One Tiny Seed - teaching resources
- Angie Killian
- Feb 27
- 8 min read
Lauren and I are so happy that so many of you have been loving "One Tiny Seed." I absolutely LOVE this song! Today I'm sharing all sorts of resources for teaching this one, and I hope that you find them helpful. If you're looking for anything else, please let me know, and I'll do my best to make it happen. : )
If you are short on time and feel like it might be a struggle to teach the whole song, I would pattern the performance after the video using soloists or duets for the verses and have the choir join on the choruses. They'll pick it up in no time at all!
Children LOVE to watch other children sing. The music video is great to show the children during practice or send the link to the parents to watch during the week. You can also turn on captions by clicking the "CC" at the bottom right of the video.
We commissioned my cute neighbor, Emily Parker, to create these beautiful illustrations. There are 16 unique, fully colored illustrations.
With so many children being "visual learners," illustrations are always a fun idea!! You can even sing the song like a book, which so many little ones love.
Emily also made coloring pages!
How to use this map:
1) Print (if I have a big group, I like to print "poster-size" with 4 sheets of paper per page). Affix to board out of order.
2) Ask the children: What do you see? What do you wonder? What is the same? What is different?
3) Challenge the children to figure out what the map has to do with the song. Sing the song. Ask the children what they learned. If they are still figuring it out, sing the song again, tapping a few key notes on the board.
4) Ask the children to help you put it in the correct order. Be sure to check their work for another repetition. ;)
5) Challenge the children to figure out what each symbol represents. Sing the song again. Collect their answers and offer praise. Repeat until they have learned all of the symbols.
6) Ask the children what word is the highest in the song (hint: it hits a C 4 times: seed, heart, miracles, and grow)
7) Challenge the children to sing only the colored symbols while you sing the rest of the chorus. Sing again, challenging them to sing the blue dots while you sing the colored symbols.
If I were to use this with a younger group, I would keep the maps in the correct order and only go until step 6.
I think the key to this song is pretty easy, but the one that might be a little more tricky is the pink circles. I kept them pink to highlight the alliteration of "humble heart." If you have sung any of my songs before, you might know I'm a bit of a sucker for alliteration. ;)
Instructions:
1. Put the pictures on the board, symbol side facing toward you.
2. Sing through the song, pointing at each page. I encourage the children to do an action that corresponds with the image.
3. Immediately sing through the song again, turning over every other image you go.
4. Immediately sing through the song again, turning over the rest of the images.
5. Bear a short testimony.
I love this activity because it is EASY and FAST, and the children (even the rowdy ones) are very reverent. It is great to use after a complicated rhythm pattern to close out a singing time.
**I suggest printing the picture side first, then laying them out, turning them over, and feeding it back through your printer to print the other side. Use a test page for the first one of the "symbol" side to make sure that you are feeding the pages into the printer in the correct order and orientation.
Side note: picture reveals are my among my FAVORITE activities, especially to use at the end of singing time. Here is one for "Did Jesus Really Live Again?" (sheet music available here) and another for "Faith" (sheet music available here).
How I use this map:
Prep:
Print out the map and words landscape style.
Cut the word strips off the bottom of each page.
Attach the dots and line pages to the board, in order, with enough room to put the word strips below them. (You can likely do 2 rows of 6.)
Put the word pieces on the other side or at the bottom, out of order.
Ask the children what they notice. “What is the same?” “What is different?” “What do you see?” “What do you wonder?” Collect their answers, offer praise. Tell the children that the dots and lines have something to do with the song. Challenge them to figure it out as you sing the first verse.
After you have sung through the song once, ask the children what they learned. Collect their answers, offer praise (or say, “that is a great guess!” or “I like the way you think!” if the answers aren’t quite on track.)
Attach the first wordstrip below its corresponding map piece. Sing that phrase while pointing to the dots/line on the map piece. Tell the children you are going to sing the song again and challenge them to match word strips to the respective map pieces. I like to have them raise their hand, and I tap them on the shoulder to go to the board and move a piece.
Sing the song through a handful more times as they work it out. Ask questions like, “Why are some lines longer than others?” “Why are some dots going up and others going down?” “Do you see any patterns in the music?” Make sure to check their work at the end!
