I Went Walking

Here's another tune to go along with a great book! This song is a free download!

The book is "I Went Walking" and its author is Sue Williams. It is illustrated by Julie Vivas. This book has been around for awhile (copyright 1989), but it is popular in Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms for its repetitive tag line, "I went walking. What did you see?" This phrase can easily be prerecorded onto a voice output device for nonverbal or speech delayed students. For higher functioning students, this makes a great call and response activity. One group of students can be assigned the "I went walking" and a second group of students can ask the question, "What did you see?"

Another activity is to have the students pat their knees/thighs to the beat as if they were really walking. For younger students, you could also have stuffed animals in a basket matching all the characters in this book (black cat, brown horse, red cow, green duck, pink pig, and yellow dog), and let individuals go find "what's next?" when you show the pictures. After the students know the book, you could assign instruments to "be" the animals. It's overall another great book for reinforcing the goal of answering "Wh" questions. What other great ideas do you have?

If you are interested in purchasing this book, you can click on the book below.

A Pattern Song

Here's a song I wrote to help students learn about patterns and to answer the question, "What comes next?" A lot of the students I work with have been able to improve their abilities to identify and complete patterns by using visual aids and this song.
You can pattern anything! Whatever motivates the student: pictures of random, everyday objects, instruments pictures and/or sounds, favorite toys, pictures of objects they love, pictures of relatives (grandma, grandpa, dad, grandma, grandpa,dad,etc), and even pictures of cartoon characters they love to watch. What are your favorite patterns to use with kids?

© 2009 by Amanda Ellis

The Bear Came Over to My House

I recently wrote this song to go along with the very fun children's book,
The Bear Came Over to My House, written by Rick Walton and illustrated by James Warhola.
It's a great book to use with children who are working on answering Wh questions (What, Where, When, Why), because with each page turn the story asks, "And what do you think the bear ___?" After reading/singing the book a time or two, it's a good time to turn the page and ask the child, "What did the bear see?" This book/song also lends itself to a great sequencing activity where you put the book "in order" of the things the bear saw and did. Pictures of the objects mentioned in this book can easily be found on google images. This book is also an excellent one to reinforce verb tenses with student (see/saw, bring/brought, think/thought,etc.)
Another idea is to use a voice output device and pre-program the verse, "The bear came over to my house" and help another student participate in the book/song this way.
I highly recommend buying this book for preK-elementary aged kids. Click on the link below to find out more info on purchasing this book! :)

Here we go round the seasons

2. Yahoo! MP3 Player

Here's a fun song that can be used throughout the year to review the four seasons. I found the lyrics for this song from www.CanTeach.com and wrote my own tune to the words. This would be a great song to make a flip book or laminated book for each season and the descriptions mentioned for them. One could also attach laminated season pictures to a spinner (adapted with switch) and sing the chorus while the seasons are "spinning". Sing whichever verse the spinner stops on.
How else could you use this song?

Chorus:
Here we go, here we go around again
The year again, the year again
Here we go, here we go around again
to greet the different seasons.

Wintertime is time for snow,
to the south some birds will go
It's too cold for plants to grow
Because it is the winter
(Chorus)

In the springtime days grow warm
On the plants the new buds form
Bees and bugs come out to swarm
Because it is the spring.
(Chorus)

In summertime the days are hot
Ice cold drinks I drink a lot
At the beach I've got a spot
Because it is the summer
(Chorus)

Fall is here, the air is cool
Days are short it's back to school
Raking leaves is now the rule
Because it is autumn
(Chorus)

$$$ Song

2. Yahoo! MP3 Player
I created a song from a spoken poem/rap that I have heard in many classrooms. I don't actually know the author. I put my own jazzy spin on it.
You can listen to the song by clicking on the player above.

Penny, Penny, Easily Spent
Copper Brown and worth 1 cent

Nickel, nickel, thick and fat
You're worth 5 cents I know that

Dime, dime, little and thin
I remember you're worth 10 cents

Quarter, quarter, big and bold
You're worth 25 cents I'm told.

Dollar, Dollar, green and long
You're worth 100 cents, you can't go wrong!

2. Yahoo! MP3 Player

A Song for You!

May 18, 2009 Planets Go Round the Sun

I thought I'd go ahead and post a song for everyone to try. I wrote the chorus and came up with a tune more geared to older kids, but the rest of the lyrics were found on www.CanTeach.com and were written by Meish Goldish. You can listen to this song by clicking on the music player above this post. Feel free to send comments to morewithmusic@gmail.com

Chorus: With a round, round, go around, the planets go around the sun

With a round, round, go around, the planets go around the sun

Mercury is hot
And Mercury is small.
Mercury has no atmosphere.
It's just a rocky ball.

(Chorus)

Venus has thick clouds
That hide what is below
The air is foul, the ground is hot,
It rotates very slow.

(Chorus)

We love the Earth, our home,
Its oceans and its trees.
We eat its food, we breathe its air,
So no pollution, please.

(Chorus)

Mars is very red.
It's also dry and cold
Someday you might visit Mars
If you are really bold.

(Chorus)

Jupiter is big.
We've studies it a lot.
We found that it has 16 moons
And a big red spot.

(Chorus)

Saturn has great rings.
We wondered what they were.
Now we know they're icy rocks
Which we saw as a blur.

(Chorus)

Uranus and Neptune
We don't know much about
Uranus looks blue and green to us and Neptune has a frozen moon.

(Chorus)

Hello Everybody!

Hello Everybody!

I'm excited about creating a website and a blog as well. I hope to soon figure this all out and be able to post daily. Please be patient as this site is under construction.