A Child's Prayer

"A Child's Prayer," p. 12 - 13, is one of my favorite songs that the children sing.  It is so sincere and the children sing it with such love.  The duet is beautiful and with practice, the children sing it beautifully.

I try to teach the most difficult part or section of a song first so we can sing it the most in the learning process.

2nd verse: Make word prompts for each phrase. Several pictures of a child praying helps the non-readers stay focused.

• "Pray"
• "Speak"
• "You are His Child"
• "Love"
• "Hears"
• "Loves"
• "Kingdom"

1st verse: I teach this in 2 parts - the question and feeling part, and the teaching part.

• 1st phrase - draw a question mark (?) on the board or paper (large enough for the children to recognize)
• 2nd phrase - picture of a child praying
• 3rd phrase - picture of Jesus teaching the disciples
• 4th phrase - picture of Jesus with children

When the children can sing either verse well, try the duet.  I like to ask an older child to sing with one side of the primary and I sing with the other side.  Then we switch sides so everyone gets a chance to sing both parts as a duet.

On of the challenges is that the first verse always has pick-up notes where as the 2nd verse begins on the down beat.  Always bring in the group singing the 1st verse and then the 2nd verse on the down beat.