Head, Shoulders, Knees, and all that

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star App

We've been working hard at Super Simple Learning and it's taken the bulk of my time, but I'm really excited about our newest project and wanted to share it here.

Twinkle Twinkle is our new iPhone/iPad app.  It's a bedtime story, a music video, and a simple counting game all rolled into one beautiful app. 

Please check it out when you have a chance, and let us know what you think! 

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.

English for young children podcast

We've made a new podcast at Knock Knock English for Japanese parents/teachers interested in using some simple English expressions with their young children/students.  The podcast features some basic expressions, in English and Japanese, adults can use with children naturally throughout the day.  For English speakers, you can use the podcast to pick up some simple Japanese expressions you can use with your children!

We'd love to get as many subscribers as possible the first week, so please take 10 seconds right now to subscribe with iTunes  by clicking here, and pass it on! 
If you don't have iTunes, you can access the podcast at podomatic.

日本のiTunesをつかう方、ぜひぜひsubscribeして、友達に教えてください！日本のiTunesのtop 100に入りたい！

The podcast features some clips from our CD, こどもと英語で話そう! (Let's speak English with the kids!...or something to that effect.)  The CD features all of the expressions in English-Japanese and Japanese-English so you can practice in an audio flashcard style, and it comes with a laminated poster including all of the expressions, great for putting on the refrigerator or using as a placemat at the dinner table.   Although designed for parents, it was recorded in a gentle tone that kids enjoy as well.  Unfortunately, the CD isn't well designed for English speakers looking to learn Japanese, but again, you can pick up some simple expressions with the podcast.

Thank you!  よろしくおねがいします！

Update:  If you are having trouble reading the Japanese characters in this post, try setting your browser encoding to "default".

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.

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!

Teacher tips from Slovenia

Anita Bezic has some helpful ideas for Teaching Very Young Learners over at her blog.  She summarizes a seminar she attended in Slovenia geared towards EFL teachers, but the ideas apply to all young learners.  Her blog has a really cool feature...click on one of the flags beneath any of her posts for immediate translation into another language.  Check it out.

One, two, three, four, six

I've had the opportunity to observe some great teachers of young learners over the years, and one little device that all of them used to some degree is feigning ignorance.  It might be holding a potato and saying, "Mmm...I love apples."  Or in a delightfully silly way, forgetting the names of all the students.  Or in the middle of a storybook saying "The End" and closing the book and asking "wasn't that a great story?"

Besides just appealing to the children's growing appreciation of the humor of the unexpected and incongruous, it encourages children to speak up and share their knowledge in a way much more fun and interesting and meaningful than asking them, "Who can tell me the characteristics of an apple?" or "Today we have a new student joining the class, please introduce yourselves,"  or "What do you think happens next in the story?"

Of course there is a balance here...feign ignorance all the time and you run the danger of coming across as a clown.   But used occasionally as one of the many tools in your toolbox, and with a knowing smile, it's a great way to encourage kids to share their knowledge with you in a passionate way.  If you are a teacher of young kids and you feel like you are not reaching them, not making a connection, try dropping the occasional absurdity on them.   It's fun, it keeps them on their toes, it allows you to see which students are having trouble focusing or comprehending the topic at hand, it encourages creative thinking, and they'll be dying to share their knowledge with you.

For me, as a teacher of non-native English speakers, it's a fantastic way to check comprehension and encourage the children to produce English that is meaningful to them rather than parroting the teacher or waiting for someone to tell them what to say. 

Children's music performer Eric Herman provides a wonderful example of feigning ignorance.  In The Elephant Song, Eric sings beautifully and earnestly, "Elephants, I like elephants.  I like how they swing through trees," only to be interrupted by a child saying NO!  Elephants don't swing through trees...monkeys do.  Eric continues..."Monkeys, I like monkeys.  I like how they swim in the ocean..." whereupon he is corrected again, and again, and again.  It's a great device that encourages critical listening skills, and the sharing of knowledge about animals... but above all it's just a lot of fun for kids (and a great tune that you'll be humming all day).

Find out more about Eric Herman and his Invisible Band at his website.

Stefan has reviews of Eric's albums Monkey Business and The Kid in the Mirror over at Zooglobble.

