We’ve Moved!!

The Super Simple Songs Blog has a new home at Super Simple Learning.  If you’ve linked to us in the past, please update your links and come join us over there.

We’re very excited to have Facebook integrated into the site.  Now you can login, comment and interact with your Facebook account.  No need to create another username and password to keep track of!

Creating a warm classroom for young learners

We frequently get asked about setting up classrooms for young learners.  I’d like to share some photos from Brit’s English in Okayama, Japan.  When owner Jamie Marden decided to build a new school, he set aside one classroom to be his “Super Simple Songs” room (thanks Jamie!) for children 2-6 years old.

Notice how uncluttered the room is.  Young children love to explore and will grab anything they can get their hands on.  Occasionally teachers or parents will scold a young child for not paying attention or for grabbing and touching things around the room.  The child, however, is just being a child!  Curiosity is a good thing!

If you are teaching a once- or twice-a-week class and you would like your students to focus as much as possible on the classroom activities, it’s important to reduce the amount of distractions in the classroom.  When there are fewer distractions, the child will be more likely to join in the class activities. Children love to sing and play, but it’s natural for a young child to wander off and explore something else if there are many things for them to touch in the classroom.  If you need to store a lot of things in the classroom, try to make sure they are stored out of reach and/or out of sight.

If you are in more of a kindergarten or preschool setting and the chlidren stay at school for longer periods of time, you’ll want to have more things for students to explore and discover and play creatively with.  You’ll have more time to teach the students about when it is okay for them to play on their own, and when it is time to play with the group.

A non-cluttered classroom does not mean a boring classroom!  Look how bright and warm Jamie’s classroom is, and he accomplished that with just one colorful carpet and some Super Simple Songs picture cards and Super Simple Phonics picture cards.  It certainly helps to have windows and sunshine and a beautiful new school like Brit’s English, but any classroom can be brightened up with some simple, colorful images and a fun carpet.

Last, notice the space they have left for the children to sing and dance and play in.  No desks.  One small table that can be pulled out for crafts or snacktime when needed.  You can imagine how fun and active the classes are there!  You don’t need a tremendous amount of space to make a classroom feel spacious.

Our classrooms here at Knock Knock English are quite small, but because there are no desks or tables, the room feels large and there is plenty of space for children to move around and interact with the songs.  When we do need a table for the older students, we roll it in to the classroom.

What do you think?  We’d love to hear your classroom ideas and pictures are always welcome!

Just remember…Keep It Super Simple!!!

ASL Songs

We had a great time presenting at the Tokyo English Language Book Fair a couple of weeks ago.  We were very happy to have our display right across from a display for “Signing Time“, an amazing resource for teaching American Sign Language (ASL) to young learners. By the end of the weekend, Troy and Tanja were communicating from across the room in ASL!

When creating a Super Simple Song, we always think about the gestures and movements that will go along with the songs, and frequently visit the American Sign Language Browser for ideas.  As a result, we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from ASL teachers, as well as Baby Sign teachers.  When you put the gestures and signs together with the words and the songs, it’s very powerful.

Language learners depend a LOT on non-verbal cues to make sense of the new input they are receiving.  Children especially rely on non-verbal cues, and their natural interest in learning to master their motor skills makes the pairing of the spoken word and signing a really excellent tool for helping children internalize the langauge they are learning.

Looking for an easy song to teach through ASL?  Try Open Shut Them (you’ll need to check the ASL Browser for the correct signs), and let us know how it goes!

- Devon

An Easy Christmas Song for Kids

If you enjoyed using Knock Knock Trick or Treat in your classrooms, be sure to try “What Do You Want for Christmas?” from Super Simple Songs One.

It’s very similar in that it has some space and music to act out the toy vocabulary–robot, rocket, teddy bear, and train–between verses.  The kids have a blast with the song every year at our school and judging by the feedback we’re getting, kids everywhere are enjoying this song.  

Speaking of  Knock Knock Trick or Treat, (In case you missed it, it was a free Halloween song download) there were just over 30,000 downloads of the song this year.  Thank you!  That means that millions of children all over the world are now singing with Super Simple Songs, and music is finding its way into classrooms where there was no music before.  Knowing this makes us very, very happy!

So thank you to everyone for spreading the word!  If you check back again on Friday, there might just be a Christmas present or two to be found on SuperSimpleSongs.com.  

