Your Primary will love getting hands-on and visualizing with this Redeemer of Israel Shadow & Pillar lesson plan. It goes through explaining and detailing how our Savior can be our Shadow and our Pillar and what those symbols might mean.
This is one of our Redeemer of Israel singing time ideas! We’ve been sharing lots of fun ways to teach this song and have a few more posts coming soon! There’s already a series of fun activities including a crack the code and a fun actions activity using plastic cups.
**See all Redeemer of Israel Singing Time Ideas Here**
Redeemer of Israel Shadow & Pillar
Sing through Redeemer of Israel once before introducing your activity. You can grab our Redeemer of Israel flipchart over here!
Shadow:
- Bring in a flashlight and shine it at your hand. Do you see a shadow of my hand?
- Cut out a poster board into the shape of a cloud. Use it to block out a source of light (window, ceiling, lamp, etc). Even clouds have shadows. We call that a cloudy day, but it’s really a shadow! What else has a shadow?
- Or go outside and check out your shadows. So fun! Tell everyone they have 60 seconds to make silly shadows. You might just want to take a picture to share with the parents! Then everyone heads back inside.
- You could also create a shadow box and let the kids have fun testing out making hand puppets!
How is Christ like a shadow? He’s always with us even when we don’t see him. He stays by our side. He knows what we go through. He is our constant friend. etc.
Sing through Redeemer of Israel with everyone shading their eyes (shadow!)
Pillar:
- Stack up a couple of boxes to make a pillar. Or draw a pillar on the white board.
- You can also use your flashlight to shine a pillar of light up towards the ceiling.
- What is a pillar? What is used for? Holds up buildings, strong, pillar of fire for Moses protected, etc
How is Jesus like a pillar? Protects us, is our strength, lifts us up, is strong and immovable, etc Sing through Redeemer of Israel with everyone standing like a pillar! Tall and straight with arms up and hands bent outward.
Extension Activities:
- Sing through the song switching between being a shadow and a pillar as one child flips on and off the light.
- Have half of the room sing “Our shadow by day” and the other half sing “Our pillar by night”. Try different fun ways to sing. Which group can sing the quietest (while still singing)? Who can sing it with the best accent? How about fastest?
Using visuals and symbols to help you teach the difficult concepts of the song is a fantastic way to create a deeper experience with the song. You can see another example of how I’ve broken down a big concept with visuals in our Search Ponder and Pray Feel the Spirit singing time idea.
Redeemer of Israel Shadow & Pillar
Printable Singing Time Lesson Plan
This printable lesson plan includes a 1-page printable with 4 colorful symbols to help you illustrate some of the key symbols in this hymn.
You can print out the symbols or use our interactive ideas to help them come to life.
This activity has extended printables available including larger full page symbols and bonus symbols and extension ides to use this object lesson idea for the 2nd verse. You’ll find these printables included in the INSTANT Primary Singing membership when Redeemer of Israel is the featured song of the month.
Get more out of singing time with the INSTANT Primary Singing membership that includes printable lesson plans, tons of extended printables and an ad-free experience for each featured song of the month, or get immediate access to the entire song list for the year!
Learn more about INSTANT Primary Singing membership options here!
Have questions or need more help, see this FAQ page here.
You can teach this song with a completely different approach using our Redeemer of Israel Dot Words singing time idea. It’s a great way to crack the code and fill in the missing word.
What other ways could you expand on this Redeemer of Israel Shadow & Pillar activity?
