1.Knock Knock Hello
1- With larger groups, try breaking the class
into two groups and have them line up facing each other on opposite sides of
the room. Kids on one side sing, "Hello!" and wave to their
classmates on the other side of the room. That group responds,
"Hello!" This is a great way to use the song because it emphasizes
that we are singing about doing these things together.
2- With smaller groups, you can have students get
together in pairs and sing facing each other.
3- If you have parents in class, have the child
and parent sing facing each other. 3
If you have a small class, try starting class by
having the children knock on the door. This gives you a chance to talk briefly
with each child as you invite them to "come in."
4- Draw a picture of a house with a big door in
the middle, and some windows. Cut the picture so that you can open the door and
windows. Hold the house in front of you and show your child/students how to
"knock" on the door. Ask, "Who is it?" or "What's your
name?" After the child answers, say, "Come in!" and encourage
them to open the door. Hold the house up to your face so that when the child
opens the door, he/she will see your face saying, "Hello!" Children
love this form of "peek-a-boo" and will enjoy knocking again and
again, giving them lots of opportunity to practice greetings
("Hello." "What's your name?" "Who is it?"
"Come in!" etc.)
1 With smaller groups, you can
have students get together in pairs and sing facing each other.
2 If you have parents in class, have the child and parent sing facing
each other.
3 If you have a small class, try starting class by having the children
knock on the door. This gives you a chance to talk briefly with each child as
you invite them to "come in."
4 Draw a picture of a house with a
big door in the middle, and some windows. Cut the picture so that you can open
the door and windows. Hold the house in front of you and show your
child/students how to "knock" on the door. Ask, "Who is
it?" or "What's your name?" After the child answers, say, "Come
in!" and encourage them to open the door. Hold the house up to your face
so that when the child opens the door, he/she will see your face saying,
"Hello!" Children love this form of "peek-a-boo" and will
enjoy knocking again and again, giving them lots of opportunity to practice
greetings ("Hello." "What's your name?" "Who is
it?" "Come in!" etc.)
3. Seven Steps
This is a very versatile song the
you can use in many ways. The easiest is simply to march around the room as you
sing along with the song. For variation, try marching with pom-poms, batons,
tambourines, or maracas.
1 Instead of marching, call out different commands like "Jump!"
"Skip!" "Gallop!" "Tiptoe!" "Hop!" etc.
Changing the actions you do with the song will keep it interesting for the
kids, and it's great fun to try hopping or skipping backwards!
2 This is a great song to use for freeze games. When you stop the music,
everybody must stop marching (or jumping or skipping) and freeze! Anybody who
is moving gets a playful tap on the head with a squeaky toy or some other
harmless and fun "penalty" (it's no fun when kids are "out"
and have to sit out while others participate). To make it more challenging,
while the kids are "frozen," they must continue singing as if the
music didn't stop!
3 Sing the song sitting down. Count
fingers, toes, bean bags, marbles…anything!
4 Instead of marching in a circle,
have everyone line up holding hands and facing the same direction as they sing
and march. If you have parents in the class, try having them stand facing the
kids. As the kids move forward, the parents (or teacher) move back. When the
kids move backward, the parents move forward (as if chasing the kids). It's a
lot of fun.
5 Instead of forward and backward,
try up and down or right and left. Or try alternating hopping on your left foot
and then your right foot.
6 With children under 2, this is a great song for them to
"bounce" to. Or the caretaker can count the child's fingers and toes,
or walk his/her fingers up and down the child's arms and legs.
1- Introduce new body parts names. Simply call out
the body part and then point to it if students are unsure where it is.
2- Give each student a chance to pick a body part. Stand in a circle as you
sing the song. When you reach the "put it on your _____," have the
next child call out a part of the body. Keep going around the circle until
every student has a turn.
3- Practice some simple counting by changing the number of fingers with
each verse. "One little finger," "two little fingers,"
"five little fingers," etc.
