Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

Here’s a wonderful action chant we like to do with our children when they need to burn off a little energy. It’s called “Hi, my name is Joe“. It’s great for getting the children up and moving. It’s loads of fun and a good gross motor exercise!

We chant it like this -

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

“Well push this button with your hand!”

Using one hand (to push an imaginary button up and down or in and out) the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your other hand!”

Using two hands the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your foot!”

Using two hands and one foot the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your other foot!”

Using two hands and two feet the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your head!”

Using two hands, two feet and your head the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your tongue!’

Using two hands, two feet, your head and your tongue the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said (with hands on hips and stamping one foot hard to the ground … “YES!“

All children love playing intruments and we have a couple of great tracks we boogie and make good music to.

One is “Feeling Free” from the CD  ”Splash”.

The children form a conga line clutching their instruments of choice and follow the leader all through the kinder doing a Carribean style dance.

One aim is for the whole group to get back onto the mat in time for the finish. It just doesn’t feel right if half the group is still trailing around the room!

The other one we love is  “The Biggest Band” from the CD “Bop in the Bath”.

The different instruments have their go …

maracas (egg shakers) …

bells …

claves (rhythm sticks)…

and tambourines.

We play fast and slow, up high and down low all the time trying hard to keep to the beat.

and then we all join in together for the grand finale.

We love to tell stories to the children as well as read to them. There is so much more engagement from them when you can look them in the eye the whole time the story is unfolding.

We have a peg puzzle which is the story of the giant turnip (although we do admit the turnip does looks like a carrot!) and it is a really fun story to do as a group, particularly as it is so action packed.

It is so good pretending to pull up that turnip altogether as a team.

Slowly each character gets involved in pulling up the giant turnip, quite unsuccessfully until the end as you’ll remember.

The children love that the animals get roped in to help.

The last pull takes a huge effort and fortunately is successful!

Next time we told the story we got the children to be the characters …

while another child took on the roll of the narrator. They always love to be involved in the acting and telling of familiar stories.

We drew up some pictures of each character which the children can wear around their necks …

and as each character struggles to pull up the turnip  …

the childen invite the next character up to help out.

Another great way the children can tell the story themselves is with our lovely puppet theatre.

We have some more ‘giant turnip’ characters which we laminated and attached to pop sticks giving the children another opportunity to act out the story….

It was lovely to see the story being acted out from both sides of the curtain!

We believe you can never have too many opportunities to tell a good story!