Holding Hands Around the World

This week I am going to be teaching the song Holding Hands Around the World by Janice Kapp Perry.  This song was printed in the July 2002 issue of the Friend and you can find the sheet music HERE.  As part of our 2019 Primary Program we are going to be focusing on how primary children can influence those around them by living the gospel.  This song shares this message beautifully and has a nice catchy tune that is fun to sing.

NOTE: This lesson could also be adapted to teach I Love to See the Temple, Families Can Be Together Forever, The Lord Gave Me a Temple or any other song related to the temple.

Music Lesson: I will start by handing out 2 rhythm sticks to each of the primary children.

Note: For my rhythm sticks I just use 6" dowels that I bought in a pack of 15 at the dollar store.  You could also just cut your own.

 I will explain to the children that we are going to watch a video that has a bouncing ball following the words of the song.  Each time the ball bounces they will hit their rhythm sticks together.  I will demonstrate for them how to do it before having them start. I will then play a video of Holding Hands Around the World using the LDS-Singalong2 app and the children will use rhythm sticks while we watch the entire first verse and chorus (I will be having a couple of children sing a duet for the second verse so I won't teach that in primary).  I'm not going to worry about the children singing during the first run through.  This is just to familiarize them with the song.  Depending on how well they do and if I feel like they are enjoying the rhythm sticks we may do it another time through using the rhythm sticks.

Note: You can click the link to find out more about the LDS-Singalong2 app and how it works.  What I like best about this app is that it has words on the screen with a bouncing ball to help the children sing along so it's great to introduce songs they may have never heard.  I also really like that you can turn off the voices and have it only play the music making it really versatile.  If you don't want to use the app there is also a video of this song at ChurchofJesusChrist.org (what used to be lds.org).  However, this video does not have the bouncing ball, which is going to be helpful in using the rhythm sticks.

I will have the children put the rhythm sticks under their chairs while we do the next part of the lesson.  The last line of  the chorus is, "We are building the kingdom of God".  So I am going to have the children build a temple with legos while we continue to listen to the music.  To do this I will have the pieces needed to build the temple set out on the table in groups.  I am only going to have 8 children help with this part, but you could let more children help by having groups of children come up together and share putting on the pieces in each group.  If you have built with lego sets before then you will be familiar with the way the directions are laid out and I will be using this same technique.  Each group of legos will have a picture of what the lego temple looks like before and after they add the required pieces.  We will be building the Spokane temple.

   

 

You can download the temple directions HERE

You will want to print them and then cut out each step so you can show the group that is building just their part as this will make it less confusing.  

NOTE: If you don't have the exact lego pieces that I used just improvise.  You can make a lot of different bricks work and it doesn't have to be exact.  

As we build the lego temple I will continue to play the music video so that the children become familiar with the words and tune.  Once the temple is built I will have the children get out the rhythm sticks from under their chairs and we will use them to sing through the song again this time trying to sing the words and hit the rhythm at the same time.  

I'm not sure how long it will take to build the temple, but if we still have time I will use THIS picture flip chart that I made to go with the song.  The flip chart doesn't have all of the words listed, but is just meant to remind the children of the key words and phrases.  If we don't have time I will start next week by singing through the song with the picture flip chart and reviewing the words.