The beat chants are a great way to welcome your students to music class or music time. Some music teachers teach more than a thousand students each week and it can be very difficult to remember the names. Starting your class with a name chant establishes a routine, introduces the term “beat” and will help the teacher remember all of the names.

Say the preschool chant, patting a steady beat as you speak. Say hello to four students, then say the chant again. Say hello to them using high and low voices, quiet and loud voices, fast and slow. Also use speaking, whispering, shouting or calling and singing voices. When singing hello use a variety of solfa patterns: so-mi
so-so-mi, so-la-so-mi-do or mi-re-do-do-do. In the chants where children say their own names, encourage them to use different voices.

Teaching procedures at the beginning of the year is important for all students, but especially for PreK! If this is your first class with students, discuss them all.

Practice distinguishing between speaking and singing voices by introducing a toy elephant named Melody. Melody the elephant will do what the children tell her, if they tell her in a “singing voice.” If they speak, she does nothing. Tell Melody to “jump up and down” using a speaking voice. Melody won’t move. Then sing to Melody to “jump up and down” and make your elephant jump. Invite the children to
sing to Melody what to do. This activity helps the students to learn the difference between singing and speaking voices. It’s also great to encourage solo singing. You can soon tell who is matching pitch and who you need to work with when they sing to Melody.

Melody became a requested part of every music class. If I forgot to bring Melody out, they asked for her. They all wanted to give Melody hugs after class, so we developed a routine where if they were sitting nicely in their places, Melody would come and give them a hug.

Warmup your voice by doing an animal warmup.

Think about which sounds are high and which sounds are low.

This is a favorite fingerplay. I’ve changed the words from “The first fishie said” to “The low fishie said” to teach high-middle-low sounds. Extend by creating high-middle-low sounds for the children to echo.

Learn the "Three Little Fishies" fingerplay.

Copy the actions that the teacher does.

An easy to make mini book is given in supporting resources.
You could make a class set and send them home with your students.
Or - keep the mini-books in your sub-tub to use as a sub activity - there are lots of pages to color!

Listen to the Alligator Alarm story.

Sing "Short Letter A".

Sing "Alligator Alarm".

Sing “Alligator Alarm!” and copy the movements.

Practice printing the letter A.

You can download the worksheet and complete it.

There are two lines of printing practice.

There are two boxes. In these boxes, draw something that starts with the letter A.
-or-
Save ink and practice printing the letter A and draw some things that start with A.

Listen to the song "Monkeys".

This song was written by April and Susan and celebrates one of our favorite animals that live in jungles and in zoos!

Can you make up movements to the song?

Sing the song, "Monkeys" and do the movements that you see the kids in the video doing.

Shake and jump and twist to the song "Shake it Together".

Listen and do the movements that the words suggest.

Shake and jump and twist to the song, "Shake it Together".

Now watch the kids in the video.

Sing and move with them.