If you teach young learners, you know that they love to move! In some classrooms, students need to move in a small space. You might have circle time with students standing on a spot. Your students might just stand beside their desks. This is a movement chant that you can do in ONE SPOT.
This chant comes from OUP’s Magic Time, Book One. There are just verbs–jump, run, hop, fly, stop. Once you and your students know the pattern, add your ideas. Here are some ideas: march, wiggle, twist, spin, stretch, bend, shake.
In Unit 10, students learned animal names. When they flip the page, the animals are moving. Here are the words to this simple chant.
Run, Run, Run
by Kathleen Kampa and Charles Vilina, Magic Time One
Jump! Jump! Run, run, run.
Jump! Jump! Run, run, run.
Jump! Jump! Run, run, run.
Jump! Jump! Stop!
The second time, substitute hop for the word jump.
Hop!Hop! Run, run, run. (3X)
Hop! Hop! Stop!
Last of all, substitute fly for the word hop.
Fly! Fly! Run, run, run. (3X)
Fly! Fly! Stop!
Students do all of the movements on their spot. When they say, Stop! they can make an interesting pose. Watch how my students create their own ideas.
We need to practice moving and stopping with our young learners. This develops their focus and self-control. Plus, it’s a fun activity for our little ones.
Here are my young learners in Tokyo, Japan. I placed the picture cards on the floor as a reminder of the order, similar to a rebus reading. This chant helps them practice their /r/ sound.
Songwriter 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 music and movement should be a part of every young child’s education.
Kathy uses a globally-minded and inquiry-based approach to teaching through which students develop 21st-century skills. She also supports the development of English language skills by creating songs, chants, and TPR/movement activities targeted to young learners’ needs. Kathy is an author and teacher-trainer with Oxford University Press. She is delighted to be teaching young learners in her hometown.
This chant comes from Magic Time 1, by Oxford University Press. Each lesson has a simple chant or song to practice the language. Many of these chants and songs invite children to move
For more fun and engaging songs that have been loved by many kids, check out these albums. Kathy’s songs for kids (Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays and Jump Jump Everyone) are available on iTunes, Spotify, and other streaming services.
If you’re starting a new school year or you’re experiencing the excitement of the end of the year, how do you get all of your students’ attention? Teachers need to guide students to prepare for learning at different times during a class, such as:
Beginning a lesson
Moving to a new space in your classroom
Introducing an activity
Checking in during an activity
Finishing an activity
First of all, with any strategy you use, you must practice it before you actually use it.
Secondly, the success of each strategy depends on you, your group of students, their age, and their disposition.
Lastly, choose one or two strategies to start. Figure out what works best. When you’re ready, add a new strategy.
1. Get attention with something that creates an interesting sound.
What do you have readily available in your classroom? A slide whistle is one of the most interesting sounds I have in my classroom. If you have a big group of students, it quickly gets their attention. Don’t have a slide whistle? How about a shaker, a tambourine, or a kazoo?
I love to pretend with my very young students. Say, Let’s make butterfly wings. What color are your wings today?” Pretend to paint each arm by gently rubbing it and naming a color. i.e This wing is pink, but this one is purple.
Raise and lower your arms to your sides as if you’re flying. Inhale and exhale.
7. Calm students with this breathing activity called “Candles.”
Finally, inhale while raising your arms from your sides to above your head. Put your hands together above your head, then bring them down in front of you. Exhale when your hands are in front of your mouth. This is an effective way to calm students after a lively activity. The teachers I worked with in Tokyo loved the way this activity quickly quieted my students.
Remember to practice your strategies first. Add new strategies little by little. Having some strategies in place will help your classes run smoothly.
If you’re looking for Class Management Songs for Kids, check out this collection on Spotify.
Kathy Kampa loves to bring joy to the world through her children’s music. She is passionate about making learning engaging for young learners. You’ll find more resources on Kathy’s YouTube page.
What kinds of shoes do you have in your closet? Well, I have some unique shoes. Take a look!
When I brought these shoes to young learners’ classes, they wondered where they came from and searched for the country on our big rug map. I shared stories of the places I had traveled to.
In the Shoemaker’s Dance by the Shenanigans, it’s fun for children to imagine many kinds of shoes. What kind of shoes would you like to wear? I begin by suggesting something like popcorn shoes. I show picture cards, such as the images below from Magic Time (OUP), or realia of the items.
These are the questions I ask:
What do we know aboutpopcorn?
What do you thinkpopcorn shoes would look like?
How would you move in them?
For example, popcorn has round edges. It surprises us when it pops. It’s light and bouncy. So, popcorn shoes might have soft, smooth edges. When you put them on, you might jump or hop.
How about rainbow shoes? What do we know about rainbows? We know that rainbows are colorful–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Rainbow shoes will be filled with color. When you put them on, you might leap or find pots of leprechaun gold.