The Wheels on the Bus

I just finished a great class with my 3 year-olds in which we sang Wheels on the Bus and played on our make-believe bus.  That lesson is always a ton of fun... and Wheels on the Bus never fails.  It's one of those kids songs that has like a 97% approval rating. 

It got me wondering, what are the characteristics of the song that make it so popular with kids?   

1)  The tune.  Clearly, it all starts and ends with the tune, and Wheels on the Bus is easy to sing and predictable enough that kids can really get into it because they know what is coming next.  I think there is a comfort in that. 

2)  The rhythm.  The rhythm of the words to Wheels on the Bus is appealing, even to kids who don't yet speak or understand English.  It allows emerging speakers to play with the language even if they don't fully get it.  We have a couple of Wheels on the Bus picture books, and I find it almost impossible to read one without singing it.  The words just flow like that. 

3)  Repetion of lyrics.  This allows kids to get into the song right away, and it gets them really listening closely.  They quickly understand there will be repetion, so they listen closely to the start of each verse so they will know what to sing.

4)  Lots of movement and gestures.  Every verse can be acted out, allowing children to become a part of the song, not just sing it.  It's more than a song, it's an activity.

5)  Reassuring theme.  There is something about how this song conveys how things work, that there is an order to the world.  The wheels go round and round, the babies cry waa waa waa, and the Mommies say shh, shh, shh.  The song doesn't say it directly, but it communicates that the sun rises and sets, you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning, Mommy and/or Daddy goes to work and comes back home, and through all of it, Mommy or Daddy will be there to comfort you when you are sad.

6)  Easy to build on.  There are so many great activities and crafts and role-plays that this song lends itself too.  We love to make a pretend bus with chairs or boxes, make a bus stop, give everyone pretend money, etc.  We get to talk about where we are going.  We go fast and slow, turn left and right, bounce up and down...  And at the end we always get to go home. 

It's definitely a great children's song.   Here are the tune and lyrics.  Check Kiddidles for more lyrics and actions.  Check the Virtual Vine for related activities, and DLTK for bus-themed crafts.

Update:  Also, check out Madonna's version of Wheels on the Bus here (well, not really Madonna, but another great job by the folks at Mother Goose Rocks...this version was even on the British pop charts for a while).

Potato Pal

Unlike his fellow countrymen U2, Patrick Jackson is not a rock star, though he does have rock star moments.  My 4 year-old student Chikara was over the moon to show me Patrick's autograph on several books from the Potato Pals series (authored by Patrick) which he collected over the weekend at an Oxford University Kids' Club Event in Tokyo.  Since one great feature of the Potato Pals series is the music on the accompanying CD, and since Patrick has extensive experience teaching young children, I asked him to give us some of his thoughts on music and early childhood education.   Here is our e-mail correspondence:

Devon:
Hi Patrick. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. We really enjoy the Potato Pals Series...I think it's very well thought out; distinctive characters, great illustrations, situations kids can identify with, and it's easy to use with kids of varying levels of English ability...readers and emerging-readers alike. The CD also makes it easy for children and parents to use at home, which I think distinguishes it from a lot of young children's English learning materials. With a lot of our students, they go home and learn the new book by heart before we even use it in class. How long did it take to develop the series and did you have a lot of input from children?

Patrick:
Thank you for the kind words, Devon.  Your school was one of the first to adopt Potato Pals when they first came out and it’s really great to hear that that your students enjoy the books and songs. Delighted!

Potato Pals ‘grew’ in a kid’s English conversation school where I worked for the first 4 years I was in Japan. Rie Kimura, who illustrates the books, was my classroom assistant so we were just enjoying making materials for our students. 

After a few years had passed like this, trying out all sorts of things in the classroom, we sent a proposal to various publishers and had the good luck to be contracted by Oxford University Press to do a series of readers and support materials.

It wasn’t until then that we thought of putting songs to our books and it was that step that really transformed them. Although I had always ‘done’ quite a lot of music and movement in my lessons, I hadn’t fully understood the power of music; the magic ‘spoonful of sugar’ for the language teacher.

As for input from kids, well my own children (6 and 2) listened to the early versions of most of the songs and funnily enough, their favorites have become mine too!