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).

Ding Dong, Trick or Treat

This video from WKID Radio ("Where kids run Hip Hop and R & B") may be a little scary for very young children (skip the first 1:10 - the intro to the song- if you are concerned), but has an infectious hook, definitely doesn't talk down to kids, and is a lot of fun.  Plus, if you ever wondered what Elmo would have sounded like if he grew up in the 'hood, here's your answer.

Better than Cheney...

...I guess.

Counting up to Twenty

My two favorite Sesame Street characters in one skit, with maybe the funniest line ever from the show:

Pancake Mountain

Pancake Mountain is a name I've heard bandied about here and there, but never really knew much about. 

Well, I know a little bit more now.  My friend and D.C. girl Tanja sent along this WaPo article that gave me the background on this Washington D.C. based DIY show which features (among other things) indie bands playing in front of an audience of young children and their parents.

Here's a clip from the show of Craig Wedren performing "Stuck"   

There are few more Pancake Mountain clips at youtube including great clips of the Subways and Bright Eyes.  Or head over to the Pancake Mountain website where you can watch clips of perfomances and skits, as well as buy Pancake Mountain DVDs.   Always great to see kids dancing and enjoying music.

Eleven Twelve

From the 70s American children's program The Electric Company...here is how I learned to count to twelve.

What are some of your favorite counting songs?

Update: Correction...this song was featured on Sesame Street, not The Electric Company. And I neglected to mention that the song is performed by none other than the Pointer Sisters (something that my friend Tanja told me long ago but I forgot). Go here for a re-mix version of the song complete with footage from the Beatles' Yellow Submarine movie. And go here for the story on the song's creation from its composer and producer.

Who stole the cookie?

When we were making Super Simple Songs 2, we wanted to include a song version of the popular kids chant/game "Who Took/Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?"  We spent a ton of time on various versions...including one ill-fated attempt at a big bawdy number with me singing in my best (or worst depending how you look at it) Vegas-era Elvis voice.  Finally, Troy put down a very simple but fun and funky beat and we settled on a little chant  that took very little time to actually record.  Naturally, the most basic, least complicated song on a CD full of simple songs was one of  the most popular among our young students.  We should have known.  You can hear a clip at cdBaby.

Here is an adorable video of some kindergarten students in Korea performing their hard-boiled detective story version of "Who Stole the Cookie".  Priceless.  Just a heads up...the queen in the story says "Kiss my hand."

You can read more about the teacher's (director) experiences teaching in Korea here.

For some lesson ideas revolving around "Who took the cookie", try here.

Update

I posted a clip of Stevie Wonder singing Superstition on Sesame Street a few weeks back, but the clip froze in the middle.  It was updated with a full version at youtube, so I've updated the original post.  If you are a Stevie fan (like Nagi-chan), this has an extra 3 minutes of Stevie and the band jamming you'll really enjoy.  Noteworthy...the guitarist behind Stevie is a young Ray Parker Jr., most famous for his (Huey Lewis's?) hit Ghostbusters.

Ursprache, U-R-S-P-R-A-C-H-E

What is an ursprache?  A language that is the recorded or hypothetical ancestor of another language or group of languages, of course!  And also, the winning word at the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Every month or so I lead a reading and discussion circle with some great children's English teachers in Tokyo who are always looking to brush up on their English, and today the topic of spelling bees came up.    The Japanese "alphabet" is phonetically consistent, so spelling bees are pretty much a foreign concept in Japan, although there are other contests, notably soroban (Japanese abacus) contests. 

The National Spelling Bee (spelling contest) is a VERY high pressure event.  Kids compete in school events, then community events, then city/county/state events before eventually making it to the finals, which are televised on national TV.  This year, there were even casinos taking bets on who would win.  The words the kids spell are mostly words the average native English speaker doesn't even know.  Have a look at the words the winner Katharine Close spelled during the contest:

1.    (Written round)
2.    gobemouche
3. Galilean
4. chiragra
5. Bildungsroman
6. terrene
7. cucullate
8. synusia
9. towhee
10. Shedu
11. hukilau
12. clinamen
13. recrementitious
14. psittacism
15. aubade
16. kanon
17. izzat
18. tmesis
19. kundalini
20. Ursprache

To give you a better idea of the kind of pressure many of the kids are under, have a look at what happened when they asked this 13 year-old to spell alopecoid in the contest 2 years ago.

 

For more on the spelling bee and its recent popularity, check out this week's NY Times article.

The Big Sneeze

We were working on reading some s-blends in some of my classes this week (stop, skip, skate, snow, etc.) and then serendipitously (I believe that's the first time I've ever used that word), my fellow teacher Tanja showed me this classic Electric Company clip.

Yep, that's Morgan Freeman way before he became, well, MORGAN FREEMAN.  For any readers outside of the U.S. who may be unfamiliar with The Electric Company, it was a very, very cool educational program that ran on American Public Television in the 1970s.  Mr. Freeman was a regular cast member on the show.

Anyhow, I ended up introducing the word sneeze in a few classes.  Talking about sneezing with my students in Japan is interesting for a c0uple of reasons.  One, they have a hard time believing that Americans say, "Ah-choo" when we sneeze (Japanese  people say something sounding close to "hak-shun" when they sneeze.)  Also, in Japan, nobody says "bless you" or "guzundheit" after you sneeze.  Just silence.  That was a hard one for me to get used to, and it's not easy explaining to adults or young students why people in many western countries say "bless you" after a sneeze.

There is an expression in Japan (not sure exactly how it goes) that says if you sneeze once, it means someone is praising you; if you sneeze twice, it means someone is criticizing/saying bad things about you; if you sneeze three times, it means you are being scolded; and if you sneeze four times or more, well, it means you have a cold.

I wonder what it means if you sneeze like Morgan did.

Update:  Wow!  More serendipity.  I didn't know this when I posted, but it's Morgan Freeman's birthday today.   Happy 69th Morgan!

Update #2:  Mama Lisa has more on sneezing: How do you sneeze in your country?