How about dinosaur shoes? What do we know about dinosaurs? Most dinosaurs are really big and powerful. When you put dinosaur shoes on, you might powerfully stomp your feet.
Butterfly shoes? They might have delicate wings. When you put them on, you can fly (well, we have to pretend!)
Spaghetti shoes? They might have lots of wiggly lines. When you put them on, you start to wiggle all over.
Puzzle shoes? They might have straight and curvy lines. When you put them on, your feet jump apart and together.
Birthday cake shoes? We may have to mix up the batter and add sprinkles. When you put them on, you might want to skip or dance. It’s your special day!
Unicorn shoes–a favorite of almost every class! They might have lots of beautiful colors. When you put them on, you gallop and soar in the sky.
I like to “play” with a lot of different ideas first. We explore Then children may want to choose one idea and draw their designs. They have a clearer image of what the shoes might look like and how they might move in them. Here are a few of my students’ shoe ideas from a recent program at Children’s Day Montessori.
Here’s the folk dance! Folk dances are so important to young learners’ education. Here’s what I’ve noticed.
-Children learn to work together in a group.
-They move their bodies in time to the music.
-They follow the musical form or the pattern. This one is ABC.
-They visualize the movement patterns in their heads. In this one children move around a circle or away from and back to their own space.
-They hear repeated language in the song. They describe their own ideas, too.
-The more children repeat the pattern, the more confident they grow.
In Part A, children pretend to make shoes. They might pretend to paint, sew, pound, or make a shape. When we first do this, we all make the same idea, such as Dinosaur shoes.
In Part B, children do a little clapping or pounding pattern. I say, (ti-ti ta)
This happens eight times. If I’m making the dinosaur shoes, I might make a LOUD sound. If I’m making butterfly shoes, I might make a quiet sound.
In Part C, children pretend to dance around the space in their pretend shoes. I like to have the children move around a circle. Once they’re comfortable in their space, they can move freely and come back to their spot.
If you’re looking for more songs for children to “move and groove to,” check out this Spotify playlist.
Lots of great songs for kids to move to!
Songwriter and educator Kathy Kampa seeks to nurture children’s imaginations and spark creativity through fun and engaging activities. Kathy believes that music and movement should be a part of every young child’s education. Kathy’s songs for kids (Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays and Jump Jump Everyone) are available on iTunes.
Kathy has taught children in a Montessori/PYP school in Tokyo, Japan as well as in the United States. She uses a globally-minded and inquiry-based approach to teaching through which students develop 21st-century skills. She also supports the development of English language skills by creating songs, chants, and TPR/movement activities targeted to young learners’ needs. Kathy is an author and teacher-trainer with Oxford University Press.
Lots of great movement songs, transitional songs, and CLIL/content songs!
Children’s songs for special events for preschool, kindergarten, and elementary students
Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays CD are filled with songs to celebrate special days in a child’s life–birthdays, a loose tooth, and lots of holidays. In addition, there are 23 engaging songs for kids on Kathy Kampa’s Jump Jump Everyone. It’s filled with movement songs, classroom management songs, and CLIL/content songs. These activities support English language development while developing global skills. Your young learners will love them!
These two CDs each include a handy attached booklet with lyrics and are available for teachers in Japan at ETJ Book Service. The songs are available for download through iTunes or on streaming services, such as Spotify or Amazon Music.
If you’re interested in learning more about creativity, check out this blog called “The Creativity Post.
If you teach young learners, you know that they love to move! As teachers, we can provide opportunities for children to explore movement in bigger spaces. What kinds of movement should we practice with young learners? We’re going to explore LOCOMOTOR MOVEMENTS. Locomotor movements are not done in one place; children move from one place to another. You might know these as “gross motor movements.”
Add some Locomotor Movements to your Leap Year / Leap Day celebrations!
Happy Leap Day on 29 February with Jumping Frog.
LOCOMOTOR MOVEMENTS.
If this is the first time your students are doing these types of movements, I recommend practicing them. Make sure that your students have ample room to move. Then, say each locomotor movement word and have students move with you before playing the music.
Alternatively, you can dive right in! Put on the music and move with your students around a circle. Model each of the movements.
If your students are used to doing movement, they can move freely around the space. Here are the locomotor movements used in the song.
walk. Use your imagination! Walk with a puppy or an elephant. Walk like a dinosaur or a princess. Walk happily!
march. Pick up your knees. Imagine that you’re playing a big drum.
tiptoe. Sh! Lift up your heels and move quietly. Maybe someone or something is sleeping.
gallop. Put your hands behind your back to make a tail. Gallop like a horse.
skip. Skipping is like a step and a hop. It can be a little challenging for young learners. Once children learn it, they’ll love skipping.
jump. Jumping is moving off of both feet at the same time. You can jump in different ways–jumping feet apart and together, turning around, or jumping super high! You can jump forward or backward.
hop. Hopping is like jumping, but you have to move by balancing on one foot. If one foot gets tired, just change to the other foot. You can hop in a straight line, a zigzag line, or even in your own circle.
leap. Imagine having to leap over a big puddle. Swing one foot out and fly in the air! You can put things on the floor to leap over, such as beanbags, small hula hoops, or spots
Now practice the letters and their sounds.
