♫ One potato, two potatoes... ♫

Many of us remember playing elimination games like Musical Chairs and Simon Says when we were young. These are games where you start with a group, and each round, one or more players is “out” and eliminated from the game. As you get closer and closer to the end of the game, the tension builds, and it can be a lot of fun (and beneficial for young learners).

However, for some very young learners, these kinds of elimination games can be very upsetting. It’s not so much that all of the kids want to win, but they want to keep playing! They don’t want to be removed from the group, and that’s perfectly understandable.

There are a few ways to handle this.

1) Demonstrate how to “lose” positively

If you do play a game where participants get eliminated, be sure, as the leader, to eliminate yourself first. When you are “out” have fun with it! Say in a fun, exaggerated way, “Oh no!” and laugh. You’re showing the students that this game is just for fun. Young learners will see you having fun with it, and so when they are “out”, they won’t take it too hard.

2) Make getting “out” fun
When a child does get eliminated in the game, give her a high five, let her sit in a special chair, make a silly noise, maybe even give her a sticker. When you make getting eliminated from the game fun, everyone has a good time.  In the video below, note how much fun the kids who are removed from the game are having.

3) Eliminate the elimination

For very young learners, often there is no need to have a winner or any sense of competition to make the activity fun. In trying to make games fun and interesting for young learners, we often add an element of competition when no competition is needed. You can play the same games without anyone ever being “out”. This is especially true for kindergarten and preschool students who usually enjoy playing the game regardless of whether anybody wins or loses. For example, you don’t have to remove a chair each round when you play Musical Chairs. Try playing non-competitive Musical Chairs:

In this version of Musical Chairs, no students are ever “out”. Set out enough chairs for each student in the class. Under each chair, place a picture card of some vocabulary you are practicing. As the music plays, students march around the chairs, singing along. When the teacher stops the music, everyone sits down. The teacher asks each of the students one by one, “What’s under your chair?” The students take the picture cards from under their chairs and say, “It’s a dog/cat/pencil/hat/etc.,” while doing the gesture for that word. Place the cards back under the chairs and start the music again. Try to stop the music so that each player gets to sit in each chair.

This kind of thinking extends to all kinds of activities with young learners. For example, if you play BINGO with younger learners, you can celebrate each time someone gets BINGO, and then have a big celebration when everyone has gotten BINGO. You celebrate getting BINGO rather than just celebrating the first person to get BINGO. For pre-elementary school students, that element of competition just isn’t necessary.

Keeping these ideas in mind when doing activities where participants are traditionally eliminated can save some hurt feelings and help keep classes fun and positive. We’d love to hear your ideas, too!

We’d like to let you know how our fund-raising went so you can be aware of where every penny went. 

In April 2011, we made an initial donation of ¥500,000 (approximately $6,100) to Save The Children – Japan that was independent of our fund-raising efforts.

From March 2011, here is how download sales have gone:
Special $5.00 3-song + wallpaper and lyrics sheet package sold directly through our website:
124 units. Revenue earned: $620

Unfortunately, due to some copyright difficulties with the Japanese version of Twinkle Twinkle, we needed to halt those sales (everything was worked out), but sales of the songs continued all year through iTunes and Amazon.

iTunes (reporting up to the end of January 2012):
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: 522 downloads, 40 streams.  Revenue earned: $424.01
Kira Kira Boshi: 150 downloads, 10 streams.  Revenue earned: $123.49
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Adult Vocals: 89 downloads, 3 streams. Revenue earned: $74.59

Amazon.com (reporting up to the end of January 2012):
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: 181 downloads.  Revenue earned: $130.37
Kira Kira Boshi: 11 downloads.  Revenue earned: $7.89
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Adult Vocals: 7 downloads. Revenue earned: $5.36

Spotify (reporting up to the end of January 2012):
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: 57 streams.  Revenue earned: $0.16
Kira Kira Boshi: 64 streams.  Revenue earned: $0.31
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Adult Vocals: 19 streams. Revenue earned: $0.08

Total earned to date: $1,386.26 (approximately ¥115,000)

We added a bit more and, in February 2012, donated ¥200,000 (approximately $2,450) to Save The Children – Japan for a total of ¥700,000 (approximately $8,500) for the year.  Funds raised from the sales of downloads of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star will continue to be donated and we will do our best to make additional contributions. Your support of Twinkle Japan is very much appreciated.