Extender activity:
Challenge the children to sing only the words represented by the black line. You sing the others. Then switch! See if they can sing the words represented by blue dots, and you sing the rest. Or assign a body rhythm to black lines (such as patting their knees) while singing the blue dots. Then switch, assigning a different body rhythm (such as clapping) to the blue dots and singing the black lined words.
Why I love melody maps:
Melody maps are a great way to help kids visualize the music. Melody maps show both the melody and rhythm in a concrete form. They are great for logic learners, visual learners, music learners, and lend well to movement activities. Melody maps are great for repetition (which the brain needs in order to memorize.) They are also super fun! (logic/music learner here!)
This eraser pass game is for verse 2 of "One Tiny Seed."
How to play eraser pass?
On a large chalkboard or white board, draw a 4x4 grid like the one above. Write the words in each box.
In as little words as possible, tell the children the words:
Erase one word that is NOT in the song
Pass the eraser to a friend
No talking
Challenge the children to erase all the wrong words before you sing the verse 4 times. Hand out two erasers and start singing. Do not stop between verses. If a child erases a correct word, quietly write it back in the box and don’t make a big deal about it.
After the children have erased all the incorrect words, “check their work” by singing the song again and pointing to each word as you go.
Challenge the children to sing only the words in the box while you sing the other words. Then switch. I like to point to the words as we go to help keep us on track.
Why do I love this game so much?
It gives the children a chance to see the words in an active learning experience.
They get to hear the verse sung several times before I ask them to produce parts of the song. If you sing it as many times as suggested, they will get to hear the verse 7 times while their little brains are actively engaged. Active engagement will cut down on the amount of time it takes to learn a song.
The three words in each box are synonyms, meaning they mean similar things. Seeing these words grouped together helps the children gain a deeper understanding of the message of the song without taking time to explain it.
Note: I would only use this activity with children who can read, or I would have something else for the younger children to do at the same time.
Enjoy!
This crack the code game is for the bridge of "One Tiny Seed."
How to play:
Prep: Print out the letterstrips, cut on dotted lines
1) Affix the letterstrips to the board out of order
2) Sing the bridge
3) Ask the children what the letterstrips have to do with the song. Collect their answers, offer praise. If they figured the code out, move on to step 4. If they haven't gotten it yet, repeat steps 2-3.
4) Challenge the children to put the letterstrips in order as you continue singing the song.
5) When they are done, check their work, pointing to each letter as you go.
Extender activities:
A) Divide the room into halves. Ask one half to sing the green letters and one half to sing the blue letters while you sing the red letters. Alternate colors.
B) You can also replace one color at a time with a sound (such as clapping, patching, snapping) and sing the other colors.
This is a matching game for "One Tiny Seed." I would use this game as review once the children are pretty comfortable with the song.
How to play:
1) Print two copies of the PDF
2) Affix to the board upside down
3) As the song is sung multiple times, choose one child at a time to come to the board and flip over two papers. If they get a match, keep them facing the correct way. If they don't, have them turn them back over. Keep choosing children to come up and try for a match. Sing the song as many times as you can.
4) After all of the matches have been found, ask the children what the images have to do with the song. Collect their answers or have them whisper to a neighbor.
5) Bear a 10-second testimony that just as tiny seeds need sunlight, water, good soil, and TIME to grow, so does our faith. We nourish our faith as we follow the teachings of Jesus.
These are printables to do what we did in the video. I would use this game as review once the children are pretty comfortable with the song. You could use it for just the bridge or the whole song.
How to use this:
1) Print all of the tree pictures and assemble (it is 9 pages big and will make a 3x3 rectangle.) Color if you feel inclined, but no pressure. Print and cut out enough apples for your group. You can print on colored paper or white paper. You can also have the children color their apples.
2) Affix the tree to the board or a wall.
3) Briefly explain what fruits of the Spirit are. What blessings are theirs because of faith? Ask the children and teachers to write one of their favorite fruits of faith on their apple and attach it to the tree. While they are working on their apples, play the song (or just the bridge) multiple times. Have them join in singing when they finish their apples.
4) Bear a 10-second testimony that the fruits of the Spirit bless our lives and the lives of those around us. As we share those fruits with others, they, in turn, can plant seeds of faith in their hearts.
Are there any other teaching resources you'd like to see? Send me an email, and I'll see what I can do!
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