Sing hellos in different ways. Pat the beat or play on a tambourine.

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.

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’s giving them the opportunity to experience all of those musical concepts

A Chubby little snowman, (make a big circle with your arms)
Had a carrot for a nose. (show a carrot where your nose is)
Along came a bunny, (make bunny ears (peace sign) with fingers and hop 4 times)
And what do you suppose? (gesture “why” with palms up)
That hungry little bunny, (rub your tummy)
Looking for his lunch, (look out)
Ate the snowman’s carrot nose, (mime eating)
Nibble, nibble, crunch! (grab with fists two times with small motions, and one big motion)

Invite the children to do the movements with you while you sing the song. Sing it again, and invite the children to sing the echo parts. Finally, teach them the last phrase and tell them to sing it each time it occurs.

Do the actions for "I Made a Snowman".

Optional: Create a word rhythm pattern with the words "snowman" and "hat"
Choose body percussion or instruments to play the sounds.
This prepares your students to learn when there are one or two sounds on a beat.

Do this as a teacher led activity, and then leave this activity as a center for the class.

Give the children scarves and have them move to the music with the scarves. I have my students stand in one place for the sung section of the song, then use locomotor movement to the instrumental part. The best size scarves for preschoolers are 24” squares, but you can use any size that you have.

Move with hands/scarves to "Snowflakes are Falling".

Ellie Elephant lived in an elephant sanctuary in Kenya. Elephants eat as much as 600 pounds of food each day. The large elephants would eat the grass, leaves and twigs. Most of the elephants were bigger than Ellie was, and they would eat up most of the grass and twigs before she could. Ellie was always hungry. Whenever Ellie saw some grass that had been left by the bigger elephants, she’d eat it up. When Ellie didn’t get enough to eat, she’d wander near the neighboring farms and eat the farmer’s hay, cabbage, or vegetables.

The farmers were afraid she would eat all of their crops and they wouldn’t have food for their families. They took Ellie back to the sanctuary and asked the elephant helpers to please give the small elephant her food first so she’d have enough to eat. After that, the workers at the sanctuary gave the small elephants their food first so they didn’t have to eat the farmer’s crops. Ellie Elephant was happy to have lots of food to eat.

Sing Short Letter E.

Sing and move to "Ellie Elephant".

Sing and move to "Ellie Elephant".

Complete the Letter E worksheet, or practice printing e and E on plain paper.

Sing (or play) the song for your students and invite them to do the actions with you as you sing. (or show them the kids demo video) Then, invite the children to sing all the echoes in the song and do the actions. The repetitive verses in this song make it easy for the children learn, and they LOVE this song!

Sing and move to "Elephants Have Wrinkles".

Watch "Elephant" from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens.

Move to "Elephant" from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens

Read the story "Elmer the Elephant".