As a Child of God: Egg Shakers
Younger Children:
Ask the children to follow your hands.
Tap your thigh 3x
Tap the egg to your other palm 3x
Sing the song and do this pattern with a shaker. (The children don’t have an egg shaker yet.)
You will do the pattern 4 x. As you reach the chorus, call out "Freeze!" Tell the children to watch carefully because you are changing the pattern.
Tap your opposite shoulder 3 x
Shake the egg in the air 3x
Sing the chorus as you do this new pattern with a shaker. (Again, the children do not have an egg shaker yet.)
Repeat that sequence 4x as you sing. Hand out the eggs and do both of the patterns again. As an extender activity, ask the children to hold their eggs so they don’t make any sound. Tell them we are going to do some motions where we are holding the egg so it doesn’t make any sound.
Tap your thigh 3x
Hold the egg with no sound for 3 counts
Repeat that pattern 4x as you sing the verse. On the chorus, change to this pattern.
Tap your opposite shoulder 3 x
Hold the egg with no sound for 3 counts
Repeat that sequence 4x
How does this work to learn the song?
The children are engaged, and thus the brain can take the words into the backdoor of the memory.
The children are moving to the beat which helps the body and the brain to capture the rhythmic movement of the song into long term memory.
The children hear the song in its entirety before they are asked to sing it back. The memory then has a clear picture of the whole for the parts of song to lodge in. Since singing is re-producing a sound, the children are given a chance to hear the whole song a couple of times before being asked to reproduce the sound.
Older Children:
Show this pattern to the children:
Hit on thigh
Pass around the back
Hit on thigh
Shake in the air 3x
You will be shaking on these words:
earth
choose
me
too
God
light
help
right
Extender
Challenge the children to choose a partner and do the pattern above EXCEPT instead of passing behind the back, tap your partner’s egg softly.
Example video HERE
Having the children move to the beat taps into the kinesthetic memory which will add them in remember the song in a deep way. Having the egg shakers peaks the children's interest. As always, when you use an object like shakers, you need to be clear about your expectations for how they will be used, and if needed, some consequences.
The children love this activity because it is fun for them.