Head, Shoulders, Knees, and all that

Santa Claus: Lost in Japan

If you're looking to spice up your children's Christmas party this year (maybe cutting it close) or want to start planning ahead for next year, here's a suggestion...make a video of Santa on his way to the party.  It builds a lot of anticipation for Santa's arrival and the kids really love to see Santa out and about in their own neighborhood.

We captured some video of Santa getting lost on his way to our Christmas parties in Tokyo and Yokohama this year, making sure to catch him around some areas our students know well...our classroom, the park, on the train, KFC, etc.  We edited it together into seven segments separated by static and checked in at various points throughout the party, as if checking a live satellite feed, to see where Santa was.  Here's  a video of all the segments edited together...11 minutes long so grab a cup of coffee! 

For those who have never been to Japan, you might want to check out how nice and clean the convenience stores are, the style of the houses in the neighborhood, a Mom riding her bike with her son in the child seat on back (something you see a lot of...often with one child in front and one in back...it's really nice...cars are just much less a part of daily life for most folks in Japan as compared with the States), what a typical neighborhood park looks like, how the kids respond to KFC by yelling out "Ken-tu-cky" (chicken is the popular choice for Christmas here and KFC does HUGE business around the 25th...notice Colonel Sanders in his Santa suit), what a typical residential train station looks like, and how immaculate the taxi is (complete with the standard automatic door).

Five Little Pumpkins

Mama Lisa helps get us ready for Halloween with a recording of her daughter reciting 5 little pumpkins. Or you can listen to Lisa herself (great for classrooms).

Froggy

Troy at songStreet has a few great new posts up, including this very cool jumping frog craft.  Anyone have a favorite frog-themed kids song?  How about this summer camp classic from the folks at Ghoulie Games?

Elephants

One thing I love about teaching young children is watching their fascination with animals. When learning animal names, we make different gestures and sounds for each animal...big arms mimicking the alligator's snout; hands framing the face like a mane to mimic a lion; and of course the long arm hanging down like an elephant's trunk. The kids really can really get into character and they quickly associate the animal names with the "signs" that we come up with.

Fran's song of the day the other day was the wonderful The Elephant Song by Eric Herman. I wrote a little while back about why I think that's such a great song (one, two, three, four, six) and Fran's post reminded me to go back and update that post with video now that I know how...yay! Also check out Stefan's review of Eric's latest CD over at zooglobble.

Mama Lisa also has the goods on a cute little Elephant song popular with the pre-school set in Japan.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs!

It's amazing how much confidence children can gain in their reading ability through "reading" signs...and gaining confidence in being able to read is a huge part of the battle.  One way you can help your children/students to read is by making your own book of signs/logos.  Take pictures of all the familiar signs you see around town...the stop sign, the one-way sign, the sign for the street you live on, etc.  Also, collect logos from bags of stores you frequent such as McDonalds or your local grocery store, or cut words out of your cereal boxes.  Or just get online and find pictures of signs and logos your child will recognize quickly (it's much more fun to go on a sign hunt though!)

Paste all of your pictures in a notebook (or better yet creatively design a book with contstruction paper, sparkles, the works) and write the word for each sign in big letters.  Now you are ready to "read" with your child.  At first, they may just recognize the shape or colors of the signs/logos, but they can read this book to you!  Little by little you can start covering up the signs and just have them read the words.  It's a lot of fun and teaches them about the signs and stores in their neighborhood, all while developing reading skills and confidence. 

The Potato Pals series of readers we use with our 4-6 year-old students makes great use of this principle...every sentence has a "memoricon" associated with it so that kids can quickly "read" books on their own, even before they are recognizing the words.  From there, it doesn't take much to have them focus on the words and we find many of our students telling us to cover the pictures because they want to read without hints. 

Signs are powerful helpers in what can be a VERY intimidating activity (reading) for young kids.  Next time you walk outside, notice the signs around you and think of ways you can use them to help teach your children/students.  Be aware that reading is more than simply sounding out words, but involves using a number of clues to help understand meaning, and that the reading of signs should be praised and recognized as an important first step.

Here's a great Electric Company song/video that helps kids to read using signs.  Enjoy!

Update: Unfortunately the video I linked to was removed...so here's another Electric Company clip using signage...not as good as the last one but still fun use of signs.

