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Songs for Homeschooling

Whether at home or in a classroom, the right songs make learning fun. Best of all, songs stay with young learners long after their “lessons” are over.

Please check out the review of Super Simple Songs in the latest issue of The Old Schoolhouse – The Magazine for Homeschool Families.

My granddaughter loves these songs, and she learns the concepts presented very quickly because she loves to hear the songs over and over. I can enthusiastically recommend these CDs (buy all 3!) to anyone with a preschooler. They would also be helpful to children who are learning English as a second language.

We’ve always tried to make materials that are easy-to-teach, easy-to-learn for young learners regardless of the learning environment, so we’re always very happy to hear from homeschool families who have been able to make good use of the songs and other resources we’ve been working on.

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Rainy Days = Extra Wiggles

We’re right in the middle of rainy season here in Tokyo. Japan has seen a lot of heavy rain this year, and it looks like it’s going to rain everyday this week.

As teachers, we always prepare for rainy season by planning a lot of very active songs and games. During rainy season, children don’t have an opportunity to go outside and play as much. So, when they come to English class, they have a ton of energy!

Remember that during periods when it’s raining a lot, children may have a little more trouble sitting still than usual. Be sure to plan some extra high-energy activities for them so they can “get the wiggles out.”

The Pinocchio is always a good place to start ^_^!

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Super Simple Phonics –> Super Simple ABCs

What happened to Super Simple Phonics?

If you are familiar with our materials, and you have visited our shop recently, you may have noticed that Super Simple Phonics is not there!  Where’d it go?

We’re excited to announce we’re releasing a new and improved version called Super Simple ABCs. If you’ve been using Super Simple Phonics, let me explain some of the key differences.

In 2008, we released Super Simple Phonics, an upper case ABC practice book and audio CD.  Super Simple Phonics was based on lessons and materials we had created for and used successfully with our young students.  We were very happy to get a great response from teachers all over. We wanted to make it even better though, and to make some adjustments in response to some of the feedback we received.

So here are the exciting new developments you’ll find in Super Simple ABCs:

Upper and Lower Case books

While Super Simple Phonics focused only on capital letters, Super Simple ABCs has an upper case book and a lower case book (with a Starter level on the way soon).  We recommend the upper case book for students from 3-5, and the lower case book for students for 4-7. But most importantly, we wanted to give teachers the choice about whether to start with upper or lower case letters.

Super Simple ABCS Upper Case has the same structure and vocabulary as the original Super Simple Phonics, but now features beautiful colors, stickers, and new images.

Super Simple ABCS Lower Case is a brand new book which follows a similar super simple structure, but is designed for a slightly higher level with more writing practice and more vocabulary (2 review items from the Upper Case book plus 2 new items).

Updated Colorful Design
The Super Simple ABCs books are full of bright beautiful color, while still leaving plenty of opportunities for students to draw, trace, and color black-and-white images and letters.

Fun Illustrations

We wanted to keep the simplicity of the images in Super Simple Phonics while adding a little more warmth and liveliness (as well as color!)  We’re really excited about how our students have responded to the bright new images in Super Simple ABCs and think you’ll really love them.

Stickers

In Super Simple Phonics, there was a space to place a sticker or stamp upon completing each page.  Our students LOVE getting that sign of completion.  So for Super Simple ABCs, we decided to take it a step further and put two spaces for stickers, and include 52 full color stickers (2 for each letter) right in the back of the book.  The students eyes light up when they see the stickers and it adds an extra bit of vocabulary reinforcement.

Separate CD

With Super Simple Phonics, the book and the CD came together.  However, many teachers and parents wanted to buy the CD, but not the book (because they already had an ABC book).  Others wanted to buy the books for their students, but didn’t need a CD for each student.  Again, we realized we needed to give teachers more choice.  Now the CD and books are packaged separately, allowing you to buy one or the other, or both!  This leads to…

Lower price!
Even though we’ve upgraded the books making them full-color and adding stickers, offering the CD separately allows us to drop the price of the books by 25%, making it more affordable for classrooms.  And for those who only need the CD, it’s now cheaper as well!

More Songs
We received a lot of feedback from teachers who loved the songs on the Super Simple Phonics CD, but didn’t need the spoken mini-lessons that were included.  We listened, and thought about our own classes, and came to the realization that the CD would be even more useful if we focused on the songs. So, we’ve kept the songs from Super Simple Phonics, moved the songs from the Phonics Support Pack to the audio CD, and added several new songs.  The Super Simple ABCs – Phonics Fun CD can be used to support both Super Simple Songs ABCs Upper Case and Super Simple Songs ABCs Lower Case, or any ABC/phonics program you are using.  It’s full of what we do best…super simple songs.

Posters

When learning your ABCs, it definitely helps to encounter the letters as much as possible.  We wanted to make it easier to do so while giving teachers another tool to introduce and review vocabulary.  There are two big, bright posters available for each book (two upper case posters and two lower case posters).

Super Simple ABCs Support Pack CD-ROM

The main update with the support pack is MORE.  More flashcards, more worksheets, more games, more, more, more.  The new Support Pack is designed to support both the upper and lower case Super Simple ABC books.  It’s the same price as before with double the materials and brand new images and worksheets.  The songs that were previously on the Support Pack CD-Rom have been moved to the Super Simple ABCs – Phonics Fun CD so that all of the songs would be in one easy-to-access place.

We’ve spent the last year testing out the updates with our students and making small tweaks and adjustments to get everything just right.  We’re really excited about Super Simple ABCs, and hope you are too!

More details are coming soon on our website.  Please check back for more details.

Keep It Super Simple!

