"Praise to the Man" Bagpipe intro and Singing Backwards with helpers

After searching, praying, thinking, stressing, and racking my brain to come up with a great idea of how to teach "Praise to the Man" to the Primary, the answer came so simply: let the children teach.  Usually when I invite the children to help me teach, or assign different parts to the older children to teach, I am humbled and reawaken to the ever so true fact: their ideas are SO much better than mine.  So it will be with this powerful song.

We will be working on this hymn all throughout May, so my schedule will be as follows.

May 1st:  Intro with guest Bagpiper on history of W.W. Phelps with emphasis on learning the melody.  See Below for Lesson Plan.
(Any extra time will be spent working on our Mother's Day song for next week's sacrament meeting.)
May 8th:  CHORUS
May 15th: 1st verse
May 22nd: 3rd verse
May 29th: Silent Sing with both verses and chorus.  This is an idea from Sharla Dance.  She has a great blog filled with so many good ideas.

*Any extra singing time this month will be spent learning a song for Father's Day on June 19th.  

CLICK HERE for Teaching Assignments

The Chorus, 1st Verse, and 3rd Verse are broken up into four lines each.  

So there will be 4 helpers each Sunday.  

I used THIS CHART  to stay organized.
How I give out teaching assignments (Give out assignments the week before they teach):

1.  Call/Talk to the parent of the child to see if they'll be here the week they will teach.  Explain to them what his/her child will need to do to prepare (Learn the line, be prepared to teach it to the whole primary using a prop of some sort and or actions).  Tell the parent I will be over to give a personal invite to their child.

2.  Go to the house of the child.  I do this so they will feel important.  Also, if I hand it out at church other children might feel left out or not special.

3.  Give them a slip of paper with their assignment.

4.  Call/Text a reminder to the child's parents the Saturday before the Sunday they teach.

5.  Be prepared to help a child who didn't come prepared.

6.  I try to take a little Thank You note to them after church the day they teach.

Teaching Backwards!

We will be learning "Praise to the Man" backwards.  Here's the order for the chorus, 1st verse, and 3rd verse.

Chorus:
1.  Death cannot conquer the hero again.
2.  Mingling with Gods he can plan for his brethren.
3.  Traitors and Tyrants now fight him in vain.
4.  Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven!

1st Verse:
1. Kings shall extol him, and nations revere.
2. Blessed to open the last dispensation.
3. Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer.
4. Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah!

3rd Verse:
1. Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old.
2. Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom,
3. Ever and ever the keys he will hold.
4. Great is his glory and endless his priesthood.

I will have the first helper come up and teach the first (last line).  We will sing their line a few times then I will call the next helper up.  We will sing their line and the line we just learned.  And so on and so forth until all four helpers are up in front  of the class and we sing the whole chorus or verse.

Introduction to "Praise to the Man"

Source for W.W. Phelps story
My intro will be something like:
"Remember how we talked about how a lot of songs are poems?  Well, we have another song that is a poem, written by this man."  Show picture of William W. Phelps. "He jointed the church after reading the Book of Mormon."  Show first edition Book of Mormon.  "Later, he left the church and made some wrong choices.  After awhile, he was sad and felt really bad for the choices he had made.  He decided to come back to the church.  He asked for forgiveness from the Lord and the Prophet Joseph Smith.  He was welcomed back into the church again.  He loved the Prophet Joseph and he wrote a poem about him.  William W. Phelps has ancestors from Scotland." Show Scotland on the globe. "They put his poem to a song from Scotland when they made it a hymn.  I thought it would be fun to go visit Scotland and hear this song. It's played on an instrument from Scotland.  When I say go, start singing 'I am a Child of God' and line up behind me.  We are going to pretend to go to Scotland.  Ready GO! I am a Child of God..."
I invited a young man in a different Stake to come play the bagpipes for the Primary.

Will replace with a real picture after tomorrow :-)

We will walk around the church to where he is and he will say, "Welcome to Scotland!  Does anyone know what these are called?  That's right, Bagpipes!  This tune is called Scotland the Brave and it's the tune for "Praise to the Man."
After he plays the song through, "I have another Bag of pipes for you.  Come get one and try to play the tune with me this time by saying DO DO DO in the pipe to the same tune."

"Thanks for visiting Scotland!"

How to make little pipes out of PVC, ribbon, and mod podge
1.  Two 10 ft long 3/4" pipes at Home Depot (mine were $1.49 each)
2.  Cut 5" increments with chop saw.
3.  Drill out 5 holes in front of pipe and one behind.
4.  Dip ends in Mod Podge.
5.  Tie ribbon in hold in back of pipe.

2016 Singing Time Outline

Here's my year overview:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxqAo_WR86j6YVoyRm9CWjkzaG8

If I Listen with My Heart

Date:  January 3, 2016

Opening Song:  I Will Follow God's Plan p.164 CS

Talk, Scripture, Theme, etc.

Visitor Song: Do As I'm Doing p.276 CS
(Have the visitor(s) stand at the front and lead the group.)