See you then!

And the winners are….

The Children’s Music Web Award Winners for 2008 have been finalized and we’re happy to announce that Super Simple Songs Three has received an award!

Here is a quote from the website that sums up we we are so proud of these awards:

Our Children’s Music Web Awards are decided in a multi-step judging process. First, family judges screen the candidates and make preliminary decisions. This year we had over 130 applications for 12 categories. In the second round, classrooms and day care centers worldwide pick their favorites.
Children’s voices predominate every step of the way.
Thus,it can truly be said that these are the

KIDS’ FAVORITES!

A big thank you to the teachers and students who judged our songs!

 

“Uh-Huh” Activity

We’ve been having a lot of fun this week in class with Devon’s warm up activity that uses “Uh-Huh” from Super Simple Songs Two.

Place a jump rope or long rope across the center of the room. Place one sign that says “YES” and one sign that says “NO” on opposite sides of the room.

Have all the students line up on the “YES” side of the rope, facing you, and practice saying, “Uh-Huh”. Then, everyone jumps to the other side and says “Unh-Uhh”. Practice going back and forth and have fun with it. Then do the same thing, using “YES” and “NO”. Next play the song, jumping back and forth over the rope. In the middle interlude section, ask some simple yes and no questions and encourage the students to answer and jump to the correct side of the rope.

When the song is finished, you can expand on the activity and ask more yes and no questions, and either jump to that side of the rope, or run to that side of the room. For older students, have the students take turns asking the questions.

Another suggestion is to place an equal number of chairs at each end of the room that is one less that the number of students in the class. ( e.g. 4 students in the class = 3 chairs at each end of the room). When you ask a question, the students run and sit down on the yes side or the no side. One student will be left standing. They can either be “out” and continue playing as an elimination game (not recommended for younger students) or that person can ask the next question and continue playing in the next “round” when someone else is left standing.

In case you were wondering what the Uh-Huh song sounds like, here’s the video…

Color Hands!

A few people have asked about the white hands on the felt board in the background of some of our videos. They’re hands with color names written on them.  I use them a lot when we’re doing things that involve choosing colors.  For example, if a student is choosing a colored sticker for their attendance passport, I ask them to go the the velcro board and find that color and bring it back to me.

They’ve since been remade and are a lot more colorful now.  You can download them from Super Simple Songs for free.  Put some velcro or magnets on the back and put them somewhere in your room.  They make a great colorful decoration too!

-Troy

Hiroshima

Devon will be presenting at the ETJ (English Teacher’s Japan) Expo and Book fair in Hiroshima tomorrow.

There are a ton of useful workshops and presentations for English teachers from kindergarten to adults. Devon will be talking about choosing, adapting, and introducing songs for your classes. The workshop starts from 9:30 am. So, come along if you can….and be prepared to sing and dance!

Super Simple Learning will be around all day in the bookfair area so if you miss the presentation, Devon will be there to answer any questions you might have.  Hope you can make it!

-Troy

little stars

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,—
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Betcha didn’t know all the words to that song did you?  Neither did I!

Today the Super Simple Songs ABC Song Video hit 2,000,000 views on YouTube!  The ABC song’s melody is, of course, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.  And, according to Wikipedia, that song was originally an English nursery rhyme called, “The Star”, published in 1806 and sung to the tune of a French melody, “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman” which dates back to 1761!

Many people think Mozart wrote the melody but, in fact, it was a set of variations on the already existent melody.  It’s definitely a melody that’s stood the test of time and ranks right up there with Frere Jacques for melodies that can be (and have been) used for just about anything.

Talking about stars got me thinking about a song I fell in love with last year.  It’s from a beautiful collection of music from Kids Factory France.  It has nothing to do with the ABC song or magical magnetic letters, and its actually called, “I See the Sun”.  But, there *are* stars in there, and its an absolutely magical song.  Be sure to check out their MySpace page.

-Troy

(This video can’t be embedded, so click on the image below to go to the YouTube Page)

The Pinocchio

The Pinocchio is one of our favorite songs to do with kids of all ages.  Simple.  Fun.  Reviews vocabulary for parts of the body.  And one of the best things about it?  When the song is finished, children have gotten all their wiggles out and are ready to sit down and focus on another activity.

Here’s a video from Eric and his students at E English House in Shiga, Japan doing The Pinocchio.  Thanks for sharing!