Using Music In Kindergarten

Teaching with  Z is having a linky party of Favorite Classroom Songs.

I love this topic!  I use music all day long.  I have all my kids' music in my ipod so I don't have to change CDs.

In the morning, my kids work at the tables as they arrive (in the beginning they are doing exploration with manipulatives, eventually it will be our journal time).  I play music to signal them to clean up and join me at the carpet.  I may play "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from Chicken Soup for Little Souls or "The Goldfish" by Laurie Berkner (my favorite kids' music!).







Then we share our schedule for the day and write a morning message.  Next it is time to get up and dance!





And practice our sign language alphabet to Carole King "A Alligators All Around"



Then I read a book, we have some math and when it is time to clean up for recess, I play another song! I use Jack Hartmann for math songs and one of our favorites is "Countdown to Blastoff."

We also use his songs for calendar "Months of the Year Line Dance" and "Seven Days of the Week" are both lively and fun.

Of course we sing Dr. Jean




and Greg and Steve, too.
My kids learn sign language to this song and a few others.

Thanks so much for visiting!  I hope you have enjoyed some of my favorite songs!  Leave me a comment and tell me about your favorites!  Jump back to Teaching with  Z and see what everyone else is sharing!

Brown Bear

My kids love Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?     Most of them come to me already knowing the words by heart.  When I began teaching many moons ago, Brown Bear was one of the first books I bought for my Kindergarten classroom.

About 5 years ago, I had my class make many fingerpaintings that I used to create a Brown Bear big book for the class.  I cut out each shape of each animal following Eric Carle's excellent illustrations.  I felt so artistic!  I finally found the  real big book at Lakeshore a few years ago.  I use both in my classroom now (along with several smaller versions).

 We discuss the animals, the colors, the words that repeat, how the color words describe the animals, how you get to predict what comes next.  We sing the Brown Bear song by Greg and Steve and learn the sign language for the colors and the animals.  Here is another version by Bill Martin on Youtube:

We make a predictive chart (I see a yellow frog.  I see a blue whale.).  We play with the sentences whole group, cut them apart and put them back together.  I retype their sentences and give them to the kids all cut apart and they glue it to a piece of paper to illustrate and we make a class book.  We graph our favorite animals (purple cat seems to win a lot?).

I have a commercially made Brown Bear game.  I found more Brown Bear activities this summer at 1plus 1plus 1 equals 1.

And we fingerpaint!

Pete the Cat Links

I just got my new Pete the Cat, Rocking in My School Shoes book and I think the kids will really enjoy it.  It shows Pete riding the bus, reading in the library, eating in the cafeteria, playing on the playground, and enjoying class activities.  It has a very positive message and I plan to read both of them the first day of school.  Some teachers will probably use it for a school tour!




 You can watch a video with the author, Eric Litwin,  singing the song and you can download both the original Pete the Cat and the new one, Rocking in My School Shoes.  (just click where it says download and open it in iTunes.)

Here are the links to Pete the Cat's publisher.

Click here!



Here is the video from YouTube of Eric Litwin performing Pete the Cat.

Here is his version (with Pete!) of The Wheels on the Bus.

 I tend to read a bunch of books the first weeks of school.  I think it helps the kids establish community as we create our class rules and norms.