Melody Mondays - What is a Rebus Song?

A rebus story uses pictures as well as words to tell a story. It is a great tool for emerging readers to help build their confidence in reading. I have found them very successful in preschool-primary Bible classes. I have used these stories in my teaching before and the kids loved them. (I will feature the stories at another time on this blog.) When getting ready for a VBS a couple of years ago, I decided to apply the same idea to songs we had found for our lessons. Follow these instructions to turn a song into a rebus song:

1. Choose a song that applies to your lesson.
2. Pick out 4-5 words that could be turned into pictures very easily and/or that repeat themselves in the song. (ex: name of the character, bear, lion, Bible, etc.)
3. Go through the song and circle the words you are going to change into pictures. Make a count of these so you know how many pictures you will need for each item.
4. Find pictures to replace each word you have chosen. You can use die cuts or use clip art.
5. On a poster board, write out your song and place the pictures in the appropriate places.
6. You may choose to write the word over the picture, but this is just optional.

Check out the Life of David post to see the finished product. The great thing about Rebus songs are you can use them for any lesson!!