"As a Child of God" song learning idea

I was trying to come up with a way to present the new song "As a Child of God" for January and came across this idea on the Crazy Chorister blog.

I thought it was an awesome idea as it would work for both Jr. and Sr. Primary. Some weeks I feel like I am preparing two totally different music times to make it work for each age group so I'm always happy when I come across an idea that will work for both.

The kids loved this activity and learned the verses really quickly.  Jr. Primary was so cute with it BUT I must say that I had a REALLY hard time keeping the Sr. Primary reverent with this activity.   I came home a little frustrated because even though they enjoyed it, the spirit and message of the song (and it's a beautiful message) got lost in the silliness of the activity.  I actually lost sleep over it Sunday night because I have a responsibility to teach the kids but I also want them to enjoy what we do.  

I feel like I've come up with a way to redeem that this Sunday and impress upon the kids the importance of reverence during our music time so that the spirit can be there with us.  I will post more about that later and let you know how it goes.  I think it will really drive the message home.

Having said all that, I may have scared anyone away from the idea but I do think that this is a great way to present a new song.  It just needs to be done carefully. 

Preparation:

The original idea suggested using bags but I used two file folders.  On each folder I put "Choose the Right" as the kids were going to try to Choose the Right folder.

I googled a bunch of objects that corresponded with the words in the song:  For each of those items, I also chose a silly, or opposite item. All of the pictures were placed in the folders (I mixed it up so that there were some correct and some incorrect in each folder).

Earth / Saturn

Choices CTR Shield / Ice Cream Cone

Family/ Snowman

Peace/ War

Prophet/ Television

You get the point. Here's how it played out. The kids wanted to play Boy vs. Girls (seems to be their favorite).  I explained that we were learning a new song about making choices.  I had the song written up on the board, but with several blanks (that the items above would represent).  So we would go over he first line of the song and say "I came to _______ with the power to Choose".  One boy and one girl  came up and each picked a folder.   One of the folders contained the picture of the Earth while the other contained the picture of Saturn. The group that "Chose the Right" folder got a point.  We then sang through that part of the song several times before moving on to the next phrase.  We repeated the activity over again until all we had the song down.  Clear as mud? :)

We will review the song again next Sunday but I think they did a great job learning the song quickly.

I made these "I Spy" telescopes (one for boys and one for girls) to scope of the girl or boy who was participating and singing. They were the ones who got to come up and pick the folder. I used a pringles can, cut it in half, covered them in some scrapbook paper and then added "I Spy" to them.  These were very effective.  I will be using them again for sure.