Valentine’s Day is on February 14th, just a short time away! To celebrate the occasion, I wrote a song that my young learners love to sing and move to. It’s entitled “Be My Valentine.” This song helps children learn the shape and sound of the letter “V.” You might even call this song “V-V-Valentine.”
Children also explore how to make the shape of a heart with their hands, their arms, or with a partner.
The easiest way to demonstrate how to use this song is to view a video I created with my two nieces, Brooke and Shannon.
To hear and buy the studio version of the song, just click HERE on iTunes for the single, or HERE for the album (Track #4). You can also find the music on Spotify.
I hope that you and your children enjoying singing and moving to this song together, either at home or in the classroom!
“Happy New Year 2014 Card46” image courtesy of gubgib / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
It’s already January 3rd, yet here in Japan, New Year’s celebrations continue. O-shogatsu (New Year’s) begins on the night of Dec. 31st and continues for three days. Tonight we’ll be enjoying o-sechi ryori, traditional New Year’s foods, with our Japanese friends. Starting on Monday, I’ll be back in the classroom with my students. Here are two songs I’ve written to teach my students about New Year’s celebrations. The first song was written with my son Christian when he was in elementary school. He and Chuck are singing it for you!
Happy New Year
Words and music by Christian Vilina and Kathleen Kampa
My students love to keep a “steady beat” by patting their legs, then clapping their hands. Think “pat-clap-pat-clap.” Do this for the first three lines.
We like to do something special on the last line.
On Happy New Year! my students like to wave their hands above their heads. More advanced students like to turn around quickly!
On Hip hip hooray! students roll their hands and jump once in place.
To hear the studio version of this song, go to iTunes, and click on Track #3.
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And now for our second New Year’s song! . . .
In the Chinese or lunar calendar, this is the Year of the Horse. Here in Japan, we already began celebrating the Year of the Horse on January 1st.
In this song, students learn the name of the animal, how to spell the animal name, and how to say “2014.”
Medley of songs based on French song “Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre” (For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow) and BINGO
It’s the year of the horse,
It’s the year of the horse,
It’s the year of the horse,
It’s 2014.
H–o–r-s-e, h–o–r-s-e, h–o–r-s-e,
It’s the year of the horse!
1. Display the image of the horse. There are twelve animals in the lunar calendar. What do your students know about horses? Can they make a pose like a horse? Can they gallop like a horse? What other movements do horses do?
If you have a small space, have students create a pose when they sing the word “horse.” If you have a larger space, students may enjoy galloping in a circle while singing “It’s the year of the horse.”
2. Write the number 2014 on the board. My students like to make these numbers with their fingers. Try this:
Hold up two fingers for “two,” then move two fingers in a circle to say “thousand.” For fourteen, students hold up one finger on their left hand, and four fingers on their right.
When you sing the song, students stop in place and do the finger movements on “It’s 2014!” Students can even wave their hands in the air!
3. Now your students are ready to spell. Write the word horse on the board. Use lower case letters. Say the letters with your students.
Then clap the rhythm while saying the letters.
You can encourage your students to make different sounds for this rhythm by patting their legs, stamping their feet, or snapping their fingers. You can even add simple instruments.
4. Finish the song with a horse pose on “It’s the year of the horse!”
We hope you enjoy these New Year songs with your students!
“Autumn Maples Leaves” courtesy of oano roxana birtea / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Here in Tokyo, Japan, the autumn leaves have turned colors. Now beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows fill the sky. Little by little, the leaves tumble to the ground.
My Kindergarten students delight in gathering the fallen leaves. We have a very simple song about the autumn leaves that I’d like to share with you. If you have a xylophone or glockenspiel, you can play it by starting at the shortest bar (C) (do), and going step by step to the longest bar (C).
Autumn Leaves Song One (traditional melody)
Down, down, down, down, the leaves are falling to the ground.
do ti la sol fa mi re do
Whoosh!
My students will sing this song over and over again until you finally bring the song to a close by saying “Last time” and eliminating the “Whoosh!”
