This An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Melody Chart can be used to introduce the song, teach a new verse, or reinforce one of the verses you are currently working on. You’ll be surprised how smart your young Primary children are at cracking the code and using it to sing along to the song without any extra visuals needed!
*See all 7 An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Singing Time Ideas here for lots of fun ways to teach this song!*
An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Melody Chart
In An Angel Came to Joseph Smith (flipchart here) there is a repeating pattern where the notes go up in an arch and back down three times. There’s also a change in time signature in this song, which can be neat to point out in Senior Primary. Some of the older kids will play instruments and know what that means and find this an interesting fact to learn about the song!
In the melody charts I made, I spread the notes across 4 pages. That fit the arches in the music best and made the chart as large as I could, while still fitting it to printer paper.
You should be able to easily display 4 rows across your Primary room whiteboard easily, which was also important as I wanted them to be lined up side-by-side while I used them during singing time.
Each row of the chart represents a different note on a musical staff. Each column represents the notes / beat as it moves through the song. Some words share a beat, so they are divide to fit the timing of the song.
The words are printed along the top line of the melody chart. You can keep those displayed, or fold the top edge down to hide the words. Either way, your Primary will pick up on following the melody chart faster than you can imagine – it always amazes me!
How to Use the An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Melody Chart
Put up your melody chart for An Angel Came to Joseph Smith on the whiteboard. Tell the kids you’re going to sing the verse one time through and you want them to look for patterns.
After the song, ask the children if they see any patterns or noticed anything while you sang. Accept a few of the answers. They might try to guess what one of the colors represents or maybe tell you about the timing and way the notes move.
You can then have them singing through the song again noticing some of the things the other Primary children mentioned. Such as, if they notice that the green squares represent Joseph Smith, you can sing through and check to see if they were right. Ask what other words were also green. How are they similar?
Use questions that help the kids think about discover what the different colors and patterns represent as you sing through the song half a dozen times or so. Then, you can extend the activity by telling them to SKIP certain colors or ONLY SING a specific color of words.
For even more ideas on how to use a bar chart in Primary, head over to see our Seek the Lord Early Bar Chart lesson plan!
An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Melody Chart Printables for the 1st and 4th verse!
Below, you’ll find 2 options of printable PDF files of our An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Melody Chart. You can pick either the 1st or 4th verse. Of course, you could do both, but I recommend picking a specific verse to do this lesson plan with. 🙂
The 4th verse printable includes the key to the colors to help you as a leader guide the discussion.
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An Angel Came to Joseph Smith – 1st Verse Melody Chart
An Angel Came to Joseph Smith – 4th Verse Melody Chart
Pop over to see how we are incorporating the words of the prophet in this An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Scripture Connection singing time idea.
What other fun ways could you extend this An Angel Came to Joseph Smith Melody Chart lesson plan?
Thank you for your teaching tips for primary! Great content! I created an account and printed the 1st verse of of the melody map, but I don’t see 2nd or 3rd verses? Can you please show me where there are? Thanks!
Hi Tanya, I only made a melody map for the 1st and 4th verse. I usually use different methods to teach each verse. 🙂