When I received the call to be the Junior Primary Chorister. I was shocked to receive the call because I can’t sing very well, but have been surprised how my teaching skills as an elementary teacher have come into play. I wanted to share an idea that I used this month and you can do with it what you want.
When I received this calling about 6 months ago, I realized that the kids did not know any of the songs for the program. Luckily we have covered most of them now, except for 2 of them, and they just so happen to be the hardest I feel. So I decided that the best way for the younger ones to learn I Know That My Redeemer Lives was through repetition because you can’t really do pictures to go along with those phrases. Therefore, I came up with a game that I call Parakeet Repeat.
First, I showed the kids a picture of a parakeet and explained that there are some birds that you can teach to talk. It is a lot of fun, but they then tend to say things over and over again. So to practice I said things like “pretty bird” and had them be the parakeet. We then went through the song and they were my parakeets which repeated the phrases after me their owner. After which time, I had a helper roll a die that I made out of a large box and put numbers on it. If it landed on 4 then they had to sing the first phrase “I know that my Redeemer lives” four times. Then “What comfort this sweet sentence gives” maybe 2 times, depending on what they rolled. We did that until we got half way through the song and then sang it all together. The following week we played Parakeet Repeat again in order to finish off the rest of the phrases. This worked really well and even though this was a fun way to practice the song, I made sure to continually talk about the words and the meaning behind this beautiful hymn.
Shannon S.
Herriman, Utah