teaching I Will Follow God's Plan (CS p. 164)

This teaching idea can be used for any song, but I'm posting specifically what worked well for teaching I Will Follow God's Plan (CS p. 164).

Supplies

• For Junior Primary: Small papers (about 5x7) with the numbers 1 - 8 (or however many important words you select)
• For Junior Primary: Tape
• Word strips of  the important words attached to different brightly colored strips of paper with string to hang the word strips around the children's necks. I made 8 word strips total and picked 8 important words from the first half of the song and then 8 important words from the last half of the song. I put word strips on both sides of the colored paper so they could be flipped around easily. For I Will Follow God's Plan I chose the following words: GIFT, PLAN, PURPOSE, HEAVEN, CHOICE, EARTH, LIGHT, BIRTH and FOLLOW, HOLDING, LOVE, WORK, PRAY, WALK, HAPPY, ABOVE (to represent "home above")
• Objects related to the important words in the song. For I Will Follow God's Plan I used the following objects: 
• GIFT- wrapped gift box with a large tag that said "LIFE" (empty inside)
• PLAN - a map
• PURPOSE - large picture of boy being baptized (one of our purposes on earth is to be baptized)
• HEAVEN - large picture of the Second Coming - Jesus in heaven surrounded by angels
• CHOICE - foam board sword to represent the choice the 2,000 Stripling Warriors made. I wanted to have a shield with a large CTR printout attached to it but couldn't find a toy shield that was inexpensive. The kids loved the sword though - and remembered it!
• EARTH - I bought a blue plastic ball with white swirls in it that made the perfect ocean and then used a green permanent marker to draw in the continents. You could also use the church-approved picture of the earth or a small globe.
• LIGHT - I used a candle but you could also use a flashlight or lantern.
• BIRTH - Small baby doll

Note: For the last half of the song, I had the children do actions based on American Sign Language for the important words. If you watch the ASL video for this song on lds.org, you can get some good ideas.

• Large box and a towel or sheet to cover it. Place all the objects in the box. 
• For Senior Primary: Strips of paper with scripture references for all the important words - indicate which word within the scripture they should look for in order to find the important word.
• GIFT - Doctrine and Covenants 6:10 – 5th word 
• PLAN - Alma 39:18 – 8th word  
• PURPOSE - Romans 8:28 – 25th word  
• HEAVEN - Matthew 18:18 – 16th word  
• CHOICE - Proverbs 10:20 – 8th word  
• EARTH - Deuteronomy 5:8 – 25th word  
• LIGHT - 3 Nephi 12:15 – 4th word
• BIRTH - Luke 1:14 – 14th word

Documents

• Wordstrips and scripture references: Email me at jmoore336[at]gmail.com for the PDF. Or download from here: http://www.easy-share.com/1913990547/CS 164 - I Will Follow God's Plan.pdf
• Numbers 1-8: http://www.easy-share.com/1913990809/Numbers.pdf  

Download instructions: 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.)

Instructions

1. Before church started, I taped the numbers 1 - 8 under chairs in the Primary room (one for each row) in preparation for Junior Primary.
2. After the wiggle song, I asked Junior Primary to look under their chairs. The children with numbers came up and stood in the order of their number. I collected the number cards.
3. Then I gave them each their important word to wear.
4. I then said the phrase and handed them their object, explaining why I chose that object if necessary. I had the children repeat the phrase after me a few times.
5. We sang through the first half of the song a few times.
6. Then I chose two volunteers. One left the room and the other one got to choose an object to hide in the box underneath the towel.
7. We sang the song while the first child came back into the room and had to guess which important word/object was missing by standing in the row at that spot.
8. The child who guessed the right object got to choose another object to take over from one of the initial volunteers and the child who hid the object got that object to hold.
9. We repeated this for as long as the time allowed.
10. For Senior Primary, I handed out the strips with scripture references to each class and the teacher chose someone to come up and get the corresponding word strip off the table. I then put them in order and we did the same activity as Junior Primary.
11. For the next Sunday, I turned the word strips around for the second half of the song and we added movements to each of the important words.

Considerations

• This would be a great song to teach in ASL - the lds.org website has a full video of the song that it is fairly easy to follow and learn.
• After we learned the entire song, I started placing all the important objects on the floor at the front of the room and we played Hot & Cold with one of the objects that they chose to hide. (Hot & Cold is when one child hides an object and the other one comes back into the room to find it. The Primary children sing loud or soft based on if the "seeker" is close or far away from the hiding place.)