One last thing...promise.  Watching this video I see the old Walk/Don't Walk signs and it makes me wonder...were those really so difficult to understand?  Did we really need to switch to the symbols? Just wondering...seems like giving up.  Admittedly, I was young, but I don't recall ever seeing someone have trouble at the crosswalk reading the signs!  Bring 'em back!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

This week and next, I'm reading the Bill Martin/Eric Carle classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do Dou See? in some of my classes.  It's amazing how quickly even some very young non-native English speakers respond to and "learn" this book.  Eric Carle's art is simple yet vivid, and the repetition in the words is so comforting and confidence-building.  The simplicity of the book makes it one of those classics that children can read by themselves before they can actually read words. 

We like to listen to Greg and Steve's song version of the book off of their CD Playing Favorites, which also has a nice version of Woody Guthrie's Put Your Finger in the Air (with an Obla-di, Obla-da riff) along with other classics.  Click here to hear a short sample of Greg and Steve's Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

Or listen these kids give it a shot.

Being a staple of kindergartens and primary schools around the world, there are a ton of great lesson plans, activities, and crafts available on the web to support the book.  Start with DLTK and check out Eric Carle's site.  The Virtual Vine is another good resource.

 

Nagi returns

One of the fun things about blogging has just been seeing how people come across the site.  A while back I posted an mp3 of one my students, Nagi, singing/rapping.  I called the post, "Best. Rapper. Ever."  To this day, I get at least three or four visits everyday from someone apparently looking to Google for the answer to that great debate...who is the best rapper ever?  Apparently the debate has taken off in the past couple of months.  After I put up that post a couple of months ago, I was on the first page of a google search for "best rapper ever"...now I come up on the third page

I always wish I could see the reaction of people who come to this site looking to find the best rapper ever, and I wonder how many actually listen to Nagi's "At School" rap, and where she ends up on their lists.

Anyhow, I had quite a few requests for more Nagi, but you know, I'm trying not to overexpose her...she just started kindergarten this week so she's got a pretty full schedule.  Here is the clip from when she was 2 that I referred to in my first Nagi post.

Nagi Freestyle - 2 years old

She didn't have much command of English at the time (or her mother tongue Japanese for that matter), but listen to her rap in English anyhow, mimicking the intonation.  You can make out "Clifford" and "Elmo" here and there.  And it's all freestyle, no editing.

Listen to her rhythm...Nagi has developed in to a really great reader, mostly on her own, and I'm pretty convinced that there is a connection between her sense of rhythm and her advanced reading abilities, one more reason to instill a love of music in young children. 

Related Posts: Be Yourself Best. Rapper. Ever.

The sincerest form of flattery

One of the truly great pleasures of teaching young children is hearing the stories from some of the parents about how the kids imitate you at home and pretend to be the teacher. Of course, they also imitate the Fed Ex guy, SpongeBob, and the dog across the street, but nonetheless, it feels good to know that the brief time we spend together in class (in my case, an hour a week), they are soaking it all in, and that I'm with them beyond the classroom.

Shannon-sensei has some thoughts on this over at teaching english to lil cuties (hat tip to Troy for sharing).

One of my favorite things is when my kids call the classroom Devon's house...they think I live there and never leave. I love the looks on their faces as they process that I live somewhere else and that I exist beyond the relationship that we share in the classroom.

Elbow room

It's amazing how much time can be spent in a class of youngsters, or when driving a couple of kids across town, dealing with little battles over personal space. Nancy Stewart has her song of the month up and it's a great little song for helping with those issues. Check it out, 'cause everybody needs a little elbow room.

Song Street

Light blogging this week.  The beginning of April in Japan means the beginning of a new school year, so we are really busy finishing up our current term and getting ready for the new one.

In the meantime, check out a great new blog called songStreet from my colleague Troy.  Troy is a teacher at Knock Knock English and the composer, arranger, and producer of Super Simple Songs and Super Simple Songs 2 (coming soon!).  He comes at the topic of children's music and early childhood education with tremendous perspective, as both a classically trained musician and an educator with many years experience teaching young children in Canada, Japan, and Thailand. 

His blog has a lot of great ideas and resources for teachers and parents alike.  Download some of the transportation themed short musical bits he created for music and movement activities.   I also recommend listening to a re-mix he put together of a couple of our very talented students, Chikara and Junya, kind of singing their ABCs.  A lot of fun.

Anyways...tons of stuff there worth checking out.  Enjoy!