tell you the question.
• Anyone over a certain age sing the question, all under sing the answer.
• Pick a select group of children to stand at their seat to sing the question, everyone still sitting sings the answer.
• Anyone waring _______ sing the question, everyone else sings the answer.

I'm sure you can think of many more.

Idea 3: Fill in the blank
I know this one is other there a lot. I normally don't like to do it with the JR primary because I think all the words are too hard for them, but I think this song really lends itself to it. Write on it only write words that are the SAME for other lines, leave a blank for each different word. Write the missing words on stripes of paper that are cut to fit perfectly on the blank lines. Fill in the blanks, if the word is unknown where it goes sing the part of the song it belongs to and see if the children can remember where it went after they were done singing.

The other way this could be done is to only put the unique phrases and words on the board. Then have the common phrases on the strips. Have the strips color codes to what type of phrase it is ie: "How could the Father" could be red, while "He sent his Son" could be written in blue, and I did the small words (tell, show, ask, us, we, with, and) in purple. Go through the song and have the children match which lines goes in that blank. Make the blanks the color (marker or I used construction paper) of the strip.

Teaching: He Sent His Son (February Song)

The chorister before me had been in this calling for 7 years. When she was released, I inherited dozen of song helps that are already made. Many of her helps I have not used because I don't really like what she chose to do. At the start of this year I went through the whole box to find what was already made for this year's songs. Again some I don't want to use, but I really like the simplicity of this one. She printed the questions and answers separate. Then there are questions for each one. Each phrase that has the word "world" in it has a world. For each world there is a key word phrase above it ie: "tell" and "Show". I made the question marks for each phrase to note there is a question here. The phrase that has two questions right after each other has two questions marks next to their card. Each sign and pictures has their own magnate for putting up on the board.
If I was to do it myself here are some pictures I would suggest using from the church's web site. The color ones are from the new Gospel Art spiral book and the coloring pages are from the Friend site. If you are one of those people who feel uncomfortable even drawing an earth, this link takes you to a world in the coloring pages, use any Nativity picture for the second line. Just a side note, I like coloring so I choose the coloring pages. Also I could use them to have the children color. I'm sorry these are out of order of the song, but I am having issues with Blogger. It is the picture with the line it would go with below it.

He sent his song to walk with men, on earth that we may know (above)

How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go (above-sorry out of order I'm having issues with blogger)

How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness (above-1st line, I would use a pic of the earth, a heart, and a question mark with it).

What does he ask? Live like His Song (above)

What does the Father ask of us? What do the scriptures say?

Have faith, have hope, live like His Son, help others on their way.

He sent His Song to die for us and rise with living breath.

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice of death?

Along with the lines and pictures (I like that they are all separate, so that while I am teaching them I can take things away and see how well they can do it without) I am going to use ASL to note the question and the answer. For phrases that begin with "how" we will sign "How". The questions that begin "what" we will sign "What". With the start of each answer, we will sign the "Answer". They are just one word signs. We are not planing to do it with the program, it is just a sign to help the younger kids, after all I have a lot of sunbeams. I always struggle helping them learn the songs. My JR primary is so large and almost none of them can ready yet. Everyone says teach to the most advanced children in the class and the other's will follow. I think, lots of pictures, and multiple ways to connect with the song.