I was recently asked to serve as the children's singing leader in my church. It is a lot of fun to serve with the kiddos, and teach them songs about Jesus Christ and our Faith.  From my teaching background, I learned that using visuals can really help children learn more effectively.  I will from time to time post some of the activities that I make for the little ones.  Maybe someone out there can use them, adapt them, and use them for teaching or even for their own children.

Here is how I made it...

I bought a HUGE poster board... you know the ones that kids use for their science fair projects?!

I painted some green grass first thing.  I just used a little sponge brush and slapped in on.

Then I cut  holes at different heights on the top and bottom of the board.

I then strung some green yarn though the holes.  The sting is pretty tight so that once the flower is placed on, it will act like a little pulley system.

Once the sting is in place, I made flowers out of felt (for durability), and hot glued green fabric, that I cut out like grass, over the bottom of the board.  I made sure to leave a little "pocket" that the flower would begin in, totally hidden from view.

On top of the green grass fabric I made an actual pocket for the seed to be placed in.  You of coarse  need to plant a seed in order for a flower to grow.  ;)

This is how it worked:

I began with showing the children the board with each flower hidden in the grass.  I asked them what flowers need to grow.

Water
Earth
Sunlight

I then told them that these flowers were extra special and needed one more ingredient for the flowers to grow.

SINGING

I then called on children to plant a seed.  Each seed had a song that they are learning and the page number.

As a group they would sing the song that was assigned to the seed.  As the children sang, the flower would begin growing.  By the end of the song, if they sang with all their might, the flower would end up at the top of the sting in full bloom.

It was a lot of fun, and I think the children enjoyed helping the flowers grow with their lovely singing voices.