Monday, May 9, 2011

Teaching: Praise to the Man Hymn 27

I know most of you out there have already started teaching this song and this will be of no help to you, but I started today (May 8th). I had a sub last Sunday the 1st and this was my first Sunday back. I had been dreading teaching this song due to all the BIG words that most of the Primary children don't know how to read let alone say or understand the meanings of. After looking at a number of other blogs for ideas and stewing over it a lot, of course prayer too. I decided that I couldn't ignore these words. Instead I wanted to emphasize them and define them and drill them into their heads. That is much more my style anyway.
To start I wrote the following words HUGE on blue sheets of construction paper (did not place definitions on the construction paper), definitions are what I used to explain:

  • commune --to communicate in an intimate way being in the same place and speaking face to face
  • Jehovah  -- a name for Jesus
  • anointed -- set apart, chosen by God, we anoint the sick, calling
  • seer -- a seer is a prophet, someone who can see more then others, sees what God wants them to see
  • dispensation -- a set period of time in the history of the world, each dispensation has a prophet who is the prophet of that dispensation.
  • extol -- to honor or acclaim as the best of what it is, recognize is high value
  • revere -- to honor or remember in high reverence 
  • ascended -- to go up
  • traitors and tyrants -- wicked evil people who betray and want power
  • vain -- pointlessly
  • mingling -- socialize, spend time with

Then all the other words I wrote on strips of orange construction paper. Then I tried to find as many pictures to go with words of the song as I possibly could. Here are some coloring pages I used. (I use coloring pages as to not use up all my ink, I can choose to leave them b&w or take the time to color them in or outline them). Many of these I cut down to be smaller, and some are not Church official pictures. As many as I could find I used from past Friends.
Traitors and Tyrants/ fight
dispensation/open
Kings
Open
commune, mingling
nations
just brothers- revere
seer
Jehovah, Jesus
man
prophet
hero
anointed
dispensation
prophet

extol
brethren
I placed the pictures next to the words they went with.
To teach I started by having the pianist play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" I had asked her to try to play it not exactly like Twinkle Twinkle. I had the children listen to the song and raise their hand if they knew what song she was playing. when I asked them to answer I got 3 different songs: "Twinkle Twinkle", "Baah Baah Black Sheep", and "ABC's". I asked the children to think and vote which song it was. Most of them were very confused at that point. I explained that this song was written by Mozart, but we have used it for many different  songs, just changing the words. WW Phelps did the same thing by using an old Scottish Folk Song's melody to write this song to remember the martyred Joseph Smith Jr after his death.
As I placed each line up, and we came to a BIG word on the blue paper, we defined and discussed the word. I had a couple teachers afterwards come up and say that it was even a good review for them because some of those words we just assumed their meanings but never really thought about it. I had the children practice saying each word correctly. We only got through the first verse (not to the chorus) but the children were really interested in the words and were trying really hard. I hope it sticks with them. 

5 comments:

Annell said...

Thank you!! I was totally thinking along these lines and just got on the computer to find pictures to go along with the big words, when I decided to check your blog first! Thank you Thank you!! I just got called and get to introduce this song this coming week. I'm having one of the brothers in our ward come sing the actual song to them so they know and feel how it sounds. Thanks again!

jenniferintouch said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This is so much better than the flip chart I had planned to use tomorrow (today). I can't thank you enough for sharing. Utah Girl

The Manwaring Family said...

Thank you! I loved the definitions of those difficult words. Thanks for posting this!

RaeLynn said...

I'm a new chorister and am having to basically re-teach this song. Thank you so much for these great ideas! I'm so glad I stumbled upon your blog!

Nicole said...

Thank you so much for posting this. I'm a little late in teaching this song and this helped so much. I used your pictures to make a memory game and gave each teacher a word and a definition. When the kids got a match I had the teacher explain the definition. I'm hoping this well help them remember the words to the song a little bit better.