Not that you were particularly worried about it, but I did survive my first week as Primary chorister. I didn’t sleep more than three hours on Saturday night (yeah, I’m one of those neurotic non-sleepers when I’m worried about something. Anything.), but week one is down and I’m breathing a little easier.
July is designated as the month to teach a Primary classic: “Baptism” (p. 100). So that’s in the plans for this week!
I’m keeping with the 2014 Primary guide suggestion to teach the first verse by talking about the who, what, where, and when of the story of Jesus Christ’s baptism. I also plan on covering how (by immersion) and leading into the second verse by explaining that it teaches us the why. I’ll start by pulling out a ward-library-issued copy of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus out of the Gospel Art collection and asking the kids to tell me the story.
As they mention details, I’ll put up the word strips-and pretty soon, the board will be full and they’ll realize that even if they don’t already know the song exactly, they pretty much know what they’ll be singing about and the rest will come easily. I found these word strips at a local dollar store, and I already love them. I used them last week for the 4th of July singing time-I think they’re really going to be useful! Check out the teacher section at your local dollar store-you just might get lucky!
We’ll go through the first verse a few times, pointing to the words as they come up in the song. I’m anticipating that most of the kids will know this one-at least the first verse. So once it looks like we’re pretty comfortable, I’ll have kids take turns coming up and removing a few words. Then we’ll sing it again!
Depending on how long all of this takes and how well they already know the first verse, we’ll head into the second verse-the WHY. I don’t plan on really hammering memorization with this one. We’ll just go through it a couple of times and then add the first verse. I’ve included a ready-to-print flip-chart of the song’s second and third verses. So print away! It’s black and white, so you can do some minimal coloring if you want to, then I just trimmed the edges and glued them to card stock. (If you’ll be using this, be sure to follow us on Facebook or Pinterest for more great Primary ideas!)
Have a great week! Here’s to a more restful Saturday night, for both of us.
Natalie
I love this Thank you so much! We have 3 out of our 5 Baptized and I wish I had these sooner!
Thank you!! This is perfect.
This is so great! I was just called as the primary chorister in my ward (today is my first week). This is the first music related calling I’ve ever had, so I’m pretty nervous.
How fun! This will just be my second week, and I keep telling myself I’ll get less and less nervous as the weeks go by. You’ll do great, Kiasa!!
Natalie I am LOVING these primary chorister posts! I bet the kids love you!
Thank you so much for the flip chart! I only have a black and white printer, so this really helps. You saved me so much time by creating it and sharing it, and I’m VERY appreciative 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this! It is exactly what I have been searching for. I’ve been in this calling for six months, and I still get as nervous as I did my first week! Thanks again from Fort Bragg, NC.
Thanks for these flip charts! Did you create one for the 1st verse of “Baptism”?
Hi Ambra! I didn’t. Most of the kids (and teachers) already knew the first verse, so I taught it with word strips (who, what, when where, how, etc). They seemed to pick it up really quickly. Thanks for stopping by!