If you have colored leaves, let students dance with the leaves in their hands. If you don’t have colored leaves, you can have students make them out of construction paper. They can paint or color them. My students also love to dance with lightweight scarves (available at West Music.com — item # 540053). As students sing, they move their bodies lower and lower, just like the music. When they sing “Whoosh!” they pretend to scoop up the leaves / scarves and start again.
You can make this song a little more complicated by adding the colors of autumn leaves.
Autumn Leaves Song Two
Adapted by K. Kampa
Red, yellow, orange, and brown, the leaves are falling to the ground.
Whoosh!
Here’s a video to give you some ideas (click on the arrows in the lower right corner of the screen to get a full video image):
(Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
Do your students like to pretend to be different Halloween characters? Then “Marching Monsters” is a great new addition to your Halloween song repertoire! It encourages creativity and imagination, plus gives students great language practice with “alliteration.”
“Alliteration” happens when two or more words begin with the same sound. The phrase “marching monsters” has two words that begin with the sound /m/. Other phrases in the song include “skipping skeletons,” “waltzing witches,” and “jumping jack-o-lanterns.” Children love to sing these fun phrases while doing the actions throughout the song. They also learn the song quickly because of the repeated phrases.
Here is a simple recording of the song. A FUN professional version is available on iTunes here (just click on Track #11).
Here are the lyrics, plus notes on how to teach it!
Marching Monsters
Words and music by Kathleen Kampa and Charles Vilina
Students can move around a circle or freely around the classroom.
1. On Marching Monsters, students march around, pretending to be monsters. On Turn around and stop, students turn around and make a pose. They hold until the music begins again.
2. On Skipping Skeletons, students skip around, moving their arms like a skeleton. For very young learners, children can gallop, or they can slide sideways.
3. On Waltzing Witches, students dance in one place. If you’re in a circle, face the center. Students sway from side to side moving their arms.
4. On Jumping Jack-o-lanterns, students jump in one place, making the shape of a jack-o-lantern.
Enjoy this wonderful song and dance activity with your students!
Once again, you can find the professional version of this song on
My nieces like to dress up as black cats for Halloween.
I love Halloween! It’s a time of year when students can enjoy expressing their ideas. They’re encouraged to use their imaginations and can pretend to be many different characters.
How can your students use their imaginations?
First, you can encourage students to create movements like Halloween characters. For example, students can make a pose while sitting. Then, they can do movements around a circle. Finally, you can let them move freely around an open space. For shy students, demonstrate some simple ideas. Soon they’ll be creating their own ideas.
Students can also use their imaginations with costumes or props. With a scarf, a student can turn into a prince or princess, ride a witch’s broomstick, or become a spooky ghost. Pieces of fabric can be used over and over again and made into various costumes. Show students photos of children dressed up to go trick-or-treating. Although many companies sell fancy costumes, I have fond memories of creating costumes from things we had around the house.
Here’s a Halloween song I wrote entitled “I’m A Witch.” It prompts students to imagine that they’re different Halloween characters. To teach this song, sit with students in front of you.
(Use the transitional song: Come and sit in front of me . . .)
Show students images of each of the characters in the song — a witch on a broomstick, a ghost floating in the air, a bat flying in the air, an owl sitting in a tree, and a black cat creeping. Using visuals is important — especially for students learning English. This is an important first step in learning the vocabulary in the song.
Here’s a simple version of the song. (A more professional version is available below.) You can listen to the song while showing students these pictures.
Spoken: Let’s be witches and fly on our broomsticks.
Hee! Hee! Hee! I’m a witch!
Hee! Hee! Hee! I’m a witch!
Hee! Hee! Hee! I’m a witch!
Happy Halloween!
Spoken: Let’s be ghosts and float gently through the air.
Boo! Boo! I’m a ghost! (3X) Happy Halloween!
Spoken: Let’s be bats and fly through the night sky.
Eeek! Eeek! I’m a bat! (3X) Happy Halloween!
Spoken: Let’s be owls and turn our heads from side to side.
Whoo! Whooo! I’m an owl! (3X) Happy Halloween!
Spoken: Let’s be black cats. Put on your whiskers and sneak around.
Meow! Meow! I’m a black cat! (3X) Happy Halloween!
