Listen and Learn Activities

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Robyn Collins sent these photos of the activities she created after attending Camp Kindergarten.  Like many other creative teachers, she used Dr. Jean’s ideas and just tweaked them a little to accomodate her class.
 
Robin created a "station" in her classroom called Listen & Learn.  In the station she put songs and activities to go along with the songs.  All of the songs and activities are introduced at circle time and done together (whole group).

Then, the song that accompanies the activity, a Walkman and the hands-on activity are placed in the center. The children listen to the song and do the activity independently.  That way all of the cool songs and activities can be enjoyed over and over by the children.  

The songs are taped on cassettes purchased online. Robyn choose cassettes that are only 10 minutes on each side (because 4 and 5 year olds forget to rewind and/or stop, and her batteries don't like that!).  Cassettes can be purchased with any length 4,5,6...minutes per side.  Googling for “bulk audio cassettes 10 minutes” will locate several sources for cassettes.

The photos show what she came up with for “I Knew an Old Lady Who Swallowed a 1”, “I Knew an Old Man Who Swallowed Some Letters”, the “Happy Birthday Letters” song (which was the BIGGEST hit with her daughter- they play it in the car every day - even Robyn’s 3 year old sings it) and the “Letter Box “song.  

The Old Man and the Old Lady were made out of little garbage cans found at the dollar store. Their mouths are the swivel lids, so they do actually "eat" the letters and numbers.  Their clothes are made of fun foam or hard felt.  The happy birthday boxes were bought at Michael's, very durable and super inexpensive.  The candle was made of 2 big wooden spools that were painted and topped with laminated tissue paper that was hot glued.  The letters and numbers that are "swallowed" are made out of fun foam, too.  She chose these materials because she wants these to last for a long time, and they are (thankfully) getting a lot of use!  She also made something for the children to lay the letters out in abc order before playing the song, so they would be easy to find as the song played.  The numbers are layed on a number line so they, too, are easy to locate. The children point to the numbers as the song sings "she swallowed the 4 right after the 3...".  

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