A Child's Prayer: Word/Rhythm poster for Older Children

Tell the Children

"I love the composer of this song.  She used so many things to make her music great.  One of the things I notice is that she repeats some musical ideas in her song over and over again." (Show the posters and sing some of the snips of melody on the orange poster.)           

 "I need your help to figure out where they go in the song.  I will tap someone on the shoulder, and they come up to move one of these into the right place on our song poster."  (The song posters below are up at the front of the room.)  I begin to sing the song and tap children on the shoulder.  They come up and figure out where each of the white word/rhythm pieces go in the song.

Sing the Song as the Children put on the word strips

I sing the song over and over again, tapping different children on the shoulder until the children have put the whole song in order.

Extender

Then I say "You sing all the white pieces of paper.  I sing all the rest."  We sing together.  "Now switch and I will sing the white papers and you sing all the rest."  We sing together.  (It is quite the challenge to sing like this!) Bringing order to a song like this (in a discovery way) allows the brain to fully engage in learning the song.  The children don't even notice they are hearing the song over and over again (allowing the brain to link all of the separate parts into a larger whole).  Singing only parts of the song while someone else sings the rest stimulates the brain to hear the song in their head, a really strong way to learn.