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

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.

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!

Echo Snowman Bobo

Teach the chant with hand motions. Say the fingerplay using voices that go up/down, fast/slow, quiet/loud.

Choose an unpitched instrument and create an accompaniment for the chant. For example, play a drum on the words “roll, roll, and up, up, up.” Try out different instruments for “roll” and “up, up, up,” and have the students choose the instrument they like
the best.

Perky Penguin liked to go to school. He liked to play with all his friends. He asked his teacher if he could go play. His teacher said, “When you have finished printing all your letters, you can go and play pingpong.” Perky got busy and printed all his letters: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P. He always stopped on the letter P because it was his favorite letter. Then he went outside to play ping-pong, and he had a lot of fun playing with his friends.

On Tuesday, the teacher said, “Today you can play the piano at recess.” Perky was very excited because he liked to play piano. Perky practiced printing all his letters: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P. Then he got to go and play the piano. He played pretty well for a penguin! On Wednesday, the teacher said, “Today you can play pop-up at recess.” Pop-up is a game like hide and seek. When the person who is “it” finds you, you pop up and say, “Boo!” Perky and his friends liked playing the pop-up game.

On Friday, the teacher said, “Today you can play any game that you like. You can play ping-pong, piano, popup or pool.” Perky practiced printing all his letters: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P. Perky and his friends played ping-pong, piano, pop-up and pool. After playing all the games, all the friends decided that their favorite letter was P because all their favorite games started with the letter P.

Sing the Letter P song

Create movements for the song.

Or watch the video that follows for movement ideas.

Copy the movements in the video or create your own! The song starts at 1:22.

Print the worksheet and complete.
-or-
On a plain piece of paper, practice printing the letter P and draw two things that start with P.

Teach the song by rote. Sing and move to the music. Invite the students to think of other ways that the penguins could move. Sing and move to the new verses.

Teach the song by rote. Sing and do the actions to the song.

Print a set of 5 penguins to use as manipulatives while you sing the song (manipulatives are available in the song's printables section). The first time you use them, the teacher should model. Each verse, you’ll take one penguin away and count the ones that are left. You can make class sets of penguins for the students to use. Cut them out and package five penguins in a ziplock bag. Glue the penguins onto different colors of cardstock. When you give out the ziplock bags, give each child a set with a different color background. This will help to keep the ziplock bags organized. The students enjoy singing and counting their own penguins as they sing.

This is a wonderful storybook to create accompaniments for.

Suggestions:
1. When the penguins march, sing: 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1
to this melody: do-so,-la,-ti, do-so,-la,-ti, do-so,-la,-ti, do
2. Sing the pretty penguins melody to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle."
3. Sing Tacky's melody to a modified version of "Silly Sailor"
4. Sing the Hunters song to a modified version of "Goin' to Kentucky"
On the word, "Spash" make a big splash sound with voices or instruments.
On the "thump, thump,thump" play the thumps on a drum (or other)