Time for Trick or Treat!

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

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. I also love the lift-the-flap book “Boo Who?” by Joan Holy (Scholastic). Both books are great for teaching students about Halloween.

In this song, we chose these Halloween characters: a ghost, a witch, a monster, a skeleton, and a black cat. You can use these Trick or Treat picture cards. I like to make two copies of the pictures, one for students to see up close and one to find around the classroom.

1) Have students sit in front of you. If you have one of the Halloween books, enjoy reading it with your students. Ask students, What do you see? They may be able to name some of the Halloween vocabulary words.

2) Now use the Trick or Treat picture cards.

Point to one word, such as ghost. Ask students, What do you see? Encourage them to say, I see a ghost.

Continue with the other Halloween vocabulary 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. Show the children your treat bag, plastic pumpkin, or the Trick or Treat picture above. When children ring the doorbell or knock on the door, they always say, Trick or Treat! We do this because It’s Halloween!

4) I like to teach students the melody of the song while I change the picture cards as I sing it.

Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays. (click on the title, then on Track #8)

-Pat your legs on the chorus, Trick or treat . . . .

-When you hear It’s Halloween put your arms up like you’re saying Hooray!

-When you hear each of the characters (such as I see a ghost), point to each one. When you hear Oooooh, wave your arms in a spooky way.

Here are the lyrics:

Trick or Treat

Words and music by Kathleen Kampa and Charles Vilina

Chorus:

Trick or treat! ch-ch-ch Trick or treat! ch-ch-ch

It’s Halloween! Say “Trick or treat!” ch-ch-ch

Trick or treat! ch-ch-ch Trick or treat! ch-ch-ch

It’s Halloween! Say “Trick or treat!” ch-ch-ch

Verse:

I see a ghost!

I see a ghost!

Ooooooooooooooh!

Sing again with Halloween characters: witch, monster, skeleton, black cat

5) Now your students are ready to stand up and move to the song!

Here’s a video I created for my students. With COVID restrictions, I took the video while I was the only person in the room, so I couldn’t move around a circle. I’m holding up the picture cards, but in my classroom, they’re posted around the room.

Make a circle. Practice a movement standing in one spot for each Halloween character.

Here are some suggestions; however, using your own imagination is even better! Your students will certainly have some interesting ideas!

For the ghost, you might move your arms like you’re floating.

For the witch, you might pretend to make some witch’s brew or cast a spell.

For the monster, you might make scary arms and stomp in place.

For the skeleton, you can move your elbows up and down.

For the black cat, you can creep in place.

On the chorus, Trick or Treat . . . march around the circle.

On It’s Halloween, put your arms up in the air as you continue marching.

For each of the verses (such as I see a ghost), stop in one place and pretend to be that character or point to the pictures.

On Oooh, do spooky arm movements.

Then begin marching again around the circle.

6) In the next class, put the picture cards around the room. Add new characters to the song. Invite your students to draw their Halloween costumes and post the pictures around the classroom.

7) Finally, sing this song at your Halloween party. At our party, I lead the students around the room singing the chorus of “Trick or Treat.” We stop to ring the bell or knock at a pretend door. One by one, my students’ parents pretend to open the door. The students say, Trick or Treat!, Thank You! and Happy Halloween!

In addition to having fun, this song teaches young learners:

a. simple phrases, especially for EFL / EAL students –

It’s Halloween! Trick or Treat! I see a ____.

b. Halloween vocabulary words and sight words

c. movements, such as marching, that go from one place to another

d. ways to move and stop

e. how to express their own ideas for the vocabulary words and inspire their creativity

We hope that your students enjoy singing and dancing throughout the month of October. The music for this song and other Halloween favorites (Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Skeleton Dance, Marching Monsters, I’m A Witch) are available on Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays.

You can find it at iTunes, CD Baby for downloads, and ETJbookservice.

If you like this, my second album has more happy songs for children that have grown in my young learner classroom. Dance like falling leaves, bloom like a spring flower, move through the butterfly life cycle . . . . you’ll find LOTS of fun and magic in this album, too.