4- This song is great to sing with children under 2 years old. The
caretaker can sing and point to all the parts of baby's body.
5- See our Pinterest board Teach Parts of the Body for more ideas.
5- Walking Walking
After you sing "Now let's sleep", pretend to fall asleep and
have the children wake you up by shouting "WAKE UP!" It's a hit
everytime.
If you don’t have space to run around, or even if you do, try this song
sitting down and just using your fingers! To make it even more fun, use
puppets, finger puppets, and/or stuffed animals!
Also, this song provides a great opportunity to teach kids that they
should stop at red lights. Make a simple traffic signal with some construction
paper. On one side, put a red circle on top and two blank circles below it. On
the other side, put a green circle on the bottom with two blank circles above
it. When the song says, “Now let’s stop,” hold up the red light! Then flip the
signal over and hold up the green light when it is time to walk again. You can
continue to play stop and go games after the song has finished!
This song is great for teaching a variety of foods. Don’t just stick to
the items sung about in the song, think of other foods and come up with
gestures for them. When you sing the song, the teacher can just call out the
different food over the voice on the CD. You can work with your students to think
of new gestures for different foods, or you can use sign language (American
Sign Language or the sign language native to the country you live in). You can
find many great sign language dictionaries online to teach you the signs for
different kinds of foods.
This song works great with all kids, but it’s especially satisfying to
see pre-verbal youngsters or children reluctant to speak communicating their
hunger using the gestures learned in this song. Kids can learn to express, “I’m
hungry” by rubbing their tummies. Or they can reply to a caretakers question,
“Are you hungry?” by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down.
With older three-year-olds and up, try playing food charades after this
song. Pretend to eat some kind of food and the children try to guess which food
you are eating. Then have each of the children try. Show one of them a food
picture, and have them mime eating that food. The other children try to guess
the food.
When using the song for the first time, you may want to demonstrate with
a puppet cleaning up some blocks or other small items. At home, it’s an
excellent song to play to encourage children to cleanup when they are finished
playing. You could also sing together without the CD, when doing chores
together around the house.
Before or after this song, explore emotions by making faces in the
mirror. Or tell your students to make a happy/angry/scared/sleepy/sad/etc. face
and take their pictures with a camera phone or a digital camera and then show
them their pictures!
For extra fun make an emotions book with those pictures. Just print out the pictures and write the emotion under each one.
If you work with autistic children, an emotions book is great for helping the children to recognize other people's feelings. You may not be able to have your students pose for the pictures, but if you can make an emotions book with pictures of other people, you may find your kids fascinated by it. Picture cards:
For extra fun make an emotions book with those pictures. Just print out the pictures and write the emotion under each one.
If you work with autistic children, an emotions book is great for helping the children to recognize other people's feelings. You may not be able to have your students pose for the pictures, but if you can make an emotions book with pictures of other people, you may find your kids fascinated by it. Picture cards:
Try stopping the music at certain days and see if the children can say
the next day. Sing while you point at a calendar. If you are using the song in
class, assign each student a different day of the week and give them a sign
with that day written on it. As the song plays, each student must stand up and
sing his/her day at the right time. After singing the song, mix the students up
and then have them put themselves in the correct order, starting from Sunday.
Mix them up again, have them trade signs, and then have them put themselves in
the correct order again, this time starting from Monday.
You can also tell the whole class to stand up on "Wednesday",
or stand up on "Tuesday" and sit down on "Friday" . These
activities help students internalize the order of the days of the week.
Instead of having children run around the room looking for colors, have
them try to locate colors in a picture book, a collection of toys, or something
else you can place on the ground or table in front of them.
After singing the song a few times, play the "I See Something..." game. Have the children gather around you. Look around the room and then say, "I see something blue/red/yellow/etc. The students then try to guess which object you "see". They can point at the objects, or name them if they know the word. This is a great game for introducing new vocabulary. For example, if a student points to a blue pencil, the teacher can say, "The blue pencil? No, not the pencil. " After each guess, the teacher can introduce the word for the item the student is pointing to. After playing this game a couple of tiems, encourage the students to identify the objects by name, and then let the students take the lead and say, "I see something..."
