teaching If I Listen With My Heart

This teaching method can be used for any song but I'm posting specifically what worked well for teaching If I Listen with My Heart.

Supplies

• Printouts of pictures relating to the song and the corresponding lyrics. Email me at jmoore336[at]gmail.com for the PDF or download from here: http://www.easy-share.com/1913990853/If I Listen With My Heart - Flipchart.pdf

Download instructions: You may have to wait up to 30 minutes for the file to be ready to download. Scroll to the bottom of the page that appears, enter the code, and click the "Slow Download" button. Do not click the large, green or gray Download buttons at the top of the page. (You should not have to install anything or pay for the download.)

• 1" binder
• approx. 25 protective sleeves 

Note: You may want to create two binders. See Considerations section below.

Instructions

1. Insert the pictures and corresponding lyrics into the protective sleeves. Store in the 1" binder. I found it worked best when I inserted the pages so that I could hold the binder like a flipchart. When the picture is displayed, the lyrics are facing me so I can read them while the children see the picture. For Senior primary, you can also reverse the way you hold the flipchart so they see the lyrics and not the pictures. Or, another option is to hold the binder flat up & down so that the picture is on top and the lyrics are underneath it - two pages per "flip".
2. Teach the song one verse at a time. We called up volunteers to hold the pictures (or words for Senior Primary). 
3. For Senior Primary, we then had them choose which words to flip around to pictures and sang through the verse several times until they didn't have any words - only pictures to prompt them.

Considerations

• Since my husband and I teach together, we made two books so he could hold one up to one side of the room and I could hold one for the other. You could also ask a member of the presidency or a teacher (even better I think) to help you with the second flipchart. 

• One of our review activities was to "pass" the song back and forth between the sides of the room - which you could do without two flipchart binders.

teaching My Heavenly Father Loves Me (CS p. 228)

One of my favorite Primary songs that I remember learning when I was in Primary is My Heavenly Father Loves Me - although not many people know it by that title. It begins, "Whenever I hear the song of a bird . . . " A song with simple yet powerful imagery that helps children recognize all the beauty around us and have gratitude for our senses.

Our Stake Primary presidency emphasizes using only church-approved pictures and materials. Our Primary president approved use of some non-approved materials if needed to teach a song. Most of the pictures in the PDF below are church-approved. The website sugardoodle.net has a great archive of Friend, Ensign, and other church-approved pictures. The Church's official website lds.org also has the Gospel Art picture kit from which you can download individual images.

Supplies

• High-quality color printouts of poster pictures: Email me at jmoore336[at]gmail.com for the PDF. Or you can download from here: http://www.easy-share.com/1913990724/MY HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES ME - POSTER PICTURES.pdf

Download instructions: You may have to wait up to 30 minutes for the file to be ready to download. Scroll to the bottom of the page that appears, enter the code, and click the "Slow Download" button. Do not click the large, green or gray Download buttons at the top of the page. (You should not have to install anything or pay for the download.)

• Foamboard
• Tape, glue, or photo splits
• Pointer object - I used a fake long-stem red rose I purchased at a craft store to go with the line "Whenever I touch a velvet rose"

Instructions

1. Cut out the printouts. 
2. Arrange the printouts on the poster (best to use the wider sides at the top and bottom) before securing with photo splits, tape, or glue. The first verse should fit on one side and the second verse on the other side.
   
3. The music notes for "song of a bird" and "magical sound of things" can be cut out and taped on using a large piece of tape to cover the entire music note. I arranged the notes to represent music coming out of the beak of one of the birds and out of the row of Primary children. 
4. The picture for "He gave me my life, my mind, my heart" can be colored in since it is a drawing. Also, I placed the heart right next to this picture and then wrote in large block letters with a marker LIFE and then MIND underneath it and then HEART underneath "mind". 
5. To teach the song, I held another posterboard across the poster to hide everything but the first line (so Junior Primary would not get overwhelmed with all the pictures). I said the phrase and then had them repeat it back to me several times. I used the fake rose as my pointer.
6. After we sang through it once, I asked a volunteer to come up and help me point to the pictures with the rose. For Junior, I only taught one verse each week for two weeks. Senior was already familiar with it so we sang it through a few times. You can also easily do actions to the words to help the children remember them.