Happy teaching!

Kathy Kampa

Kathy Kampa is a passionate educator of young learners. She seeks to nurture children’s imaginations and spark creativity through fun and engaging activities. Kathy believes that movement should be a part of every young child’s learning.

Kathy is the co-author of Magic Time, Everybody Up, Oxford Discover, and Beehive (all by Oxford University Press). She has composed music for Tokyo Shoseki’s English language courses.

Let’s Add a Little Music and Movement

If you’re looking for activities for young learners, check out my Facebook LIVE workshop. I teach children from age 2 – 12 in Tokyo, and these activities have all been LOVED in my classrooms. The activities support English language development as well as developmental body movement.
Today’s FB LIVE (February 21, 2019) included the following: It Is Raining (focus on body parts), Little Worms (vocal expression, yoga movement, building group unity), Come and Sit In Front of Me (transitional), Tiny Egg (Butterfly Life Cycle, creative movement, connection to Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar), Flitter Flutter Butterfly (pronunciation practice, rhyming sounds, movement), Here’s a Leaf (seed-leaf-bud-flower), Folding Scarves (transitional), Scarves Please (Transitional), We Love Hina Matsuri (song/canon for Japanese Girls’ Day), We Did It. You can find all of the lyrics inside the CDs.

If you like my music, it’s available on iTunes or https://www.etjbookservice.com/…/kathy-kampas-cds-4/

Materials for "Tiny Egg" chant — These are the materials used for the Tiny Egg chant (available on iTunes)

Kathy Kampa's Special Days and Holidays — . . Children’s songs for special events for pre-school, kindergarten, and elementary students

Jump Jump Everyone — Jump! Turn into butterflies. Plant magical flowers!

What Day Is It?

happy children group in school — Students love to make letter shapes with their bodies.

Learning the names of the days of the week in English can be tricky. For many of us, we teach our English class on the same day each week. This song “What Day Is It?” is a fun way to practice the days of the week.

First of all, write a letter on the board or show a picture card. Model making that letter with your fingers, arms, or whole body. Make the letter so that students are able to read it. You might imagine how that letter would look when you write it on your whiteboard. Students will be able to “read” your letter. Invite students to make letters with you. They might even make letters with the entire class! Try making letters in many different ways.

We started at the beginning of the alphabet. Students made A, a, and B, b (see B below). In Magic Time (Oxford University Press) students have fun making letter shapes to learn the letter name and its sound.

Now write the names of the days of the week. Run your finger under the word as you say it (Sunday). Point out the first letter. Encourage students to make that letter with their bodies in several ways. Remind students that days of the week begin with capital letters. As you can see, sometimes the letters appear flipped around to us. The important idea is that students are making the letter shapes.

I love to catch my students making their amazing letters by taking photos. Remember CCBA (Catch Children Being Amazing!)

Pass out the “days of the week” cards, one to each student. Students line up in order around the circle starting with Sunday. Students make the initial letter shape as they sing each day of the week. When they sing “Tra la la la la” add a group movement, such as pat your knees, clap your own hands, clap your “neighbor’s” hands.

What Day Is It?

from Magic Time Two, Unit 8, Use the Words

What day is it?

Today is Sunday.

Tra la la la la.

*repeat with the remaining days of the week

Here are some of my students demonstrating this song. Come and join them!

Engaging Vocabulary Activities for Young Learners

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do your students enjoy learning vocabulary? It is certainly one of the first steps in learning a new language. A few simple strategies can help our students learn vocabulary meaningfully and productively.

Presenting the new words

Picture cards can be a very effective way of introducing vocabulary. One method is to point to a picture, say the word, and ask students to repeat it. However, this is a passive approach that doesn’t motivate children to learn — and it doesn’t build their deeper thinking skills.

One approach that provides active learning and deeper thinking is as follows. Let’s assume you are introducing words from Magic Time One Unit 10, which introduces the following pets:

rabbit dog turtle bird frog cat

Before class, attach the picture cards for this vocabulary to the board face down (with the back of the card facing the students). Explain to students that you have six pets that you want to introduce to them.

