I Will Follow God's Plan for Me: Which Category? Older Children

These headings are posted up in the front of the room

• My life

• My choice

• I will

Around the room are other words from the song. I tell the children,

• "Look at these three categories.  There are words around the room that fit with either the first category, or the second one, or the third one.  As I sing the song, I will tap you on the shoulder.  Go choose one of the words from around the room and bring it up to the front of the room and put it in the category it belongs."

I start to sing and tap two or three children on the shoulder to go get some words and bring them to the front of the room to categorize them.  As soon as they have chosen a word and are walking to the front of the room, I tap two or three more children to go and get words.  I continue singing and tapping children on the shoulder until all the words have been chosen.

Once all the words have been placed in a column under the category, I say,

• "Let's check it out to see if these words are in the right order."  

I begin to sing the song, pointing to the words as they come in the song.  If there are some out of order, I choose a child to come and rearrange them.  I sing and point again.

Once all the words are in the order of the song, I challenge the children,

• "You sing all the words that are from around the room.  I will sing all of the big category words."  

We take turns singing.

• "Now switch.  You sing the big category words, and I will sing all of the rest of the words."

We take turns singing. The children who need to work with seeing words to learn will highly benefit from this activity, as will those children who use logic and bringing order.  The visual cues of the different colors will help other children.  The act of letting me sing some of the words (and they only sing them in their head) causes the children to sing those words inside (a strong form of learning a song).