Often there are parent musicians who will happily be part of your program. We have had parents sing and play cello, saxophone, flute, viola, guitar, snare drum, accordion, piano, electric guitar, and harmonica. These were great additions to the chapel and provided extra fun for the children.
How We Organized Our Songbook
Our songbook is divided into five sections that reflect the themes of our chapels: “Bible Story Songs,” “Sharing and Caring,” “Working and Working,” “You and Me,” and “Holiday Songs.” Each section is printed on a different color paper to help the children (non-readers) notice the different sections and to entice them to look through the whole book when searching for a song to suggest. Since these children are pre-readers, there are simple illustrations accompanying each song so they recognize the song and their parents have the lyrics to join in on the singing. There is only one song on each page so it is clear which song has been chosen. Each page is numbered three ways: The numeral (1, 2, 3), the word (one, two, three), and simple repeated symbols (x, xx, xxx) corresponding with the number. All these elements make the book more meaningful to the children and support the development of early literacy. We sometimes say, “Choose a color and then look in that section. Find the picture you like and we’ll sing the song.”
Choosing Songs for Your Songbook
Part Seven offers original songs (lyrics and musical notation) that support the themes of the chapel stories and suggestions for other songs that are generally well known and simple to track down. The contents of your songbook should evolve to reflect the families that make up your school (or church) as well as the larger community. If there are songs that are already popular at your school, include them. These already-favorite songs become an immediate invitation to the children to be part of the singing at chapel. For instance, the song “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” is not a likely choice for a chapel songbook. However, if it’s a song the children all love singing, then it’s worth considering. For that matter, the song celebrates a family getting together and when it’s sung at chapel it will bring out this meaning. The songs presented in this book will not be familiar; you will want to mix them in with a group of songs the children and families already know. These new songs were inspired by ideas and themes important to our communities and once you know them you will see how well they go with your chapel. Over time, you can incorporate more of them. The chapel songbook is an ongoing process.
The Sing-Along: Singing together is central to the school-as-community experience. Singing songs that celebrate the shared hopes and dreams for world fellowship make the children part of the process. By singing songs together they feel the strength of this community. Singing with family at chapel further enriches this experience for a young child.
Leading the Sing-Along: Having children help choose the songs makes the chapel communal and moves them toward joining the singing. If you play an instrument to accompany the singing, have someone up front with you to hold up the songbook to show everyone which song to sing.You or another singer up front should use specific gestures with the songs whenever possible. Gestures provide children with a physical relationship to the music and help them remember the sequence of the song. In traditional Bible songs like “Arkie, Arkie,” you can demonstrate the building of the ark by tapping your fists like a hammer and showing rain with wiggly fingers. Create physical accompaniment to other songs with simple hand movements.
How long should the songs be? A song like “Arkie, Arkie” has six verses. This is a long song for young singers but because of its story and added gestures, the children remember it. With more complicated songs, you may want to sing one verse and the chorus, perhaps beginning with the chorus so that you sing it twice. For elementary-age children, you can sing full songs. Sometimes you will want to sing longer songs because of the content even if the children cannot sing along for the whole tune. By the end of the year, they will probably know them as well.
Musical range of songs: For young children (3–5 years), it is best to sing songs that are within their range (Middle C–A) though it is good for them to listen to songs with greater ranges. The songs in the song section are written in keys to make them best for young singers. It should be noted that some children have a much wider range at a very young age and others less.
We are very fortunate at our school to have several musicians who regularly participate in chapel. They accompany the sing-along before and after the story as well as play along as the tale is told. We have banjo (or guitar), another guitar, violin, and a drum (djembe). Additionally, each week there are two classroom teachers who join “the band” for chapel. The teachers take turns throughout the year. One classroom teacher joins us as a singer who holds up the songbook page to show what song we will sing and leads the gestures that accompany the songs. Another teacher adds to the band’s sound as a percussionist. We discuss the possible percussion choices from a variety of instruments (such as claves, ratchet, eggs, castanets) to go along with our story. If there are specific cues, we get together a few minutes early and go over them. Everyone has fun being in the band and it’s great for the children to see their teachers up front being part of the chapel gathering.
Simple accompaniment can be very effective. The “shaky-eggs” that are egg-shaped rattles with tiny beads inside give a wonderful sound to accompany singing or special places in a story. Rhythm sticks, small bells, and tambourines are all easy-to-play and exciting additions to the sounds in chapel. The teacher’s playing is something the young children will watch and hear and be eager to try in the classroom.
All these musicians are not necessary to assure an exhilarating musical experience for the children, but it adds to the community feeling. The willingness of “non-musician musicians” to be part of the process is the first and major ingredient. The music will grow as the musicians play more and more together.
Most of the stories in our chapel program are accompanied by music. I play the banjo and set up a bed of music on which to tell the story. This generally means using a picking style that repeats with one or two chords in the rhythm that I am going to tell the story. The other musicians (guitar and djembe) solidify this musical bed and help it move along. We have found that if the music stops at dramatic points, everyone’s attention is drawn to the silence and they listen intently. We also stop the music when one of the characters speaks. It is good to change the rhythm and style of play as the story progresses so that the music continually activates the story rather than becoming a drone. The guest musician can add fun rhythmical touches to the story with the percussion instruments chosen before chapel. Often the “band” joins in singing the refrain in the story. This process may seem daunting for people who do not consider themselves musicians, but start simply and as you get more comfortable add to the elements of the accompaniment.
Children’s Art and Chapel
Many children are visual learners and offering them visual support to the story is important. There are commercial felt board story sets available for just such a purpose. We have found something simpler and, I believe, more meaningful. For all our chapels, children create the artwork. In our school there are six classes that attend chapel and so we present art created by one of the classes to accompany each story. The classes take turns; the first chapel art assignment goes to the oldest class, the second to the next oldest, and so on. We give a sheet with a list of our art needs and a brief retelling of the story to help guide the art-making process. You will find a list of “Art Needs” following each story in this volume. These lists are handed out in advance so that the classroom teacher has time to fit the art-making into the classroom schedule. (Note: the