This sign says, "Thank you, Save The Children."

We encourage you to stay up to date and involved. Save The Children – Japan is doing a great job serving the Tohoku region.  Last week we attended an annual report on progress being made and were particularly impressed with the child-safe play zones. There are currently still 337,819 people living in temporary housing. In those situations, space is limited and there is very often little space for children to meet and play. We believe strongly that play is the work of children, and it’s extremely important for kids to have safe places to play.

Thank you very much for your help!

Little Snowflake is one of those songs. It’s a very gentle and sweet song that you can use to introduce and review parts of the body.

Here are a few simple activities to do along with Little Snowflake:

1) Make Paper Snowflakes
These are really easy to make, and like real snowflakes, every paper snowflake you make will be unique. You can find a very simple how-to guide at Enchanted Learning.

2) Make It Snow!
Give children sheets of white scratch paper and help them tear the paper into many small pieces. Put all of the small pieces into a paper cup, hold the cup up high, and then make it snow by turning the cup over and letting the “snowflakes” fall to the ground. Put all of the pieces of paper back into the cup, counting them as you go. Make it snow again!

3) Falling Snowflakes
This is a classroom activity. Before class, make four snowflakes using white paper. Tape a magnet to the back of each snowflake and put them across the top of the whiteboard. At the bottom of the whiteboard, draw a simple winter scene with a snowman and some trees. On the sides of the whiteboard, draw six to ten evenly spaced dots from the top to the bottom. Divide the class into four teams and have them stand in lines facing the whiteboard. Show the four students at the front of the line a picture card. The first student to name the vocabulary on the card gets to move his team’s snowflake one dot down the whiteboard. Those first four students in the lines move to the back of the lines and the next four students try to name the next card. The first team to have its snowflake reach the ground is the winner. For wrong answers or unruly behavior, the teacher can “blow” a snowflake up one dot!

4) Use Finger Painting, Cotton Balls, and/or Shadow Puppets
Here are some great suggestions from MILK English in Seoul, Korea:

Do you have any other ideas?  We’d love to hear from you!

♫ There were 10 in the bed ♫

In addition to teaching rhythm, vocabulary, grammar, listening skills, verbal skills, and more, songs are fantastic for introducing concepts in a way that makes it very easy for young learners to internalize.

As adults, we need to remind ourselves that things we take for granted as being really simple and basic are often brand new ideas to young children. Gaining an understanding of these idea or concepts takes a lot exposure and repetition. Songs allow for that kind of repetition in a fun way, and can introduce important concepts without needing any formal explanation, giving young learners a basic conceptual understanding that they’ll be able to build upon as their studies become more formalized and in-depth.

The song “Ten In The Bed” is a good example of this. With each verse, kids singing the song must recalculate how many are left in the bed. We never need to explain to them that this concept is called subtraction. We never need to let them know that they are learning basic math. Simply by singing the song, children gain a passive understanding of the concept, so that when it is time for them to have math lessons, they have a basic conceptual understanding of subtraction that they can draw upon.

Here are a few ideas for getting the most out of the song.

1. After each verse, ask the children “How many are left?” You may want to pause the music while you do this.
2. Count with your fingers. Pause the music, hold up ten fingers, and count them together. “How many fingers?” Next, point to one of your thumbs and bend it so that now there are only nine fingers showing. Ask, “Now how many fingers?” Elicit answers and then, together, count the remaining fingers.
3. Sing the song while seated and give children 10 objects they can use to count with. These can be small bingo chips, pom-poms, erasers, toys, etc.  After each verse, the kids can remove one object and then recount the items.
4. Try this idea shared with us from Daddy Ross Preschool in Argentina:

   Kindergarteners and preschoolers LOVE this activity.  If you don’t have ten children to play with, it’s no problem.  Just start from six (or however many children are playing), or use stuffed animals as substitutes.