Now students can stand in a circle, move around the circle, or move freely around the classroom. Hold up pictures of each character. Before playing the music, I like to practice movements for each of the characters. You may want to share your own ideas. Just remember that if you demonstrate the movement first, your students are more likely to copy your ideas.
Here are some suggestions:
Witch: Students pretend to fly on broomsticks by holding their hands in front of their bodies and galloping.
Ghost: Students move their arms smoothly up and down, while walking in curvy pathways around the room.
Bat: Students pull their elbows in to create small wings. They move quickly around the room. My students also like to pretend they’re sleeping bats by folding their arms in and creating an upside-down pose.
Owl: Students stand in one place with their arms down. They turn their heads from side to side.
Black Cat: Students pretend to have whiskers, paws, and a tail. They sneak around with tiptoeing movements. I remind them to be “kind cats.”
Whenever students are moving in your classroom, check to make sure that everything is safe. Push chair legs in, and move things out of the way.
Now play the music! My students love moving freely about the room while they hear the cues. I remind them to stop after each character, and listen for the new cues. I hope that your students have as much fun as mine do with this song!
The professional version of “I’m a Witch” is available on iTunes and CDBaby. Just click on the title below:
Left image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Right image courtesy of nuchylee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Are your students getting ready for Halloween? Mine are! This song was inspired by the book “Where’s the Halloween Treat?” by Harriet Ziefert and Richard Brown (Putnam Juvenile). As you read the book to students, you can see children dressed in different costumes going trick-or-treating.
If you don’t have this wonderful book, you can hang pictures of Halloween friends around the classroom. In this song, we chose a ghost, a witch, a monster, a skeleton, and a black cat.
1) Have students sit in front of you. Ask students, What do you see? as they look around the classroom. They may be able to name some of the Halloween vocabulary words.
2) Point to one word, such as ghost. Say, I see a ghost.
Continue with the other Halloween friends in the same way.
3) Now teach the phrase Trick or Treat. You might explain the tradition of children going from house to house and getting treats from neighbors. When children ring the doorbell, they always say, Trick or Treat! We do this because It’s Halloween!
4) Students can sit as they sing the following song. Here’s a simple version of it. This is an original melody that’s easy to sing.
This song has also been recorded professionally and is available on iTunes on
Today we’d like to talk about the “many ways to learn” that are available to us through the theory of Multiple Intelligences (what we will refer to as MI).
This theory was proposed by Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University in 1983. Dr. Gardner proposed that there was not just ONE intelligence that we could measure in people, but MANY.
Later, Dr. Thomas Armstrong took this theory and made it even more practical for teachers of children by creating the following MI Pizza! (We’ve adapted it from the original.) He referred to each intelligence as a way of being “smart.”
Each student learns in different ways. Some learn best through words, as in the Word Smart category above. Other students learn best through visual support such as pictures and photos. Some learn well through music, while others learn best by moving.
Of course, it is difficult for us to know how each of our students learn best. Therefore, the best way to approach MI in the classroom is to provide as many ways to learn as possible in each of our lessons. Here are some guidelines to consider as you plan tomorrow’s lesson, based on the MI Pizza shown above:
1. Word Smart: Are you providing strong Word support? Write words on the board, even if students are pre-readers. When you speak the words, say them slowly, quickly, or with different voices and emotions. Play with words! Use poems, tongue twisters, onomatopoeia (words formed from actual sounds, such as “bark,” “clap,” “giggle,” “splash,” “whisper,” and many others), and alliteration (such as “skipping skeletons,” “blue bouncing balls,” or “Walter is washing windows.”)
2. Picture Smart: Are you providing a lot of visual support for the language you are teaching? Most children are strong visual learners, so illustrations and photos are important for comprehension and retention of language. In addition, when you write letters or words, draw close borders around them so that students become aware of their shapes. Picture books and art activities are also an important part of every lesson.
3. Logic Smart: Patterns are important for learning. Find ways to present language in patterns to tap into a child’s sense of logic. Many chants and songs use patterns. So do “pattern predictable” books that repeat words, phrases, and language in fun ways. Give students opportunities to solve word problems or puzzles that use logic.
