My Eternal Family

[CarrieS]

I need ideas!!!

Thanks

[j]

For the 2nd verse have a dad that sings come in and do that verse; doing the same with a mom for the 3rd verse then have a boy wear his dad's jacket and tie and a girl wear moms pearls and apron (or whatever) to sing "When I'm a mom or dad..so glad" I'm having each row sing one line of the chorus at a time and switching it around to keep their attention.

[karm]

I'm trying to come up with an idea using the giant legos to "Build" the song. I thought about taping a word to the legos and building up as we sing, but that might be too small for all of them to see.

If I was ambituous I would get those large cardboard brick-looking boxes and put the words on them, but that's a lot to carry to church every week.

Maybe a large picture of a house with different key words building the foundation, walls, door, windows, etc.?

I'm still needing ideas too! Maybe someone can build on my thoughts...

[CarrieS]

j-- I don't think we're thinking of the same song... I'm talking about the song that is at the end of the Program booklet. It's only 2 verses long.

karm-- Giant legos is great! I am doing that for How Firm a Foundation. I am just using a few legos. The bottom one is the biggest and has a photo of bricks (foundation). The middle and top blocks also have photos that correspond with phrases in the song. Then for the 3rd verse I added some photos on the back that correspond with the phrases in that verse.

For My Eternal Family, I ended up doing a sheet that has words and photos... so every time it says "family" I have a picture of a family, and so on.

[CarrieS]

I started a primary music blog. We're in the Spanish Branch in our stake, so most of it is in Spanish (my husband is still translating it for me!).

versiculouno.blogspot.com/


Here are some of the photos I posted, these are the ones I explained above.

[pmillerbbkz]

I think that J is thinking of "The Family Is of God" (Friend 10/08).

[Sharing Through Song]

I got the book Sharing Through Song and it has great ideas for all the songs for the program. They suggest building a house using the words. It's hard to explain, but if you would like I can E-Mail you a copy of what I have.

[ellenhiro]

I am also teaching this song in our Spanish ward. I often do one verse in Spanish and one in English because we have some children that speak one and not the other, although most of the children speak both languages. I decided that this song needed to be both verses in the same language. So, I am teaching it in Spanish and started on Sunday. This is how I did it with the Senior Primary.

I started out with a big cloud made of poster board that I put at the top right hand side of the rolling chalkboard that I use when posting pictures. We talked about how we are not exactly sure about what the celestial kingdom is like but we know some things and the most important thing that we know is that we will be there as families. I posted part of a picture that I have that is in our family history center it shows Christ in the middle of the picture with his hands stretched out at His sides and on one side are people from the history of the world linked to a family sitting on a couch. on the other side of the picture are people dressed in white talking to each other and seated or standing in small groups. I used the part with Christ and the people in White. I placed it on the cloud. We sang the first line of the song; "con mi familia quiero llegar el reino celestial."

Then we talked for a couple of minutes about what we need to do to be in the celestial kingdom as a family. Then I sang the second line and asked what does this line say that we must do? I sang it again and then they did it with me. "Los mandamientos he de guardar con fe sin vacilar." We talked about the meaning of vacilar (vacillate) and how we needed to be steadfast in keeping the commandments. I posted a picture I made of the ten commandments (a stone [gray brown paper] tablet with lines of scribble on them at the bottom left hand corner of the chalkboard. The tablet also has a small picture of Christ teaching just pasted onto it. I asked what some of the commandments were and got some good answers from them. One of the boys said that we should not kill and I agreed that we should be steadfast in not killing anyone and then I pointed out that Jesus said that we shouldn't even get angry with others. We agreed that that was very difficult and talked about how we could try to control our thoughts as well as our actions. We sang the two lines through several times.

I asked how do we learn the commandments and they came up with some great answers. prayer, prophets, teachers, Holy Ghost, Primary, etc. Then I asked them to listen and see what the song says about where we learn and sang the next line "Las escrituras con claridad ensenan sin error" and posted a picture of the scriptures next to and a little higher than the first picture.

The last question was what happens when we live the commandments and I sang the last line "si que obedezco bendicire a mi familia hoy." and we talked about how we don't have to wait until the celestial kingdom to be blessed and to bless our families. We talked about how we can each bless our families.


For the chorus we used sign language. I used the sign for family, eternal, work, important, me, and help. I used the signs in ASL because it is easier to find those than the appropriate signs in Spanish but it doesn't really matter because it is just to help them remember the concepts.

For the Junior primary I will begin teaching them the chorus next week. I like to begin with the senior primary because they get over it quicker when I forget something or make a mistake.

[averymort]

I am thinking of using sign language for this song. I have reviewed the asl video and it goes pretty fast so I will only have them sign the key words. Anyone else doing this?

