Marching Monsters?

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Are you ready for Halloween? Add “Marching Monsters” to your Halloween activities It builds phonemic awareness and is super fun to do!

I’m gifting you with these Google slides. You can print them or just share on your device. You can easily sync your music to these slides.

Marching Monsters Halloween Slide Show: Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays

There are four Halloween characters in this song–monsters, skeletons, witches, and jack-o-lanterns. Have fun pretending to be the four characters. Practice the four verbs– march, skip, sway side-to-side in a waltz, and jump! Now put them together.

“How can we march like monsters? (Who doesn’t love marching like monsters???!)

How can we skip like skeletons?

How do you waltz? How can we waltz like witches? (sway side to side)

How can we jump like jack-o-lanterns?”

Practice “Turn around and stop!”

Note: Moving and stopping is an essential movement skill for very young learners.

For very little ones, skipping is a new skill. Try walking with a little hop. Or galloping.

Here are the lyrics. You can also find them in the slide show above.

Marching Monsters

Words and music by Kathleen Kampa

1. Marching monsters! Happy Halloween! Boo!

Marching monsters! Happy Halloween! Boo!

Marching monsters, Turn around and stop! (hold)

Marching monsters Happy Halloween! Boo!

2. Skipping skeletons! Happy Halloween! Boo! . . .

3. Waltzing witches! Happy Halloween! Boo! . . . .

4. Jumping jack-o-lanterns! Happy Halloween! Boo! . . . .

Just watch the video and have fun!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/kathy-kampas-special-days/id713965540

Did you notice that you can build phonemic awareness with this song too? The word pairs begin with the same initial sound. You can separate the verbs and nouns. Students match.

Marching Monsters worksheet and flashcards

For a bigger challenge, write the letters m, sk, w, j, and h on the board. What pair of words begins with these letters in the song?

m-> marching monsters

sk-> skipping skeletons

w-> waltzing witches

j-> jumping jack-o-lanterns

h-> Happy Halloween!

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Want to add a cute monster craft? http://acupcakefortheteacher.blogspot.jp/2012/07/my-frankenstein-craftivity.html

Monsters by Gunder on Flickr Attribution CC 2.0 license

http://bit.ly/Gundermonstersdrawing

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.

Special Days and Holidays

You can search for my music on iTunes. or Apple Music.

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.

Jump Jump Everyone

Happy teaching!

Kathy Kampa

Kathy's bio photo

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.

Run, Run, Run!

I teach very young learners. I love the energy that these students bring to my class! The question is how to harness that energy productively. This chant from Magic Time One 2nd edition (OUP) is perfect for very young learners.

In the lessons prior to this, students learned about various pets, such as cat, dog, rabbit, bird, turtle, and frog. (Actually the artwork shows additional pets that the children find in the pictures). The four verbs in this lesson are jump, run, hop, fly.

First of all, students practice each of the four verbs–jump, run, hop, fly–standing in one place. It’s also important for young learners to learn “Stop!” It’s fun to make it a game by saying these verbs several times (Jump! Jump! Jump!), and then “Stop!” You can do this with music by starting and stopping the music. When my students, they love to make interesting poses, too.

Secondly, put these four words into the chant pattern. I like to do this as a fingerplay sitting with the students.

For jump, place two fingers in your palm, then pretend to “jump.”

For run, make your fingers move quickly in your palm.

For hop, place one finger in your palm, then pretend to “hop.”

For fly, move your fingers in the air.

You can place the four picture cards in the order of the song like this. Put the three verbs in one row, and run in another.

Jump Hop Fly

Run

You can see in the video that my students matched the animals to the picture cards.

Run, Run, Run! from Magic Time One 2e Unit 10

Jump! Jump! Run, run, run!

Jump! Jump! Run, run, run!

Jump! Jump! Run, run, run!

Jump! Jump! Stop!

Change jump to hop. Then change to fly.

Here’s a video of some of my very young learners performing this chant.

Students extend this language by putting it into the phrase, It can _______. Students are then able to talk about all of the pets they’ve learned about.

Have fun!!!

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.

A student of mine making letters

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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.

Today is Sunday.

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!

Reading and Dancing Holiday Songs

It’s October and we’re busy singing and dancing to Halloween songs. My students love getting up and moving to a song! At this time of year, we’re marching like monsters, skipping like skeletons, waltzing like witches, and jumping like jack-o-lanterns. If you want to find more Halloween songs, you can find teaching notes for songs like “Marching Monsters” on earlier blogs on this site.

On this blog, however, I want to share a handout and flash cards made by my good friend Setsuko Toyama. Setsuko is a well-known teacher trainer and author in Japan. On her worksheet, students match the same initial sound of the words, an important skill in developing phonemic awareness. They also have fun playing with alliteration, words that begin with the same sound. Many American nursery rhymes feature alliteration.

Marching Monsters worksheet and flashcards

I like having my students do craft projects from time to time. While they’re busy creating their artwork, I play music to fit the holiday. Kathy Kampa’s Special Days and Holidays CD has several Halloween songs that children can easily sing along to for your Halloween parties.

Check out my Pinterest page for lots of Halloween craft activities.