This is a great way to get kids moving to the beat.

After doing the movement in this video, invite your K students to make up their own body percussion patterns to one of the holiday songs below.

Say the poem for the children and demonstrate the actions. Invite the children to say the poem and do the actions with you. Ask the students to tell you which words in the last line should be the loudest. (crunch!) Ask them if there are other words in the poem that should be said louder.

To keep your students engaged when doing a fingerplay four or five times, explore many ways to perform it. Say the poem in a quiet voice, then in a loud voice. Say the poem slowly and then say it quickly. Say it in a high voice and then in a low voice. Not only does this keep students engaged, it gives them the opportunity to experience all of those musical concepts.

This song is included to give you a song that is inclusive of all holidays and to give you opportunities to explore rhythm instruments. You can change the words “on this holiday” to “Happy Hanukkah” or “ Merry Christmas Day!” or whatever holiday is most appropriate to celebrate in your school.

If you have all of the instruments listed in the song, give out the instruments and have groups of children with a particular instrument accompany the song when their instrument is sung about. Make word cards of each of the instruments: bells, sticks, drums and instruments and place the word cards in order in a pocket chart. Include picture cues if it’s helpful for your students. Point to the word card to cue the correct group of students to play. Posters for all the unpitched instrument families are available in the supplement resources.

Add the spoken parts to the song. They aren’t recorded, so use your children’s voices on this part. Add the choreography suggested or create your own actions. Ask the students to tell you what this song might be used for. Have them identify that the purpose of this song is to celebrate Christmas. If the students are successful singing the song with actions, consider substituting non-pitched percussion instruments for the action words.

Sing and do the actions with "He'll Be Comin' Down the Chimney".

Create your own actions and substitute unpitched percussion instruments for the action words.

Create actions for the song. For the chorus, invite the students to create a dance. For the verses, do the action that the words suggest. Ask the students to tell you where the chorus is in this song. (The first two lines.)

Create word rhythms with holiday treats
Copy and cut out the treat cards. If you wish, you could copy one set for every 1-2 students, or you could create the word rhythms as a class.

Model First. Arrange the 8 cards in any order.
Invite the children to suggest ways to say/play the words.
ex. oranges - play on a scraper or jingle bells nuts - play on sticks
Invite the children to think of other ways to perform the rhythms - rearrange the cards, choose other instruments, try with movement or body percussion.

Use this chant as an A section. (or have the kids make up their own)
I like the holidays every year.
Bring us joy and bring us cheer!
Consider having the children create a so-mi melody for the chant, and accompanying it on Orff instruments.

Perform the word rhythms as a B section

Decide on a final form and perform it. Invite the children to think of other ways you could perform.

This action song is played in the same way as “Bingo.” The first time you sing each letter. The second time, leave out the letter “S” and clap instead. Each time, leave out one more letter. This is a good way to teach the children to spell “Santa.”

Sing our closing song, "Skinnamarink".