I will probably introduce the song having them tap the rhythm with quarter notes first. Then I will have them tap the melody. Then have one side tap quarter notes while the other side taps the melody. I will then have them pitch lead first with their hands then with their bodies. I will do this so the song is played several times before I start any words.

[pach]

I started teaching this song last week and adapted what the Friend suggested to fit the children in my primary. They suggested using boxes, but since I didn't have any (and I didn't have big enough blocks) I drew a picture of different parts of a house and put a key word under the picture. As they sang the song and learned the phrase I would then draw the corresponding part of the house so that when we finished the first verse we tehy also helped build the house. While I was teaching it I also had the children pick out different movements to do for each phrase (Jr primary, not Sr) for example the decided to tap their fists into their palms for the first line and pretended to read a book for the second line (learning). Anyways it seemed to work really well with the children in my ward. We'll see how much they actually remember next week

[lizbrown98]

If anyone is in need of several great ideas for teaching this song, check out sofiasprimaryideas.blogspot.com/ She has some really great ideas, and I think some could even be combined together. Also, the Friend has a great idea about using boxes with pictures and key words...I saw on this blog thecrazychorister.blogspot.com/ that she was going to use gift bags and put items inside to help teach the song. I love this idea! Hope it helps someone!

[prettyeyes72]

This is Senior Primary specific. Type out all the major words for the first verse: Builder, Working, Build, Family, Do, Best, Serve, Lovingly, Builder, Growing, Tall, Learning, Speak, Kindness, Home, Help, Work, Play . . . etc. Then cut each individual word out, mix them up, and put them into an envelopes (keep reading to see how many envelopes and word strips you will need). Have students get into groups of 3 or 4 and give each group an envelope. Sing the song through several times and have them put the words in order. It really motivates them to learn and listen quickly to get it in the right order.

This is a fun one as well for Senior. Divide the song into phrases. Then write out the first letter of each word for the individual phrase on a piece of paper. For example "I am a Builder Working Each Day" becomes IAABWED and on a seperate sheet you would write TBMF for "To Build My Family." Continue doing this for the whole first verse. Then mix up the pieces of paper on the board, so it just looks like a series of random letters. Tell the Senior that you have a code on the board and they need to figure it out. Sing the song until someone gets it. Then have them come up one by one and put one of the phrases in order. Eventually, you will get to the point where it matches the song and becomes a nice visual aid.

[jkkd80]

I don't know how "original" this is...but, it worked great!

I took two construction hard hats this week. I wore one the whole time (HOT!), and the class that sang the best, their teacher wore the other one. It was amazing how much louder they sang when I showed them the second hat. One little sunbeam sang her heart out - it was amazing.

I told them that if they ALL sang excellent, we would make the PP wear it during sharing time. They didn't quite achieve that, but want to try again next week.

[avsfan]

Here are my plans for today. Last week the stake came in, so I didn't get to teach any of MEF.

JUNIOR plan:

• Review 1st verse
• Sing chorus to them –use ‘Sis Goss sing’ prop (only I sing)

• Question game: sing to them, they listen for
1. rhyming words
2. # of “Lord”
3. # of “builder”

• Choose a child to come up. Sing a phrase and have them pick the corresponding item. Everyone sing that phrase.

Line one:
Toy home
Knee Pad
Line Two:
Scriptures
Comforter
Line Three:
Blue Prints
Line Four:
Family Picture
Picture of Heavenly Father

• WIGGLE SONG

Review all of 2nd, sing chorus with actions, review 1st.


SENIOR plan:
write out the first letter of each word, and have them learn it that way.

[Sister Leilua]

Firstly I held up a picture of Bob the Builder, because I knew that all the children would recognize this popular tv character and what he does. He builds!

The children immediately identified with him and so it was easier to introduce the theme to this months song which is a song about building. I then had the children listen to the song on tape, and ask the children to listen carefully to what is being built (families). Then I asked them who is the builder as referred to in the song (themselves).

I placed an A4 poster on the board and using key words from the song, I prompted the children to think of the words of the song and tell me in what ways can we build our families ie speak with kindness etc. I then had them listen to the song one last time before I introduced them to laminated posters with all the lyrics and associated pictures on them. For the remainder of that lesson I had the children sing through once or twice the entire song to get used to the tune.

The next lesson, I covered the second chorus and all the verses that started with 'I am a builder'. I told the children that these verses were the same and they soon got used to singing those particular lines without seeing the lyrics or me prompting them.

The next time I will cover more words or verses until finally all the lyrics are covered.

I don't use this method all the time, but it was another way to help them memorize. And I have found that it has been quite successful up to this point.