After singing the song a few times, play the "I See Something..." game. Have the children gather around you. Look around the room and then say, "I see something blue/red/yellow/etc. The students then try to guess which object you "see". They can point at the objects, or name them if they know the word. This is a great game for introducing new vocabulary. For example, if a student points to a blue pencil, the teacher can say, "The blue pencil? No, not the pencil. " After each guess, the teacher can introduce the word for the item the student is pointing to. After playing this game a couple of tiems, encourage the students to identify the objects by name, and then let the students take the lead and say, "I see something..."
12. Head Shoulders Knees and Toes
1- This is great for a warm up song to use at the
start of a lesson, or play it anytime you need a short break.
2- Give each student a stuffed animal or doll and have them point to their
parts of the body as they sing the song.
3- Combine this song with a storytime book like Eric Carle's "From
Head To Toe," for a full lesson on body parts. (FROM HEAD TO TOE)
13. Ten in the Bed
Start with 10
students seated in ten chairs in a row. If you have more than 10 students, have
part of the class watch and sing. If you have less than 10 students, start the
song later or place stuffed animals on the extra chairs.)
If you have a Ten
in the Bed storybook, try reading it as you sing the song together. The teacher
or parent can sing, "There were ten in the bed and the little one
said..." and the children sing "Roll over, roll over!"
If you have a class
with 10 or more students, have 10 of the students act out the song while the
other students sing! You can also use stuffed animals to act out the song, or
try using finger puppets!
14. The Bath Song
You can sing this song in a call-and-response format
with the teacher singing the "Can you...?" lines, and the children
singing the "I can..." lines. Alternatively, split the class up into
2 groups, and have one group sing the "Can you...?" lines, and the
other group sing the "I can..." lines.
Once the students are familiar with the song, you can do a number of
variations, such as reversing roles and having the children ask you, “Can you
wash your....?”
When you sing, “I can wash my....”, pretend to wash the incorrect body part and see if the students can catch it!
With this song, you can do a fun role-play in smaller classes. Buy some bath supplies such as sponges and bath caps, and get ready for taking a pretend bath! Or give baths to some stuffed animals.
At home, this song becomes a great bath time song (without music--we don’t recommend CD players in the bathroom!) Not only does it teach body parts but it is also a fun way to encourage your child to start washing her/himself! Try it!
When you sing, “I can wash my....”, pretend to wash the incorrect body part and see if the students can catch it!
With this song, you can do a fun role-play in smaller classes. Buy some bath supplies such as sponges and bath caps, and get ready for taking a pretend bath! Or give baths to some stuffed animals.
At home, this song becomes a great bath time song (without music--we don’t recommend CD players in the bathroom!) Not only does it teach body parts but it is also a fun way to encourage your child to start washing her/himself! Try it!
15. Five Little Monkeys
Kids love this popular chant and will really enjoy this super simple
song! There are a number of storybook versions of this chant available. We
suggest introducing this song by reading one of those storybooks first so the
children can fully understand what the song is about. Or, watch the above video
with them. Then the fun begins....Make a circle with the students. During the
intro music you can all move around the circle acting like the silliest monkeys
you can! The music is very “monkeyish”!
16. The
Alphabet Song (Let's Learn)
1- Use this song as a transition to signal that it's
time for students to get out their ABC books. You will find students singing
along as they get their materials, and the soothing music helps prepare
students to transition to the quiet activity of sitting down and writing.
17. The
Alphabet Song (Let's Sing)
1- Point to the letters on an alphabet chart or
written on a whiteboard.
