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Children holding hands around the
world
Graphic good for a visual aid and enlarges nicely.
Another good graphic....click
here.
Teach the chorus first. Divide the children into
four groups. Tell the first group to join hands and echo the first phrase back
to you after you sing it: “We are children holding hands around the world.” Tell
the second group to march in place and extend their arms as if they were holding
a large flag and echo, “Like an army with the gospel flag unfurled.” Tell the
third group to gesture with their arms toward heaven as they echo, “We are led
by His light,” and place their hands on their hearts as they echo, “And we love
truth and right.” Ask the fourth group to think of something they do to build
the kingdom—help others, bring friends to Primary, pay tithing, etc. Choose one
action to mimic as they echo back to you, “We are building the kingdom of God.”
Sing the chorus by groups, then exchange phrases and sing again. Sing the first
verse for them in phrases and clap the rhythm. Have them repeat each phrase,
clapping and singing with you. Gather or draw simple pictures to illustrate the
words: for example, Primary picture 3-65 (children singing in Primary), GAK
600 (The World), a
smiley face, a bell, a flashlight. Have one child demonstrate “standing tall,”
another child “walking strong,” and another holding a CTR shield for “choosing
right.” Or have all the children stand for “standing tall,” march in place for
“walking strong,” and hold up their CTR rings for “choosing right.” Have them
sit down on the two rest beats. Follow the same approach to teach the second
half of the verse. [Idea
from
May 2006 Friend Sharing Time Suggestion]
You could
have the children take construction paper, outline their hands and
write the following things on one side: their first name, age,
what state they live in ,and their favorite primary song. On the
other side they could draw a picture or write their testimony.
You could then exchange these hands with another Primary around the
country or world. Network with people. Do you have a missionary serving
in your ward? Do you have family members in another state? If they
are willing to "swap" hands, ask for the person's e-mail address and you could
correspond until the project is complete. You could then put these
"hands" up all over our room to reinforce the idea that there are children all
over the world who are members of the church and believe as they do.
(Credit Unknown)
Versus: I had the
lines typed out to the versus and gave them to the classes and asked them to
repeat them a few times (in small groups). Then we listened to the song on
CD and I asked the classes to listen for when their part was sung. They all
smiled and easily recognized when they heard their part. I then went through
the song a few times and had each class stand and sing their part. For the
second verse we are adding a little harmony part so I am going to work with
the girls either in their class next week or ask them to come to my home and
practice a few times. It's a really simple part.
Chorus: First, I had them beat out the rhythm since it's a
little tricky. Then we hummed it together, then worked on the words.
"We are children holding hands around the world" - had 2 children come up
and hold hands, and another child hold the picture of the world from GAK.
"Like an army" - picture of stripling warriors
"With the gospel flag unfurled" - waved our "Title of Liberty" flag
"We are led by his light" - picture of Christ and a candle
"and we love truth and right" - word strips of "truth" and "right" with a
heart superimposed.
"We are building the kingdom of God" - had them pretend to be building (like
in the "Wise Man" song).
I also pointed out that the music builds right there at the end so that
helps us to remember to build. Next year I plan to teach the verses to
everyone but with 5 weeks until the program I figured this was the easiest
way this year. They learned it pretty well the first week. Next week we'll
work on it some more and then we are going to review all the songs for the
CSMP before the big practices and performance.
If anyone is interested in printing out flags
from around the world as visuals for May to go along with the Holding Hands
song, I found a website
www.flags.net that gives an
alphabetical index of all the countries in the world & their flags. I just
picked a few (37 to be exact) and did the right click and save as. Then I
printed them out 5x7 size on card stock and I'm going to use them as
decorations for the room. (Jessica Skinner)
(Credit
Unknown) I taught Holding Hands in February because I am going to be gone
most of the month of May. I'm not the most creative person, but I will
happily share what I did with my kids. To start off introducing the song, I
played the song on the CD player. Then, I had them bang out the rhythm
(which is tricky) with wooden blocks that they hit together. This was a
huge hit and at first not successful as far as beating out the actual
rhythm, but after a couple times through, they had it down well. Then I
taught the chorus. I had photos with words to help them out.
The next
week, I taught the first verse to the seniors and the first part of the the
first verse to the juniors. I put flags from different nations on the back
of each chair in the primary. I had each of them look at the colors they
had in their flags. Then, I told them when I waved the scarf that had one
of their colors, they had to stand up and sing. We just kept singing it
over and over until they had it. The seniors had such fun they didn't even
notice that they sang it over and over or that they had actually learned it
through repetition!!! My juniors had fun playing the game, but they sang
through the whole thing. There was too much coordination between
remembering the colors, watching me, standing up, and singing only when you
were standing! But, they sang, and they had fun. The next week, for the
seniors, I played a matching game with key words to the phrase on the back.
I had pictures of children from all over the world in their native dress.
Then, I had pictures of Books of Mormon in their native tongue. They had to
match them up. So that the order of the phrases would be correct, I handed
them the picture of the child (does that make sense?) Anyway, this seemed to
be a big hit as well because the kids were challenged. The seniors learned
the second verse that week. With my juniors we did hats from around the
world and worked more on the first verse. The last week, I had multicultural
hands that I gave to each child. With the seniors, we did the stand up and
sing when your hand is chosen, and then if you have a girl hand, or a boy
hand etc. It kept their interest because they had to pay close attention to
which hand I was holding up. With my juniors, I had a huge fabric map of
the world that I laid on the floor. I just had them hold their little
multicultural hand and march around the map of the world singing the verse.
They had fun, but didn't sing too much because they were busy watching the
person in front of them. So, expect mayhem if you use this idea. If I were
doing it again, I'd have them just march around the room. Anyway, our
seniors know the entire song from memory but they get mixed up at the end of
the second verse and our juniors know the first verse and chorus. They
really like this song a lot and thought
it was one
of the most fun to teach. It's really catchy!
Review Holding Hands Idea #1
I have made some little stick people holding hands (the paper kind you can
easily make), but I made each one out of a different color. As we review
this song later in the month I can hold up the people and have all the kids
sing, but the ones who are wearing that color stand while I have that color
showing (or who have that eye color, hair color, shoe color, etc.). I hope
it will be a fun review.
Review Holding Hands Idea #2
I bought one of those sticky hands at Wal-Mart for 88 cents and I have
printed up key words that go with the verse. I put together pictures to help
them remember the words, too. I am going to have the key words on the floor
and choose children who are singing their best come up and "choose" a word
with the sticky hand. Then we will have to match it to the picture it goes
with. I hope they will have fun and memorize the words a little easier.
Song Idea by Anne Brown
Song Idea by
Annie Emmertson
(Idea by Holly Simmons)
On this song, I drew pictures for the various
phrases, put them in page protectors and then placed them in a binder. I
flip the pages until we get to the chorus. Then, we use the actions
suggested in the Friend.
Actions:
"We are children, holding hands around the world" (hold hands and
raise them in the air)
"Like an army with our gospel flag unfurled" (put hands together and pretend
to wave a flag in the air)
"We are lead by his light" (Raise hand in the air, arms straight and
extended towards heaven. The children have tendency to look up as well)
"For we love truth and right" (put hands over heart, sign language for love)
"We are building the kingdom of God" (pretend to stack blocks or bricks upon
one another)
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