I am sorry but I just can't do the traditional actions for Book of Mormon stories. I taught on the Winnebago Indian Reservation in Nebraska and love Native Americans and their culture. The actions feels like they are promoting stereotypes and I can't do that.
And yet I love the song as do the kids!
So what to do?
1. I wanted the children to really understand the message of this song. And the message needed a little bit of help. So we added a few words and this is our version:
Book of Mormon stories that my teacher tells to me,
Are about the Lamanites, the Nephites, the Mulekites, the Jaredites in ancient history.
Long ago, etc etc.
On order to do this, we had a little history lesson. That lesson will continue throughout the year as Come Follow Me introduced these 4 groups of people. I used the pictures of the boats and we learned who the groups were. We talked about the Mulekites who never called themselves that. They are the people of Zarahemla but we decided it was easier to sing "Mulekites"! The boys were fascinated by the fact that the Jaredites had barges instead of ships.
I made signs for the Nephites and the Lamanites and we talked about how they were just Lehi's family when they came on the ship to America. Later they split into the two groups.
2. Many children need to move while they are in singing time so I also taught them some actions for Book of Mormon stories that we later transferred to drums.
We used both hand on their knees and did "Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, Jump jump jump."
The rhythm would be Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow."
We repeated that pattern with each line of the song except when we sang the names of all four groups of people we added more "walking".
When they all knew the pattern well, I had them kneel at their chairs and use their chairs as drums. That works great because they all got to do it at the same time.
Sometimes I bring my hand drums to class and let a few give that a try. It is a lot of fun for the kids, they are learning to keep a rhythm going while singing, and they are all kept busy and involved.