2- Line up flashcards from A-Z on the floor or on the
wall. Point to each of the letters as you sing the song. Next, remove several
of the letters, leaving blank spaces where the letters used to be. Sing
"The Alphabet Song" again, but when you reach a spot where there is
no letter, everyone claps instead of singing. For example, it may sound like
this: "A, B, C, (CLAP), E, F, G, H, I, J, (CLAP), L, M, N, O, P, Q, (CLAP),
S, T, U, V, W, (CLAP), Y, and Z." This adds an extra element of fun and
challenge for the students, and forces the children to really focus on the
letters and not just memorize the song. It also helps teachers see which
students are having some difficulty with the alphabet.
18. I See
Something Pink
1- Pause the music
between each verse to allow the children time to explore the room and search
for colors.
2- Instead of having
children run around the room looking for colors, have them try to locate colors
in a picture book, a collection of toys, or something else you can place on the
ground or table in front of them.
3- Give each student a set of small colored objects,
such as pom poms, marbles, buttons, etc. (be sure to supervise young children
carefully!). Play "I See Something Pink" and have students pick out
the different colors. 3
4- After singing the song a few times, play the
"I See Something..." game. Have the children gather around you. Look
around the room and then say, "I see something blue/red/yellow," etc.
The students then try to guess which object you "see." They can point
at the objects, or name them if they know the word. This is a great game for
introducing new vocabulary. For example, if a student points to a blue pencil,
the teacher can say, "The blue pencil? No, not the pencil. " After
each guess, the teacher can introduce the word for the item the student is
pointing to. After playing this game a couple of times, encourage the students
to identify the objects by name, and then let the students take the lead and
say, "I see something..."
5- Teaching Tip: make teaching materials for other
vocabulary topics in the eight colors mentioned in "I See Something
Pink" and "I See Something Blue." Then sing these songs as a
follow up activity to your main language topic.
1- Print the
flashcards for monster, witch, cat, and ghost. Give the children soft fluffy
balls or something they can throw at the cards. On each, "Go away!"
they can throw one at the appropriate card. At the end of that verse, take that
card away and go on to the next verse.
2- At home, this is a great song to sing your child
back to sleep after midnight spottings of monsters in the closet or under the
bed!
20. What Do You Want For Christmas?
1- Have children act out the toys between verses.
21. Put On Your
Shoes
1- Introduce this song early in the year to practice
the phrase "Put on your _____" with socks, shoes, jackets, etc.
2- Clothing is fun and easy vocabulary that goes well
with weather related topics, especially in the winter time, when those of us
who live in colder climates are bundling up. But it can be used at any time of
year.
3- Bring in clothes for the children to act out the
song. If you have a large class, have just two or three children come the front
of the class and demonstrate for everyone.
4- Give students dolls or paper dolls to dress during
the song.
22. See You
Later
1- Use this song at the end of English lessons,
playgroups, kindergarten class, or even visiting a friend's house. A goodbye
song is a great way to transition to leaving or going home.
2- Introduce the concept of time by telling students,
"It's time to go," and pointing to the clock or your watch before
singing this song at the end of your lessons.
3- Mix up the gestures. Try making your
"glasses" upside down. Or try to snap as you point. Four and five year olds have a great time
trying to master this new skill!
23. Please Sit
Down And Storytime Music
1- Use this song to transition to storytime or any
other quiet activity.
2- Even if children sit down right away and are
ready, sing and gesture both verses to give them time to settle down and be ready
to pay attention to the next activity.
24. Sweet
Dreams (Goodnight Song)
If you don't have nap time in your class, you can practice bedtime by
giving each student (or groups of students) a teddy bear and a blanket. Let the
students put the teddy bear to bed while singing "Sweet Dreams."
25. Lullaby
Medley
"Lullaby Medley" is an instrumental lullaby of many of the
songs on the CD. It's great for playing during quiet time activities, nap time,
or any time you need to create a calming atmosphere in the class. When playing
this track as background music during other activities in class, you'll often
notice children singing along to the melodies, recalling the lyrics without
even thinking about it.
