Patriotic Singing Time

I wanted to celebrate Independence Day by singing some patriotic songs with the kids on Sunday so I decided which songs would be good for the occasion- plus added a review song we've been working on.

I got a lot of helpers to come up for My Flag, My Flag. I had some blue paper BELLS with some of the song's words and I brought a few small flags for when we sang that word. It was nice to have so many come up and participate BUT I found most of them would rather have a flag, so pick kids that tend to be a better sport about those things or let them know ahead of time what they will be holding and how important the liberty bell is to hold. Here is the PDF to those pages. All of the 3 patriotic songs I used are on the one file. And can be found here if someone wants to just print them.

We sang My Country with some pages I created, since I don't expect anyone to know it.

We sang My Country, Tis of Thee from the Hymns also, just the first verse. It feels good sing it loud. Oh, and I thought it would be fun to play a little game with them that one of the leaders had a bell bracelet to ring at the ending and they had to guess who rang the bell. It could be sung through again and have another leader do it and guess again. But that's just an additional idea.

I told them we had just sung My Flag, My Country, My Country, Tis of Thee...what do they have in common? All start with MY! And then I said the next song is about MY family, even if that's not the name of the song.

I just wanted to introduce Families can Be Together Forever to the kids. I did a Song Story that someone had created and posted on the Facebook page found here.
The Song Story went really well. It was the first time I had done one. I began by telling them that I was going to "tell them a story and sing a little too" and they just got to listen this time. I had read through the story so that I could tell it in my own words but had the papers to help me know when to sing the next line of the song. It was for verse one of the song and ALL of the kids and teachers paying close attention. I even had a teacher in tears. I was amazed at how well it went and it taught them the importance of the song's words, as well as familiarizing them with the melody of it.

With Jr. Primary I also did the wiggle song Fun To Do and we did the actions and words:
-watching fireworks (and burst hands out)
-waving a flag
-marching in a parade
-then let them tell me what they do for the holiday. One said they go to a carnival and go on a ride so we did a roller coaster motion with bodies bobbing around. :)

Afterthought:
The kids asked if they could keep the flags. It can either be mentioned beforehand that they get to hold yours and then return them or buy some for all to keep. Some can be purchased here beforehand. Here is a good option. Or this one.