Let the kids help you crack the code of My Heavenly Father Loves Me Pick a Picture Phrase with this game that even the Junior primary will be able to figure out.
They’ll love trying to decipher the pictures and symbols to put the song back in order in this Pick a Picture Phrase game.
**See TONS of fun ways to help you teach My Heavenly Father Loves Me Singing Time activities here!**
My Heavenly Father Loves Me
Pick a Picture Phrase
For Junior Primary, make a simple picture phrase to represent the words of one line of the song.
We created a printable you can download and use to save you time, or make your own if you prefer. This is what ours look like.
After you’ve printed out your Pick a Phrase game you’ll want to cut the paper into sections.
Cut out and separate your picture phrases into strips so that the song lines can be mixed up and the kids can help you arrange the picture strips. Each strip should have just one short phrase of the song.
For example, “Whenever I hear the song of a bird” as represented by – “hear” + “song” + “bird”.
You can play 2 ways:
Decode & Stand
If you have a bunch of really young kids in your Junior Primary, you may want to aim this game towards just decoding what the phrase means. You can pick out one Primary helper and let them pick one random picture phrase.
From there, ask them what the pictures mean and what words they might represent. Have the primary kids sing along listening for those words and STAND UP as soon as they hear them.
Continue playing until you’ve made your way through each of the word strips, slowly arranging them in order on the board.
- In Senior Primary – After decoding the parts you can give different classes different word strips and they have to pay attention and stand and sing ONLY their parts. Trust me, they’ll love this!
Unscramble
Put each of the strips up on the white board in a messed up order. Start to sing through the song, pointing along through the first picture and then pause.
Explain how you noticed something wasn’t quite right. Ask the Primary if they can help you find the first words. Continue working your way through the song as you rearrange the picture phrases.
- In Senior Primary – Have 2-3 rearrange while everyone sings through the song. Keep repeating until the song is all unscrambled.
It’s an easy and low-prep way to introduce this song that helps connect the words to what is being sung. Or, this game works well for review!
My Heavenly Father Loves Me Pick a Picture Phrase Singing Time Lesson Plan Printables
You can grab this 2-page printable with the picture phrase strips! Just cut each page into strips so you have individual picture phrases for the kids to decode for the 1st verse.
You’ll find a printable lesson plan, pick a picture phrases for the 2nd verse, and larger phrase strips all included in the INSTANT Primary Singing membership when My Heavenly Father Loves Me is the featured song of the month.
To access the free in-post printables for this post, you’ll just need to create a free account or login with the Grow.me tool. Then, confirm by email and refresh the page and ALL my free printables will automatically unlock in every post!
For more information on why I use a content lock or how to create your account, you can see the FAQ page here.
Need another idea for Senior Primary? Head over to our “grown up” version of this crack the code game – the Not That Word Game!
What other fun way could use extend this Pick a Phrase activity?
Do you have these words strips for the second verse of MHFLM?
Nope, I just created them for the 1st verse as I do different activities for each verse! 🙂
When I click the “download pick a picture” it doesn’t take me to a download but to the Not a word blog post. Anyway I can get the download for the pick a picture game?
Updated – thanks for letting me know!