Stars and Stripes Forever

So my 16 year old son walked in the room when I was assembling this flag:

He said, "Mom, you know that's not a real flag, right? The stripes are all messed up and there's not even thirteen stars."

(Thank you Captain Obvious....I guess I won't be fooling the Primary aged kids, either, LOL)

Finding myself on the spot, I said, "Well, I plan on pointing out to the kids that this flag is incomplete, just like some of the songs we are going to be practicing are incomplete!"

Brilliant.

Here is the PDF for the stars and stripes.

Stars and Stripes
For the stripes I printed 3 pages on red card-stock and three pages on white card-stock, then cut them out, taped them together, and taped them on to a blue poster board. For the stars I printed one page on white card-stock, cut them out and taped them to the blue poster board.The stars are from my DJ Inkers graphics collection.

I have songs written on the back of each stripe. I didn't have 8 songs for the eight stripes, so I wrote the songs I want to review more than once on more than one stripe. I love singing the patriotic hymns with the children, so that was a given. But I also want to work on The Holy Ghost again and practice the sign language, as well as the 9th verse of Follow the Prophet that was in the Friend Magazine about President Monson. I'll wait to introduce Come Follow Me until next week.

Here's my list of songs. They are in no particular order:

• America The Beautiful (Hymns, 338)
• My Country 'Tis of Thee (Hymns, 339)
• The Star Spangled Banner (Hymns, 340)
• (Written on 2 of the stripes )Follow the Prophet, Thomas S. Monson Verse (Children's Songbook 110)
• (Written on 3 stripes) The Holy Ghost (Children's Songbook, 105)

On the stars I have 8 ways to sing:

• Hand on Heart
• Boys/Girls alternate phrases
• Softly
• With pride/loudly
• Swaying
• Drum the beat on knees
• eyes closed
• Statue of Liberty pose

Then, I found this cute patriotic paper airplane on familyfun.com.

Click here to download and print your own.

The "flag" will be placed hanging on the whiteboard. I will have a child come to the front, standing a few feet from the whiteboard and flag, and try to hit a stripe on the flag with the paper airplane. We will sing the song written on the back of whichever stripe the airplane touches. The older the child, the further back they will stand. I will also have a child choose a star, which will tell us how to sing the song.

Happy Birthday to the USA!

Have fun!