Kami's Primary Music Ideas: Activity: Melody Map

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Activity: Melody Map - The Church of Jesus Christ

I'm planning out my year and figuring out the variety of ways I want to introduce and teach songs and also reinforce them the couple weeks after first learning it. I'm trying to keep things different and do a variety. But I'm also a fan of simplicity and not much baggage. (Sometimes those things can be fun but they certainly aren't necessary, and the most important thing in any lesson is that the children can feel the Spirit and God's love for them.)

For the song, The Church of Jesus Christ I decided that I will use a Melody Map to reinforce it after I teach it. This activity can also be used to introduce a song. I made this simple one in Excel that I printed on 4 sheets of paper. A Melody Map shows the ups and downs of the melody, sometimes length of the notes, sometimes similar ideas, and other things if you wish. You can create a Melody Map with Excel and other computer programs or on poster board.

This is an activity that is appropriate for both Junior and Senior Primary.

When I introduce this activity to the children I will put the 4 pages on the board and I will ask them what they think it is. I'll ask them how it relates to the song. We'll sing the song, maybe a few times, and see if they can figure it out. If they are having trouble I may point to each block as we sing through the song. Then they will need to figure out what the colors mean. When they figure it out we'll split up the singing -- some people will sing the colors while the rest sing the non-colors. Varieties of this include me/them, children/teachers, boys/girls, sides of the room, etc. A variation I will do with Senior Primary is to put the pages on the board in random order, and tell them they will have to figure out what order they go in.

Here is mine for this song. The yellow is "I" and the blue are words relating to God and Jesus.

The Church of Jesus Christ - Melody Map