In this song, we’ll be making the letter shapes. If your students don’t know these letter sounds, try this.
When I first teach letters and their corresponding sounds to young learners, I like to use the Montessori approach with the Montessori Three-Period Lesson.
Step 1: Choose two letters to introduce. This sound is /m/. This sound is /t/.
We can show students things that begin with these two sounds, such as . . .
Mm: milk, monkey, mouse, mother, mirror, me
Tt: table, tail, teacher, teddy bear, tiger, T-shirt, toy
Step 2: Point to /m/. Point to /t/.
Step 3: What’s this? It’s /m/. It’s /t/.
What sound does monkey start with?
What sounds does tiger start with?
Movement
We can also do movement to practice letter sounds and their corresponding shapes.
Here are Melissa Bailey’s Moving Little Letters flashcards. The cards connect movement with letter sounds. Check out her beautiful work.
My young learners really love to make letter shapes. They visualize the letters in their heads and create their own ideas. If your students need ideas, here are some images for you. The images at the right are from the Phonics Section of our course, Magic Time Two by Oxford University Press. We believe that children learn best by having opportunities to move their bodies. It provides an MI (Multiple Intelligences/ kinesthetic) approach.
The additional photos included below are of my students. I hope that they inspire your imagination and creativity. So . . . make shapes with your fingers, arms, whole body, or a partner. Sit. Stand. Lie down.
When you demonstrate to your students, imagine that you are the letter on the whiteboard. Make the letter from that perspective. What does it look like?
I always write the letters on my board to help my students visualize the letter shape. I don’t worry if their letters look reversed. From their perspective, it’s probably okay. Have fun creating letters in different ways.
Song
This song comes from my album Jump Jump Everyone. You can find it on iTunes as well as other streaming sites. You’ll find the Spotify link below.
Here are the lyrics for the first verse. The recording will tell you what’s coming next. Great listening activity! Refer to the locomotor movement list above if you really want to know what’s coming next.
We’re walking all around. We’re walking all around.
Walking, walking.
We’re walking all around.
We’re walking all around. We’re walking all around.
Get ready! Get ready!
Make the letter Ww. /w/ /w/ /w/.
It looks like I might be making the letter i! Or the letter j if you could see my feet!
Songwriter 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 music and movement should be a part of every young child’s education. Kathy’s songs for kids (Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays and Jump Jump Everyone) are available on iTunes.
Kathy uses a globally-minded and inquiry-based approach to teaching through which students develop 21st-century skills. She also supports the development of English language skills by creating songs, chants, and TPR/movement activities targeted to young learners’ needs. Kathy is an author and teacher-trainer with Oxford University Press. She is delighted to be teaching young learners in her hometown.
Spotify:
Here are some Google slides, just in case you want to use them in your classroom.
I love the snow! I love the big snowflakes falling from the sky. I love the way it frosts the trees and makes everything look like a winter wonderland.
This winter has been warmer than usual here in Minnesota. On Valentine’s Day morning, we took a walk through the grassy fields wearing our sneakers.
When it snowed last night, I was excited to get outside today to sing this song for little ones who may be “snow lovers” like me. If you’ve read the book Froggy Gets Dressed ( by Jonathan London with illustrations by Frank Remkiewicz), you’ll see how a little frog wants to play outside in the snow. During the story, each time Froggy goes outside, his mother reminds him of the winter clothing he forgot to put on.
In this song, children can pretend to put on their winter clothing one piece at a time. My young learners LOVE this song! You can watch one video where I’m out in the snow. The other video is the pretend version for the classroom.
Let’s Play In The Snowby Doug Nichols
from the songbook “A Nichol’s Worth of Songs Volume IV “
Put on your boots and come with me.
Pretend to tug on boots. Gesture with your thumb to your chest.
Let’s go out. It’s snowing!
Stretch arms wide. Move your fingers downward to look like snow.
Put on your boots and come with me.
Pretend to tug on boots. Gesture with your thumb to your chest.
Let’s play in the snow!
Pretend to make a snowball. Throw it!
*Substitute each clothing item below into the song. Add your own ideas.
Students can also add their own ideas using my “Think, Think, Think” chant. What clothing items does Froggy wear in the winter? What do you wear? Long underwear? Ear muffs?