Peel back the first card to secretly look at the first pet. Turn to the students as you imitate the shape or movement of the animal (such as a hopping rabbit, the wagging tail of a dog, or a slow-moving turtle).

Some of your students may know the English word for the animal, and will call out its name. If they do so correctly, nod yes and reveal the card. If not, say the word as you do the action (for example, say frog as you jump like a frog). Then reveal the picture card. When you show the picture card, say the word twice, first pointing to the picture, then to the written word beneath it. Continue in the same way with all six cards.

Another way to do this would be to bring in stuffed animals, pulling them slowly out of a bag until students are able to identify them. You may also do a “slow reveal” of the picture card, sliding it up from behind a book until students are able to guess what it is.

The above activities allow students to tap into their prior knowledge – this will tell us what they already know. It also gets them to think about the subject of pets – as they guess the animals, their brains are thinking about which animals could possibly be pets. This simple activity then becomes a critical thinking activity that engages students far beyond memorization.

Producing the new words

In the next activity, we want to move to more productive skills – with our students actually using the language. Remember that this can take time – students need to move through the receptive stage first. However, this activity motivates them to use the language more quickly.

Let’s assume you are using the set of words from Magic Time One Unit 11, which introduces family members:

grandmother mother sister grandfather father brother

Let’s also assume that we have taught these words using one of the activities described above. Our next goal is to get our students to produce these words while using their critical thinking skills.

Attach the family picture cards in random order across the board so that students can see the family members. Then draw a simple picture of a girl on one side of the board, and a picture of a boy on the other side. Ask students to tell you which picture cards belong on which side. This requires students to say the words (grandmother, father, etc.) as they point to them. Then attach the picture cards under the boy or girl, but not in any particular order.

Next, invite students to pair up the family members. To do so, point to the mother card as students say mother. Move the card to the top of the board as you say “mother and . . .” Students point to the father card as they say the word father. Then place the two picture cards together on the board. Continue in the same way with sister – brother and grandmother – grandfather.

Students can each have their own set of six picture cards, which they can make themselves, or which can be copied from the Magic Time Picture and Word Card Book. You can ask students to classify the cards at their desks, in the two ways described above. You can also ask students to classify and arrange the cards in other ways — from oldest pairs to youngest pairs, for example, or in ABC order. With other picture card sets (such as classroom items), students can arrange the items in other ways, such as from biggest to smallest.

Songs and chants

In Magic Time, we also practice vocabulary by putting the words into chants and songs. This gives students an opportunity to produce the language as they chant and sing along. It also helps students build comprehension of the words. Chants and songs make learning fun and memorable.

Predicting and producing vocabulary

Finally, for Magic Time users, the following activity is very engaging for students, allowing them to predict, think about what they know, and use the language productively. This is normally done after the chant is taught to the students:

On the first and third pages of each unit in Magic Time, students are asked to “Listen and write the number.” Normally, students listen as the narrator on the CD says, “Number One,” followed by a word. Students then write the number “1” in the white circle next to the correct picture in the large scene. This serves as an assessment to see what students know. Click on the link below to see sample pages from Magic Time One Unit 7.

MT1 U7

To make this activity more productive, first put the six picture cards on the board facing the students. Draw a white circle next to each picture card. Pause the CD, and ask students to guess what they think “Number One” will be. Each student needs to point to a picture card and say the word. Write each student’s name beside the picture cards they choose. Then listen to what the narrator says on the CD for “Number One.” Of course, students are listening very closely to see if their guess is correct. If so, they cheer! All students then write the number “1” in the correct white circle in their student books. With the CD paused, students then try to guess the second word, and so on. You can keep track of each student’s correct guesses if you wish. With a large class, this activity can be done with partners or with teams.

These are just three ways to get your students to think more deeply as they use the vocabulary words meaningfully and productively. These activities go beyond simple memorization and comprehension – they allow students to tap into their prior knowledge, to understand relationships, and to predict. They require active participation and active learning, which means happier and more engaged students.

Happy Teaching!

Kathy and Chuck