Come Follow Me: Color Code Activity for Older Children
"Look up at this poster with the code. What do you see? What do you notice?" (Receive the children's answers.)
They may answer something like, "I see a bunch of dots." "I see some blue dots with shadows." "I see lots of colors." If the child has an analytical mind, they will count how many dots of a certain color and tell you.
Ask:
"What does this code have to do with this song?"
Sing:
(Immediately sing the song, pointing to each circle as you sing the words of the song.)
Ask again, "What does this code have to do with this song?" Receive the children's answers.
If the children are looking at you with a blank look, you might want to sing the song again and give some hints with your voice inflections, emphasizing all the words starting with S (or some other letter of the code). Pretty soon the children will start to catch on that words that start with certain letters are a particular color on this chart.
Ask:
Ask them what the yellow circles stand for.
Ask them what the orange circles stand for.
Ask them what the green circles stand for.
If they can't figure it out, it gives you another chance to sing the song again and emphasize those particular words. Figure it out together.
Extend the Activity:
Once the children have figured out that:
Orange stands for words that start with C
Yellow stands for words that start with F
Aqua with Black stands for all the other words
Blue stands for words that start with T
Purple stands for words that start with S
Green stands for words that start with O
...then challenge the children to sing only the words that have aqua and black.
Sing again, this time singing only the words that have an orange or a yellow dot.
Divide the room in half and have one side sing only the words that have a green and an orange dot, and the other side sing only the words that have yellow and a blue dot. You as the director sing the words with an aqua and black dot.
There may be other combinations you can think up of who sings what color of dot.
Benefits:
The strength of this activity is that it causes the children to sing the song inside their head. They practice the skill of hearing music in their brain, of feeling the rhythmic pulse and responding on certain beats, and interacting with the whole group to meet the challenges of this activity.
Most of all, the older children really enjoy the challenge of figuring out the code, then challenging themselves to see if they can sing only on certain words. Their eyes twinkle with concentration, and they unknowingly learn the song deep within!