Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Teaching Method - Drawing the Phrases

I still need to teach the song “Faith” for our program. Some of our kids are kind of familiar with this song, but it sounds like I should teach it again. I’m going to use a teaching method on my master list called Drawing the Phrases. This idea is from the sharing time ideas in the May, 2003 issue of the Friend.

The suggestion is to help the children learn the song by using discovery questions about each phrase. For example, for the song "Faith," I could ask something like, “Faith is something that grows. Can you identify a word in the song that means something is growing larger?” When a child answers correctly, have them draw a picture on the chalkboard that helps illustrate something in that phrase. While they draw, have the rest of the children sing the phrase. Repeat the process of having a child draw each phrase while the children sing it.

I like this teaching method, but it doesn’t apply easily to all songs. The phrases for “Faith” (at least the first verse) can be easily illustrated by the children, so I think this method will be fun for this song. It certainly makes a change from the usual flipchart or pictures.

I do have some pictures that I made many years ago to help teach “Faith.” I can use these later as we continue to review the song.

2 comments:

Darwin and Candace Johnson said...

when I taught Faith to our Primary I had pictures but found them to not be very effective for this song, especially with the little kids. We decided to make actions for the song. the second verse was alittle more tricky but we figured it out and it worked great.

Kathleen said...

Actions are a great teaching method and you are right that they would fit really well with this song. Our older children don't seem to like actions much, though I still use them fairly often because, as you say, the little kids like them. Having a combined group is sometimes a challenge. :o)

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