5. Try the above activity, but sing the song without music, and the leader (teacher, parent, one of the children) calls out a different number each time. For example:
   
   Group: ♫ There were ten in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over. Roll over.” So they all rolled over…♫
   Leader: ♫…and two fell out. ♫

   Now two children will fall out, and everyone can count together how many are left in the bed. With large groups of more than ten children, you can have everyone participate (assuming you have enough chairs ^_^), and try having different numbers of kids fall out each time. It’s great listening practice and will allow you to introduce the concept of subtracting numbers other than one.

   Enjoy the song, and happy subtracting!

Twinkle Twinkle 2.0

We’ve been really happy with the feedback we’ve received on our first iPad/iPhone app, Twinkle Twinkle. Version 1.0 received stellar reviews from Kirkus Reviews, PadGadget.com, Digital Storytime.com, GiggleApps.com and more. And with 98 ratings in the U.S. iTunes store, it has averaged 4.5 out of 5 stars.

But we still wanted to add some things to make it extra special, so we’ve just released Twinkle Twinkle version 2.0. Here’s what to look for:

1) Record Your Own Voice – Now you can choose to record yourself telling the story. Parents can record the story for their children. Kids can record themselves reading the story. Or you can record your own version of the story (use a different language, simplify the story, etc.). This is a really great tool for getting kids excited about reading.

2) New touch animations and sound effects – We’ve added some fun additional effects, while keeping things simple so as not to take away from the story. Touch the moon and watch it glow! Play the “Twinkle twinkle” tune on the star and the moon! Find the shooting stars! Let us know what else you find ^_^.

3) Larger home and page-turning buttons – Thanks to your feedback, we’ve added bigger buttons to make navigation easier.

Let us know what you think! We’d really appreciate it if you’d leave us a review in the iTunes store.

Hope you enjoy it!

P.S.
To Android users: We’re really sorry we don’t have an Android app available yet. It turns out developing for Android, with the multiple platforms, has not been as straightforward as we had hoped. This storybook app is pretty rich in content, involving videos transitions and multiple effects, and it has proven difficult to keep the full functionality in an Android version. Rather than release a watered-down version, we’re still trying to re-create the full experience. We’re sorry to keep you waiting! Thanks for your patience.

Skidamarink Cloze Exercise Worksheet

Music is such a wonderful teaching tool because there are so many activities that you can do with it. Besides singing and gesturing along to the music, you can use activity sheets, flashcards and games to extend the impact of your songs. One activity that we find particularly useful are cloze exercises, or fill-in-the-blank worksheets.

Cloze exercises are printed song lyrics with words or phrases missing. As students listen to the song, they fill in the missing information. They are great for students that are working on their reading and writing skills. They are also great for students that are a little hesitant to stand up and sing, but who still love music.

It’s easy to make your own. Simply type up the lyrics of the song you would like to use, then, remove selected words and replace them with a blank line. You can adjust your exercise to the skill level of your students. For an easier exercise, add a list of the words so that students can read them and know how to spell them. Make it more challenging by leaving the words off.

There many ways that you can use this great tool with your students. You might start by playing the song as background music during another part of the lesson or have it playing as the children enter the room. You can introduce the vocabulary with flashcards and review how to pronounce and spell the words that will be part of the exercise.

Pass out a copy of the lyrics to each student. Play the song and have students listen for the words. You might need to restart the song several times or pause the music so that students have time to write in the missing words.

After they have filled in all the blanks, listen to the song one more time and have students point to each word as it is sung and double check their answers.
Often, kids will sing along as they listen. If the students are willing, stand up and sing and gesture the song together.

Are you ready to try a cloze exercise? Here’s a free cloze exercise worksheet for “Skidamarink,” perfect for Valentine’s Day lessons, around Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, or anytime of year you need a sweet song.

For more cloze exercises, see the enhanced CDs in our Theme Series. Every song on the Animals, Halloween and Christmas CDs includes a cloze activity sheet!