4. Nature Smart: This type of intelligence is also logical, finding similarities and differences in the world around us. Look for opportunities to “classify” and “categorize” vocabulary. For example, have students put food words into groups such as fruits and vegetables. You can also put some words in chronological, or “time” order, such as a butterfly’s life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. Thinking logically helps students learn better.
5. Music Smart: There is more and more research being done about the power of music to help learning. Young learners are natural singers, so bring music into every lesson. Songs and chants help students to learn and remember target vocabulary and phrases. The steady beat in music helps students develop fluency and proper intonation. Use musical sounds such as “snap,” “clap,” “pat,” and “stamp,” as you chant with children. In addition, use transitional songs to help children move quickly from one activity to another (see our blog post below about transitional songs).
6. Body Smart: Closely tied in with music is “movement.” Children love to move, and in fact they learn better by moving. For example, making letter shapes with their fingers, their arms, their whole body, and together with friends can help students remember those letters better. Moving to commands (Total Physical Response) helps students learn a variety of action verbs. Add movement to the songs and chants you use in the classroom. Any opportunity to move will bring greater learning and motivation into your classroom.
7. People Smart: Children are social beings. A language classroom should be a place where children interact using English in a variety of ways. Songs, chants, and activities can be done first with the entire class, then with small groups, then with partners. Non-competitive games, folk dances, and role plays all help students to learn and achieve goals together.
8. Self Smart: Finally, give your students a chance to personalize their learning through creative activities such as individual art projects that use the target language. Give individual students opportunities to think of their own ways to make letter shapes or move to action verbs. By personalizing what they have learned, students make English a lasting part of their lives.
These eight “ways of learning” can and should be combined as often as possible in your lessons. Very often, the best and most successful activities bring all of these “ways of learning” together in one event. In future blog posts, we’ll give you some examples of these activities and how you can use them effectively. Until then, keep a copy of the MI Pizza in your lesson planner, reminding you to bring many ways to learn into each and every lesson.
Chuck and I are going to be leading a webinar this week for teachers of very young learners. It’s really exciting for us to do this and share ideas with teachers. If you’d like to join us, just follow the link to sign up.
Dates: 25th and 28th September 2013
Times: 12:00 – 13:00 and 07:00 – 08:00 (BST)
Speakers: Kathleen Kampa and Charles Vilina
This webinar draws on content from the Magic Time course.
What are Multiple Intelligences?
How can I use Multiple Intelligence strategies with my young learners?
How can I bring my lessons to life with big pictures, picture cards, songs, chants, and movement?
How does a good kindergarten course differentiate learning so that all my students are successful?
Join Magic Time authors, Kathleen Kampa and Charles Vilina to learn practical answers to these questions and find out more about giving every child in your class the chance to learn English – and enjoy it!
In any children’s class, many activities are needed to keep students happy and motivated throughout the lesson. Transitional songs are a perfect way to signal to children that one activity is ending and another is beginning. A good transitional song also has other benefits:
It supports the natural rhythm and intonation of the phrase or sentence you are using.
The melody is quickly learned and recognized by students, so they move into action as soon as they hear it.
In most cases, children can be encouraged to sing along, building group cohesion as well as productive language skills.
Transitional songs soon become part of a classroom routine, giving students a sense of structure and making them feel secure during the lesson.
Today, for Part One, we present three transitional songs that help to make activities smooth and enjoyable for students. The lyrics for each of the transitional songs are included below with a simple recording. A professional recording is now available on “Jump Jump Everyone.”
1. Let’s Make a Circle
Many language activities work well with students seated (or standing) in a circle. This transitional song quickly motivates children into forming a circle in the classroom.
Many activities involve the use of picture cards for language support. After the activity is over, this transitional song gets the picture cards back to you quickly and efficiently.
The song is sung as a dialogue between the teacher and students. The word cards can also be changed to any other item that needs to be collected (papers, crayons, etc.)
You can sing these transitional songs in your classroom. The songs are also professionally recorded here on “Jump Jump Everyone.” Check out the link on iTunes .
This album has lots of movement songs which are important for young learners growth and development. Contact Englishbooks.jp or me (magictimekids@gmail.com) to order CDs.
Be My Valentine cover art by Shuli Ko
MagicTimeKids 