Encouraging and teaching children to pray can be a little daunting but one thing small children are really good at picking up are nursery rhymes and here is where mums can be a little creative. Have you ever thought of adapting a few prayers to the tune of a nursery rhyme?
Neither had I until in the midst of the newborn mum fatigue when I found myself singing a prayer to a completely irrelevant tune (this is a ridiculous habit I have inherited from my husband).
Regardless, children have a wonderful capacity for learning rhyme and rhythm and this talent was something I had never really thought of until Mem Fox, children’s author extraordinaire, explained this on an information DVD on reading. In teaching children nursery rhymes you’re actually kick starting their reading aptitude as well. So why not kick start their aptitude for prayer too?
So here’s a couple of prayers in tune form that might just be a hit in your house!
The Guardian Angel Prayer
Words: Angel of God, my Guardian dear
To whom God’s love commits me here
Ever this day be at my side
To light and to guard, to rule and to guide.
Melody: Ride a Cock Horse
Night Time Prayer
Words: Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul will keep.
If I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul will take.
Melody: See-saw, Margery Daw
And for other established prayers like the Our Father, Hail Mary and even the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, there are already many musical arrangements that you probably already know off by heart!
Originally posted 2014-07-24 11:37:52.