Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Teaching Method - “First Letter Wordstrips”



On a strip of paper or cardstock, write the first letter of each word in a phrase or line of the song. If the phrases are particularly long, or to make it easier, you may want to make two strips for a phrase. When you are ready to sing, randomly post the word strips on the board.

Explain to the children that the cards are clues to the words in the song. Challenge them to listen to the song and figure out the clues so they can help put the phrases in the correct order. Be prepared to sing the song several times. When the strips are in order have the children sing with you, using the strips as cues to the words. Remove the word strips as you review the song. This method really only works for the kids who can read well and those who are sophisticated in their thinking. The others will benefit from hearing the song sung, but the littlest ones will just stare at you! Be prepared with a few wiggle songs as well.

You can find references to this method in the June 2002 and August 2009 issues of the Friend magazine.

4 comments:

Tifany said...

Great idea, especially for the Sr. Primary! I'll have to give it a try.

Ethatch said...

Thank you, I used this idea last week with Sr. Primary and we all loved it. We had to learn a new song quickly for the Sacrament Christmas presentation. For some reason the kids were REALLY squirly during opening exercises and Jr. Primary and we felt like it was the day after Halloween or something. So I changed plans quickly to this for SR and the kids were sooo connected, right there with me the whole time. They loved the challenge and learned the words quickly and no one wanted to go home.

Kathleen said...

No one wanted to go home??? Wow, that was one successful singing time. It must have been your pretty smile since it never has worked quite THAT well for me. :o}

Vicky Hilton said...

I call this the code game. Break the code. I put magnets on the back.

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