On top of that, I kept telling myself at the end of the school year that I was going to be so motivated over the summer to produce more materials for my store now that I have more time on my hands but to be honest I have been thoroughly enjoying my extra time at home with my husband and my son Teddy.
My blog post today is based off of inspiration from my son. Teddy is the happiest little 1-year old I have ever met. He loves laughing and playing and just loves being around other people. Even though he is very happy we have our days. Ya know those days where you just want to plop your child in front of the TV to watch a show because that's the ONLY thing that will make them happy? Well, Teddy doesn't like TV. We've tried Baby Einstein, Elmo, pretty much anything and everything. He just isn't interested which I guess is a good thing because he's more focused on playing and having fun. But this summer we have found something he LOVES! Super Simple Songs YouTube videos!
Awhile ago, pre-Teddy, my sister-in-law told me about Super Simple Songs because her kids loved them and I actually use their BINGO video (Below) with my kindergartners. They love learning the song BINGO and the animation and different activities for each letter make it fun and engaging for them.
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One of Teddy's FAVORITES is "Walking in the Jungle". It's super cute and I'm excited about how I can use it in my music class.
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"Walkin 'round the classroom, walkin 'round the classroom, we're listening, we're listening. 1 step, 2 step, 3 step forward, 1 step, 2 step, 3 step back. stop! listen!"
As a class we will do the walking, stomping, skipping, etc. around the classroom and sing the song together. When we "stop! listen!" One child will be chosen to to go to the designated instrument spot in the classroom and they will play an instrument and the class has to guess which instrument is being played. This activity helps with aural recognition of the instruments but also has students working on the proper playing technique if they are chosen to play. I would definitely do this activity with Kindergarten and maybe as a beginning of the year review activity for 1st grade.
I encourage you to check out some of their songs and videos if you haven't already. They are so cute! They also have some great songs that can be used/adapted for a circle song and for hello/goodbye songs.