Birthday Song: You've Had a Birthday p.285 CS

Singing Time

Materials:
*Signs that say OOH and AHH  

*Giant Pop-up Book of Mormon (This is the prop that I chose to make the story of 'Jesus visiting the   Nephites' (3 Nephi 17) come to life.  Other ideas would be to show a picture of the story or puppets. I did spend about $4 and 10 hours making this, and normally I wouldn't put all the effort and time into a prop, but I plan on using this all year so I decided it was a worthy investment. I got the foam board and tape from the dollar store, watercolored the scenery and cut up an old Gospel Art Book from the thrift store.)

*Dress up clothes for a child from Jesus' time (My kids loved them ...haha :) I just cut up old shirts and got a foam ring from the dollar store.

*Paper hearts with a picture of Jesus on the back for every child (put underneath the stepping stones)

*Stepping stones (tape these to the floor before primary starts)

*Index card with 3 Nephi 17:21 written on it (hide in Book of Mormon)


Introduction:  "Today we are learning a new song.  I have two signs here.  One says OOH and the other says AHH.  Let's practice!  When I hold up OOH, you guys sing OOH.  When I hold up AHH, you guys sing AHH.  Easy right?  Now lets listen really close to the piano, and OOH and AHH the tune of this new song.  But make sure you watch closely, because I might switch the signs and try to trick you!"
 "Awesome!  Now let's learn the words to this song."

Teaching Steps (One line of the Song at a time):
   
      1.  "If I had been a little child when Jesus lived on earth.."
First, invite one child to come up and pretend to be a child when Jesus was on the earth.  Make      sure they know they will be dressing up.  After helping the child with the costume, ask the children, "Can you pretend to be a child in Jesus' time too?  Let's all pretend to dress up like (name of child)."  Pretend to put on clothes.  Sing the first line and have them repeat.  Sing the line 2 times.
      2.  "...I would have liked to walk with Him and Listen to His Words."
"When I say go, walk up quietly and stand on a quiet stepping stone."  When the children are on a stone (I will arrange them into two circles), sing the next line and have them repeat.  Sing the whole song to this point while the children walk in a circle.  You can switch directions each time.
      3.  "But as I search the scriptures I can hear His words of peace,.."
Have the children gather in front of the Giant book or other prop.  Ask,"What does 'search' mean? Right! To look hard for something.  I am going to search these scriptures."  Pull out the index card with 3 Nephi 17:21 from the giant pop up book.  Have a child or teacher read the scripture.  Talk about how when Christ came to visit the Nephites he blessed the little children one by one.
Explain how he didn't just say "I love you all" but said "I love you, Kye." Etc. How would that make you feel inside? PEACEFUL.  Sing the line and have them repeat it twice.  Sing the song up to this point.
      4.    "And if I listen with my heart I hear the Savior's voice."
"When I say go, I want you to search under one stepping stone.  When you find one heart, I want you to take it back to your seat and hold it by your heart.  When everyone is holding it, I'll know you're ready to learn the last line of the song. Ready go."
Have the children hold their heart to their ear when singing the last line.  Sing and repeat 2 times.

Conclusion:
Sing the whole song.
Bear Testimony

Closing Song: Stand for Right p.159

Senior Singing Time Adaptations:

1.  Give the music to a child ahead of time and have them sing it for the class when they dress up like a child from Jesus' time. We have a few children in our ward that love to sing solos whenever they get the chance!

2.  Have them share experiences with reading the scriptures and how it made them feel.  Share personal experience of the scriptures bringing you peace.

3.  Start learning the 2nd verse and bring a picture of President Monson and his recent General Conference talk of how he "teaches how to lie in righteousness and peace."
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/be-an-example-and-a-light?lang=eng

Songs for 2016

Here's the playlist on LDS.org:
https://www.lds.org/callings/primary/sharing-time/music?lang=eng

January:  If I Listen with My Heart
(Found in the 2016 Outline for Sharing Time)
Words:
https://www.lds.org/manual/2016-outline-for-sharing-time/if-i-listen-with-my-heart?lang=eng

Sheet music: https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/magazines/friend/2011/01/fr11jan25_song.pdf

February:  I Will Follow God's Plan p.164 CS

March: Stand for the Right p.159 CS

April: Song of Your Choice from the Children's Songbook
(We are having the pianist choose the song! I felt like the pianist is kind of stuck in the background and wanted to give her a chance to be more involved.  I could not do anything without her!  I will be trying very hard this year to involve her more in the lesson (example: if I wear a crazy hat, then she will with me.  We are a team and the children and I depend on her so much!)

May: Praise to the Man p.27 HYMNS

June: Song of Your Choice from the Children's Songbook
(We have two pianists: one for Junior one for Senior :-)

July: I Love to See the Temple p.95 CS

August: The Lord Gave Me a Temple p.153 CS

For the Primary Program, we are also going to sing The Iron Rod p.274 HYMNS
We also have some Russian speaking children in our Primary and so we want to try I Love to See the Temple in Russian!  I'll let you know how that goes :-)

I Love to See the Temple (in Russian):
https://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/music/childrens-songbook-russian/1997-01-0720-i-love-to-see-the-temple-rus.pdf

For LDS songs in different languages check here:
http://singpraises.net