Yesterday at our Stake Leadership Meeting I taught the first half of this song and it was GREAT!!!!  I had really worried about it a lot because I think it's a tough song ~ lots of words and fairly abstract ideas.  This is what I did (and will do when I teach to the primary in January).

 

I had a bunch of props:

• gift--wrapped box
• plan--planner
• heaven-- picture from cover of 2005 csmp
• earth--inflatable globe
• light--flashlight
• birth--baby picture

I asked for volunteers and then passed out the props in random order.  I told them that I was going to sing a song for them and that each prop represented a word in the song.  They needed to listen to figure out what word their prop represented.  After I sang the first half through I asked if they were in the right order.  Then I told one person to change places so that they would be in the right place.  I sang it again so they could check to see if they were right, then told another person to check to see if they were in the right place.  I sang it about 4-5 times through (just the 1st half--I will probably teach this song over 2 sundays) before they were in the right order.  Then I asked everyone to sing it through with me.  Next I told them we were going to sing it but NOT sing the words that we had props for.  After that we sang it and those were the ONLY words we sang.

 

After that I asked questions about the song for them to listen for as we sang it again-- What is my life?  Who is the gift from?  What else do I know about my life?  etc.

 

For the Jr. primary I will do it a little differently--I think they would have a hard time with putting things in the right order.  (esp as we will have 10 new sunbeams in January!)  I will put all of the props on a table and ask them to look as I sing and decide which prop goes with which part of my song.  Then I'll assign a class to each prop.

 

Hope this helps someone.  The stake primary president had gone to SLC to the meetings at conference time and was very excited that I'd taught the

song by singing it to them instead of by speaking the words and saying "now sing with me."  I must say I was pretty excited that it went so well!