Actually, Skidamarink does not mean anything.  It’s just a silly, made-up word.  The song is originally from an early 20th century Broadway musical, and over the years has been sung as Skinnamarink, Skinnymarink, Skiddymerink, and more.

It’s a great song for Parent/Child classes. The parent and child can face each other and sing! It’s always nice to finish with a big hug. And it’s a nice choice around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day, and any day children may want to share a little love. It’s also fantastic for school performances.

For the full lyrics and a gesture guide for Skidamarink, check out the Super Simple Songs Valentine’s Day page.

For a little bit of extra fun, try making up your own nonsense word and changing the lyrics around. For example, sing about your favorite foods!

Skidamarink a dink a dink.
Skidamarink a deeza
I love pizza! 

Have fun!

Skidamarink a Doo, We Love You!

“Skidamarink” is our favorite Valentine’s Day song, it’s a little bit silly and very sweet. The actual word “skidamarink” doesn’t ‘mean’ anything, but it’s sure fun to say!!

Besides singing it to tell people you love them at Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, Skidamarink can also be used to talk about times of day like morning, afternoon, evening and night time (symbolized by the moon).

When do you…?

Demonstrate the times of day gestures from Skidamarink, (download the gesture guide here) for morning, afternoon, evening and the moon. Use a cardboard clock to talk about the different times of day and what types of activities you do at those times. Ask kids about their daily and weekly activities. When do you eat breakfast? Go to school? Eat lunch? Have soccer practice? Go to English lesson? Eat dinner? Take a bath? Go to sleep?
Put the students in pairs and have a dialogue practicing with each other.

When do you….eat dinner?
I eat dinner in the evening.

When do you…eat breakfast?
I eat breakfast in the morning.

Afterwards, watch the video and sing Skidamarink together.

Let us know what you’ll be doing for Valentine’s Day this year!

Downloadable Colored Hearts Worksheet

Valentine’s Day is a great holiday for practicing or reviewing a number of vocabulary topics. We particularly like to use it for colors, shapes, counting, and emotions.

Colors are some of the first words we teach our students, and like the alphabet and numbers, it is a good idea to practice them often. In almost every lesson, we ask the kids about the color of different items; flashcards, clothing, pictures from the storytime book, and classroom objects.
Knowing the colors is a big confidence booster, which can help students feel more comfortable speaking in English.

Here are some ideas for practicing the four language skills with colors.
Download the three different Hearts worksheets from our Valentine’s Day ideas page.

Listening – Print out several sets of the colored heart cards so that two to four students are sharing them. As you say the name of each color, students point to that card.
Give each child a blank hearts worksheet and have them color a heart as you name the colors.
Afterwards, pair up students and use the cards for a game of concentration.
Speaking – Hold up a colored heart card and have students say the name of that color. Ask students to name their favorite color.
Reading – Print the colored heart worksheet and the color word cards. Have students match the name of the color with the correct card.
Writing – give each student a blank hearts worksheet. Say the name of different colors. Students write the name of the color on the cards and then color them.

Check the Super Simple Songs Valentine’s Day ideas page for more games, free worksheets and activity suggestions.

The perfect rainy day song!

Many of our songs have more than one version. Often, we have a slowed down or simplified “Learn It” version so that young learners can get to know the words at an easy pace. After they have learned the lyrics and the gestures, they can move to the regular speed version.

“Rain, Rain, Go Away!” has both a “Learn It” and a more complicated “Play With It” version. It’s the perfect rainy day song. Use it to talk about weather, especially on days that kids are stuck inside because of wet weather.

The “Play With It” version is also great for discussing family members and outdoor activities. Father, mother, brother, sister, and baby all want to go out to play, but the rain is stopping them. Download and print the “Rain, Rain, Go Away” flashcards or watch the YouTube video. What are some of the different activities that the family wants to go do? What are some things that the kids would like to go outside and do?

Practice family members by having kids draw or color pictures of families and then hold them up as they sing each verse.
Thanks to Tracey’s English School in Wakayama, Japan for this video idea!

What are your favorite rainy day activities?