I am a Child of God because....

Today we built a Child of God.  I used some cut outs that I created last year.

This is what they look like when completed.  I did Junior and senior primary each a bit differently.

JUNIOR:
We are working on learning all 4 verses of "I Am a Child Of God." I started with the boy cut out.  I did not tell them that there were two.  I put the head on the board and told them we would be building a child of God.  I explained we would start with a head.  I had them all touch their head.  Everyone has one just like Heavenly Father and Jesus.

To earn the torso, arms, and legs they just had to sing their best when worked on each verse.  We only got through 2 verses this time.  Sometimes I had them sing just the chorus to earn limbs, sometimes verse only, sometimes both. This took half of our time.  Between the placing of each piece I had 3-4 kids come up and finish the statement, I am a Child of God because.....  We had some amazing answers! 

After the boy child of God was built I had two of the sunbeams come up; a very girly looking girl and a boy.  I asked the kids what the differences were.  Some of their answers included; boy/girl, wearing a dress/wearing a tie, long curly blond hair/short dark hair, blue eyes/brown eyes.  I talked to them and emphasized that we are all children of God yet he made us all different! 

Then I announced we needed a GIRL child of God as well to show how God made us different!  So we continued working on our song and built the girl.  I continued bringing up kids between each piece to complete our phrase; I am a Child o God because....The kids really enjoyed it and most importantly we felt the spirit.

Before they were excused to leave I explained to them how they were bearing their testimony for us today by #1 singing and #2 by completing the phrase.

SENIOR:

For senior primary we had a contest.  Who could build their Child of God first, the boys or the girls. We would sing the verse as a group, then the girls would sing it alone and then the boys.  I would choose who sang it best on the following criteria:
1. Volume
2. Clarity of lyrics
3. Reverence before, during, and after the song
4. Reverence while the other group was singing

It was very hard to judge, they all sang so awesome!

I used the complete the phrase idea with the senior primary as well.  SO many kids wanted to do it.  It was awesome! The spirit was so incredibly strong in our primary room!

To close I shared with the kids the story of Moses from Moses 1.  After being taught that he was a Child of God created in God's very image, Satan came tempting him.  He called Moses a son of man.  He did this to create doubt in Moses' heart about his divine identity.  Moses replied in Mose 1:13,"Who art thou?  For behold, I am a son of God!"  I was very emotional when I read this verse to the children.  The spirit was incredibly powerful at that moment.

I told them that when life gets hard, challenges arise, they feel alone or sad, bullied or afraid, they can do as Moses did and declare..."I Am A Child of God!"  And they will feel peace.

I am so excited about this years Primary Program Song selection!  It is going to be an amazing year!!