Think, Think, Think chant by Kathy Kampa
Think, think, think. Think, think, think.
What should we do?
Think, think, think. Think, think, think.
What should we do?
I know! Let’s put on our jacket!
If you’d like all of the images for this song, download the Google slides. You can see me putting on winter clothing items one by one. It’s fun for the students to put the slides in order and name the new item that was added. You’ll find the musical score here, too.
Here’s a video we took outside with the last item–the mittens.
Songwriter 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 music and movement should be a part of every young child’s education. Kathy’s songs for kids (Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays and Jump Jump Everyone) are available on iTunes.
Kathy uses a globally-minded and inquiry-based approach to teaching through which students develop 21st-century skills. She also supports the development of English language skills by creating songs, chants, and TPR/movement activities targeted to young learners’ needs. Kathy is an author with Oxford University Press and has co-authored English language courses for young learners (Magic Time, Everybody Up, Oxford Discover, Beehive, and Buzz). Kathy conducts teacher training sessions around the globe.
This song hasn’t been professionally recorded yet. However, for more kid-tested music and movement activities, check out more music on iTunes, Spotify, and Apple Music. Kathy has produced two music CDs for very young learners, Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays andJump Jump Everyone, which build English language skills through music and movement while nurturing creativity and imagination. Grown and loved by real kids!
Catch Children Being Amazing! It’s an acronym I created to remind teachers to focus on amazing student work. When we notice the great things happening around us, rather than negative things, more great things can appear. By talking about the wonderful things you see happening in your classroom, young learners will strive to do these wonderful things, too.
How do you do that?
Describe what you see happening in your classroom. What do you see? What do you hear?
-Be specific about what students are doing. Consider your goals for the activity. You can add descriptions to help students come up with more ideas.
For example, the goal of the activity below was for students to make letter shapes in different ways. At first, I’m describing individual student actions. You’ll notice that I’ve pointed out body parts, letter names, size, and students working together.
I see Yuya making the letter d with his fingers.
I see Sara making the letter D with her whole body.She made a big letter shape.
I see Anna and Noah standing back-to-back.They are collaborating by making their letter together.
By describing the many different students’ ideas, students will try out varied ideas, too. Try to acknowledge as many students as possible during your class. That builds self-confidence, too.
You can also acknowledge something that the whole class has done.
Look at how quickly our class tidied up our classroom.Everything has been put away.
Our class now knows all the words to our new song.I listened and heard you singing by yourself.
Celebration Chants
I use Celebration chants with my young learners (and teachers). They’re easy to do and bring positive energy to your space. First, teach them to your students. Then, use them throughout your day. Let’s get started.
Here’s a video with all three chants listed below.
Celebration Chants video
We Did It
My Japanese students used to say, 先生、やりましたよ。Sensei, Teacher, I did it! I wrote this chant to celebrate my students’ successes. It’s called “We Did It!” Maybe you know this popular chant. It’s available on my Jump Jump Everyone album, too.
We did it! We did it! We did It today!
Pat. Clap. Pat. Clap. Pat. Clap. Pat. Clap.
We did it! We did it! Hip, hip, hooray!
Pat. Clap. Pat. Clap. Roll your hands. Arms up high.
4-3-2-1
Why not celebrate in a new way? My students loved counting backwards.
Four, three, two, one,
Use fingers 4—–3—–2—–1
Hooray for all the things we’ve done.
Shake hands up / Clap. Clap. Clap.
SUCCESS
This last chant is called “SUCCESS.” This may work best for your elementary students since they know how to spell words and do handclapping games.
My students like to do this chant with a partner, too. Here are several ways students can do it, from the easiest way to the most complicated way.
Variation 1: Pat own legs—clap both partner’s hands.
Variation 2: Pat own legs—clap own hands—clap both partner’s hands—clap own hands
Variation 3: Pat own legs— clap own hands—clap partner’s right hand—clap own hands
—clap partner’s left hand—clap own hands– clap both partner’s hands—clap own hands* (repeat—last time omit last *)
All of these images can be found in the Google Slides here.
Do you have a celebration chant that you do with your students? Share it with Kathy!
magictimekids@gmail.com
Songwriter 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 music and movement should be a part of every young child’s education. Kathy’s songs for kids (Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays and Jump Jump Everyone) are available on iTunes.
Kathy uses a globally-minded and inquiry-based approach to teaching through which students develop 21st-century skills. She also supports the development of English language skills by creating songs, chants, and TPR/movement activities targeted to young learners’ needs. Kathy is an author and teacher-trainer with Oxford University Press. She is delighted to be teaching young learners in her hometown.
What do you have readily available in your classroom? A slide whistle is one of the most interesting sounds I have in my classroom. If you have a big group of students, it quickly gets their attention. Don’t have a slide whistle? How about a shaker, a tambourine, or a kazoo?
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