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Valentine’s Day Song and Worksheets

As we say here in Japan, “Hisashiburi!”, which means “Long time, no see!”  We had a very busy Fall and Winter with lots of travel, lots of presentations, and the release of Super Simple Halloween Songs and Super Simple Christmas Songs.  The next big holiday we are looking forward to is Valentine’s Day!

Our favorite song for Valentine’s Day is Skidamarink.  It is, of course, super simple and super fun. We usually play the song in the background as we make Valentine’s Day cards or explore some Valentine’s Day worksheets.  By the time we are finished with the cards or worksheets, all of the kids are familiar with the melody and most of the words and are ready to learn the gestures and sing.

Many people ask us what “Skidamarink” means.  The answer is… nothing.  It’s just a fun word kids really enjoy playing with.

Check out the song, lyrics, gestures, video, and FREE Valentine’s Day worksheets on our Skidamarink page.

We’d love to know what you do for Valentine’s Day.  Let us know by leaving a comment or joining the discussion.

Skidamarink a dinky dink.  Skidamarink a doo.  We love you!

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Beatlemania for the Babes

Did you sing any Beatles songs when you were a kid?

National Public Radio recently did a report on why toddlers like the Beatles so much. (Funniest line: “Beatlemania returns to America this week.” What? It left?)

According to Dr. Deforia Lane,

The Beatles have repetition, predictability and rhythm. And in certain cases, it literally paints a picture for children. And quite frankly, the beat makes you want to move.

Heeeeey…sounds like Super Simple Songs characteristics to me! (And we thought of all that first, right?)

The Super Simple Songs have loads of repetition (Uh-huh), predictability (Rain Rain Go Away – Play With It), and rhythm (Knock Knock, Trick or Treat). The Bath Song paints a picture for the children, and you can’t sit still during The Pinocchio. (Links for the rest of the songs.)

Yes, much of me suspects that these kids are singing the Beatles mainly because their parents and teachers like the Beatles, but it’s true: many Beatles songs are easy for kids to sing and relate to. I like Bob Dylan, but I don’t have my kids sing his songs. (Another terrifically helpful Beatles/Super Simple Songs characteristic: articulation.)

I didn’t realize the Beatles’ higher voice range is also an appealing characteristic for toddlers. I would have thought lower registers were preferred, but I haven’t heard many toddlers squealing for Barry White or the Righteous Brothers.

The short report is well worth a listen. If you prefer reading, there’s a hastily-written not-yet-corrected transcript on the same page (ooh, I love those misheard lyrics at the end: I get high! I get high! I get high! not exactly what you want your toddlers singing at top of their lungs, eh?).

To answer my first question above, I don’t remember singing the Beatles as a kid. Not a single one. I don’t know why!

Oh, who is Dr. Lane? She’s a music therapist and the coordinator of the Toddler Rock program at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Toddler Rock? I didn’t know this program existed. How cool is that? We should organize a field trip, yes?

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Super Simple Workshops in Korea

안녕하세요!

Troy and Devon will be in Korea for some workshops from Aug 28 – August 31. If you are in Korea, we hope you can make it! You can get the details here: http://www.milkenglish.com/news/ or at our Facebook page: http://bit.ly/10I0iJ.

We’ll be talking about how to increase student confidence, enjoyment, and performance in the EFL classroom through the use of songs, games, and creative drama.  Our co-presenter will be Ms. Sujeong Kim of Soongsil University and MILK English.  It will be super active and super fun.

Hope to see you there!

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Moe!

Your 5th and 6th graders are going to love this.

There’s some exciting unpredictability, there’s some strategic planning, and there’s a whole bunch of laughter.

Devon and I recently presented this activity as part of a workshop at PEN (Primary English Teachers of Niigata), and my 5th and 6th graders have decided this is their new favorite game.

There are several variations. Start with this version.

*****

1) Divide your class into 2 teams and assign team captains. Play Eeney Meeney Miney Moe, and the team captains point to each student in turn.

2) At the end of the rhyme, “moe” will land on one student from each team.

3) These 2 students do Rock Scissors Paper with each other.

4) The winner returns to the team, and the loser sits down.

5) Repeat until all the students from one team are sitting down.

******

Tip: You don’t need to spend much time teaching Eeney Meeney Miney Moe. You will play it so many times during this activity that the students will learn most of it automatically. Happy warning: you and the students will continue humming it for the rest of the week.

Stay tuned for variations on this activity!

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Kids English Education Project Summary

A big thank you to everyone who came out to our first KEEP workshop.  We had a great time and we hope you did too!

You can find some photos and a summary of everything covered in the workshop here.
Some space is still available for the next workshop on June 19th.  It’s almost full so register soon!

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Top 10 story books for kindergarten EFL

Troy has started a fun discussion over on the SSL community forum.  What are your top 10 story books for kindergarten ESL?

Here is Troy’s list:

10. Good Night Gorilla

9. Big Bugs! (a popup book with amazing…big bugs!)

8. Five Little Monkeys (the version where mommy jumps on the bed at the end)

7. The Farmer and the Beet

6. Go Away Big Green Monster

5. No David! (the first one, not the others)

4. Ten Little Ladybugs

3.

2.

1.

To see his top 3, you have stop by the forum! While you are at the forum, please take some time to read the posts from EFLJoelle.  She’s got a TON of very helpful ideas.  I love her idea for making a “Feely Box” in this discussion.

Hey Joelle, you’re cake!

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Featured Video: Seven Steps

Oh Lucky Day!  We’ve become friends with a really passionate and generous teacher in Hong Kong named Ms. Lucky.  It has been so cool to get ideas from teachers all over, and Lucky sure has a lot of ideas to share.  Check out her playlist of Super Simple Songs videos from her classes.

Thanks, Lucky.  You’re cake.