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 artwork you see in this book was created in this way.)
When the teacher gets the list, she (or he) decides how and when to proceed. Some teachers share a brief telling of the story before the class makes the artwork. Other classes find it fun to make the artwork and let the children find out what will happen with the characters at chapel. As the children in the classes are different ages and have a range of skills, the teachers offer guidance accordingly. Using artwork from the children of various classes provides an opportunity to have an active interface with the classroom, a regular time when we are all working toward the same event. You will notice in the art list that there are (optional) pieces named. The reason for this is to make the creation of the art a flexible situation for the teachers. Sometimes the children are very excited and everyone wants to do something. At other times, the teacher is involved with a number of other projects in the classroom and so fulfilling the minimum needs works better. By including the optional on the list, you are acknowledging the realities of the classroom, something the teachers appreciate.
As the year progresses, the teacher can discuss the artwork with the students and its use with the story. For instance, if children make a very tiny animal for a story, the teacher can ask how it will be seen from the back of the chapel space. The students themselves will become more active determining what kind of art will be most successful for supporting the stories.
Children look forward to the chapel that will feature their artwork. They are more attentive. They tell their parents and point out their contributions. As you get used to telling the tales you can use the specifics of the children’s artwork to accentuate an aspect of the story. In this way, the children become storytellers with you because of the art they made.
Different chapel circumstances provide a chance for creative thinking about the visual arts contribution to the story. I worked with St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School in Kansas City and as we planned a chapel, we knew that with the chapel for Pre-K through fifth grades, artwork on a board was not going to be seen. So for the Creation story, the Pre-K made separate works of art for each of the seven days of creation and mounted them on dowels. As I introduced each day in the story, a Pre-K child held the art up high as they walked down the aisle of the chapel and stood in front. By the time we got to the third day, everyone was turning to see what the art for the next day would look like. By the end of the story, we had seven Pre-K children standing in front of the whole school proudly holding up their art helping to tell the story of Creation. That was a meaningful and memorable event for everyone present.
You will want to have the artwork ahead of time. We use a felt board and the art has rounds of masking tape on the back ready to be placed. Once you have the artwork, go through the story to decide on when and where you want to place the art. Placing the artwork will also help you remember