If I Listen With My Heart: Melody Map for both Older and Younger Children
A melody is something you can't touch or see, you can only hear!
How do you help a concrete thinking child to visualize a melody?
Try a melody map!
Below is a melody map for If I Listen With My Heart. You can print it, enlarge it so the children can see (or just free hand it onto some poster boards), then use it for a verse of this song (either 1, 2, or 3).
I will use it with the younger children using pictures for verse one. I will use it for the older children with verse two and key words of that verse.
Click here for If I listen with my heart melody map (4 sections).
How do you use a melody map? This is how I use it with older children (see younger children below).
Older Children:
Put the melody maps out of order at the front of the room. (Hint: be careful not to put them upside down<grin>.)
Engage the children: Ask: What do you see? What do you notice? Receive the children's answers.
Engage and Sing: Ask... What do these lines have to do with this song. Sing the song. Receive the children's answers. Hint: you are not looking for the right answer (the lines represent how high or low the melody goes), but you're looking for what the children think the lines represent... thus every answer is valid because it is their thoughts.
Tell, Engage, and Sing: Tell the children you actually made these maps to show how high or low the melody goes in the song BUT the four posters are not in the right order. Ask... which of these is the first line of the song? Sing the song, at least the first line.
Engage and Sing: Ask the children to help you figure out the order for all of the posters. Sing. Receive their answers. Point to the dots as you sing and check out the children's answers.
The beauty of this activity is that the children get to hear the song over and over again while they are putting the posters in order. They don't recognize how many times they are hearing it because they are concentrating on putting the symbols (the lines) in order.
Extender Activity:
Make word cards of the major words of the verse you are teaching.
For example, I am using this with the 2nd verse of the song.
Here are the words I will use:
hear, prophet, speak, things, Christ, say, here, earth, talk, today, prophet, how, live, peace, listen, heart, hear, Savior's, voice.
I put these word cards up at the front of the room out of order. I tap a child on the shoulder and ask him to put the word on the map where it goes in the song as I sing. I tap another child on the shoulder, and continue to tap until all the words are chosen and put on the map. If a child needs help, I will emphasize a word and point as I sing.
Younger Children:
Put the melody maps at the front of the room IN ORDER. (That is different than you would do for the older children.)
Prepare 8 or so pictures that have to do with the words of the verse you are going to teach. Because I am using the melody map with the younger children for the first verse, I chose pictures of little children with Jesus, and pictures of children reading the scriptures. Put the pictures up at the front of the room.
Engage the children: Ask: What do you see? What do you notice? Receive the children's answers.
Engage and Sing: Ask... What do these lines have to do with this song? What do these pictures have to do with the song? Sing the song. Receive the children's answers. Hint: you are not looking for the right answer (the lines represent how high or low the melody goes), but you're looking for what the children think the lines represent... thus every answer is valid because it is their thoughts.
Sing the song again running your finger along the line of the correct map as you sing.
Tap a child on the shoulder and ask her to choose a picture and put it up around the melody map while you sing. Continue tapping another child and another child on the shoulder as you sing until all the pictures are up by the melody map.
Extender:
Ask the children to memorize the pictures on their inside chalkboard. Have them close their eyes while you sing the first two lines of the song and take away two of the pictures.
Ask the children which pictures you took away and what the colors were. Have them close their eyes again and sing the next two lines of the song while you take away two more pictures.
Again ask what the pictures were that you took. Repeat singing and taking pictures until you have sung the whole song.
Ask the children to sing the song with you while you have children help you (who didn't originally put-up pictures) by tapping them on the shoulder to put all the pictures back up (one picture per child) as the children sing.