For an engaging way to teach The Holy Ghost, bring in these visuals to help you teach the song line by line. In this The Holy Ghost Word Map activity, you’ll help break down all the ways the Holy Ghost helps us that bring added meaning to the lyrics of the song.
See all our The Holy Ghost Singing Time ideas here!
The Holy Ghost Word Map
How to Play:
Sing through The Holy Ghost song (flip chart here) once, before introducing this activity. This is great to help be a refresher of the lyrics or to help introduce the melody and concept if it’s your first week with the song.
Ask the children: What is this song about? If you don’t get any responses, you can sing through it again and have them hunt for clues, or give them hints (what is the song title?, hum the line, etc).
Put the “Holy Ghost” word art strip in the middle of the white board, making sure you have enough room around it for the rest of your pieces to be placed as needed.
Sing through the first line of the song together. If you’re just learning the song, you could sing it once, then have the kids echo sing the line back to you. Add the graphic of the earth with the word “Christ.”. Place this piece above the “Holy Ghost” word art. Here’s our first clue, but we need a little more information. Let’s sing the second line!
Sing the second line of the song, and ask what they heard. That’s right – Christ promised he would send us something. Let’s add our envelope next! You can add the plus, or leave it out. Either way works. What do you think he gave us to help us?
Sing the 3rd line and point to your word phrase you already added. He gave us the Holy Ghost! What is one way the Holy Ghost can help us? We will add a bunch of ways this song talks about, but we just learned one. Did you hear it? That’s right – he “comforts” us. Add the dove that represents the Spirit below or near the “Holy Ghost”. You can draw a line on the board to connect the pieces or just leave them in a row beneath the phrase.
Continue to make your way through the song one line at a time adding pieces to your word map. You might start from the very beginning of the song and sing all the way through after every few pieces, to help the kids remember the words they’ve learned so far and build on the song.
Extension Activities:
- Hide the pieces around the room and hunt for them while you sing, then add them where the kids think they might go. Help them out if they need any guidance.
- Scramble all the pieces into an envelope with one envelope per class or small group of children. Let them put together the puzzle in the way they think it should go. There’s no “wrong” answer. They could put them in order from left to right, assemble them like I have shown you below, or any other combination that helps them sing through the song. Wonder as you sing and check out all their creativity.
- When the word map is completed, pick a piece or two to remove. Ask the children to sing those words extra loud or sing and clap for those words. Continue to remove the clues as they sign along.
- Let the kids color in the 1-page sheet while you sing or take it home to color and sing!
For another similar activity, head over to see this Did Jesus Really Live Again Word Map lesson plan and activity!
The Holy Ghost Printable Song Helps
This free in post printable includes a 1-page guide to the layout of the word map and a 2-page printable to cut out the individual pieces for the 1st verse and assemble!
You’ll find a printable lesson plan, word map for the second verse, larger word map graphics, and black and white printable options as well! These are included with in the INSTANT Primary Singing packet when The Holy Ghost is the featured song of the month or in my shop packet.
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!
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Have questions or need more help, see this FAQ page here.
Next, head over to see our fun Jingle Bells lesson plan for teaching The Holy Ghost!
What other fun ways could you extend this Word Map activity? How did it go over with your Primary children?
