The song our Primary has chosen to sing for May is “The Fourth Article of Faith.” To begin we will discuss the meaning of the words “principles” and “ordinances”, then do a fill-in-the-blank game. I’ll then uncover my boxes pictured above, and we’ll sing the song through a few times. It’s fun to have the children clap on the rest after each number in the song: First (clap) Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Second (clap) repentance, etc.
After singing a few times, I will unstack my boxes and talk about how these principles and ordinances help us to come unto Christ. In each box I have items that will help me teach the principle or ordinance involved, and we will sing another song related to it. After each box is discovered, I will put the lid back on and restack them to get back to the picture of Jesus.
The Faith box has a packet of seeds. We’ll talk about how faith is like a seed, then lead into the song “Faith” and sing both verses with the visual aids.
The repentance box has a bottle of water, food dye, and a small container of bleach. We’ll talk about sin, how it pollutes our souls, and drop some color into our clean water. Then we’ll compare repentance to the bleach, which I will drop into the colored water to make clean again. Then we will sing the 2nd verse of “Help Me, Dear Father”.
The baptism box has a picture of someone being baptized, and a box of colored chalk. We will sing, “When I am Baptized”, and draw a rainbow on the chalkboard that illustrates the arched melody in the song. Two arches in the rainbow for each verse. As the children sing the song again, ask them to listen for the rainbow in the music, and draw their own rainbows in the air as they sing.
The Holy Ghost box has a girl receiving a priesthood blessing, and a soft, warm blanket. I will compare the comfort the Holy Ghost brings to the comfort of the cuddly blanket. We will then sing “The Holy Ghost”.
We will continue to sing “The Fourth Article of Faith” as each principle and ordinance box is introduced.
I love this idea!! You are so creative! Thanks for letting some of us less creative people mooch of you!!
I agree…I am currently the Primary President, Activity Days helper, and Singing Time leader and sometimes when I start preparing…my mind goes blank and so I need every bit of help I can get to get the creativity juices going. Some weeks the ideas I get from your blog gets me thinking of something on my own and other weeks…I just simply use your ideas. So, from the bottom of my heart…thank you!
Thank you for the nice comments! You are very welcome – and I know exactly what you mean, because I love the inspiration I get from other great primary bloggers out there, too!
I really like how your activity teaches the gospel and reinforces what the children will have done in Sharing Time. (Maybe you are doing both? I know that is the case sometimes.) Anyway, I am a firm believer in taking all opportunities to teach the gospel, even in singing time. You've done a marvelous job setting this up. I'll bet the kids had a great time too!
Wow! Awesome idea! I love it! I posted a link to it from my blog, I hope that's okay.
That's just fine silly singing lady. 🙂
Thanks for the ideas…was just asked to help my 4 yr old daughter give a primary talk and it's so much easier with demonstrations (so I'm not whispering to her in her ear)!