Hymn Story Time and Hymn Discovery

Growing in Grace

My husband and I met due to a shared love of music. We invest a LOT of time and money each month in piano lessons for our children. We have a collection of over 40 different hymnals, hundreds of CDs, and playlists amassed on several different platforms. We are the family that will rewrite songs to include alternate lyrics, pore over hymnals during dinner to find out how many times the tunes were adapted from pieces our children are polishing for upcoming recitals, and play ‘name that tune’ with classic rock songs. Our twelve year old has been filling in as pianist for several local congregations. Needless to say, there is a lot of music running through our everyday lives, especially sacred music. When Growing in Grace sent me copies of Hymn Discovery; Exploring Timeless Hymns of Faith with Elementary-Age Children and Hymn Story Time; Introducing Hymns To Your Youngest Singers, I was rather excited to see what was between the covers. I was not disappointed!

Hymn Story Time is designed to introduce children to classic hymns. It comes as a physical book or downloadable manual. Thirteen hymns are included, organized by theme (general hymns, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter). Each hymn comes with a story, explaining some of the history behind each hymn. An associated craft, as well as a movement activity for each song, is included. The book comes with a CD of the recordings, and quality sheet music is included. Hymn Discovery is a series of three volumes geared towards elementary aged children. Eight hymns are included, along with a short history of each one, several different activities (multiple modalities are used with each), coupled with sheet music and a CD. The publisher has geared Hymn Story Time to children ages 3-6, but I wouldn’t limit it! I find the activities geared toward early elementary aged children while Hymn Discovery is better suited for children a bit older.

These resources are useful for many different purposes in your children’s ministries. Yes, you could make this a quarter-long study for your traditional faith formation time. You could also parse out a few different selections and make them one of your rotation stations during faith formation. Hymn Discovery, in particular, would be excellent in a multigenerational session. Both could be used as a midweek enrichment offering for a season. I have already slipped some of the sheet music to my children the pianists- they are well laid out and perfectly formatted. Your children’s choir director may enjoy having this in his/her/their library and I would also add a copy of each volume to a family lending library. Keep these volumes on your radar as you do your planning into the new year!