Sweet Little Bunny With a Fly Upon Its Nose

When I was in the Netherlands I picked up a few Dutch kids songs. One was the lief klein konijntje: Children would use hand motions (wohoo TPR) and have a lot of fun (plus it is one of the songs I still remember!)

When I was thrown into a preschool class with no chance to prep I very quickly and super roughly translated this song into English and sang it for the students.

Sweet little bunny with a fly upon its nose

Sweet little bunny with a fly upon its nose

Sweet little bunny with a fly upon its nose

And it flew from here to there

OOOOOH sweet little bunny

OOOOOOOOH sweet little bunny

OOOOOOOOOOH sweet little bunny with a fly upon its nose

That was fun, but it didn't last very long. So on a whim I had the students change the words in a mad libs like activity. So the students changed the animals, body part and adjectives.

For example: 

Happy, tall giraffe with an elephant on its elbow

Happy, tall giraffe with an elephant on its elbow

Happy, tall giraffe with an elephant on its elbow

And it flew from here to there

OOOOOH happy tall giraffe

OOOOOOOOH happy tall giraffe

OOOOOOOOOOH happy tall giraffe with an elephant on its elbow

It is perfectly OK if the song doesn't make any sense. The important part is that each word has a matching hand motions and the students have fun! You can make it more practical and change the verb (and it swam from here to there, and it walked from here to there, and it went from here to there) but I think part of the fun is students picture ridiculous animals flying. If you like at the end you can end with the students drawing a picture of their favorite combination.

I have used this is Spanish as well (Cornejito cariñoso con una mosca en la nariz...) when practicing body parts with little ones in the States.

For those of you who love the Dutch version so much you want it on your IPOD to treasure forever and ever I have found a few copies. You can pick from the one on your left or your right.

DIY Parts of Speech Poem

When I was in high school, college and even throughout my masters I met a LOT of students who didn't know the basic parts of speech.

When I was in elementary school I learned a poem which started, "Nouns are just the names of things like rice and birds and snow and rings" it went on to explain other parts of speech, "When something is done the adverb then tells how and why and where and when" etc.

I heavily altered the poem to focus on what I teach in one of my classes and review the basics.

I also wanted to make it  more dynamic and interactive than just a poem so I made it into a mad libs like assignment.

You can download it for free at TeachersPayTeachers or BusyTeachers there also is a sample of the poem once it is completed. If you haven't signed up for Teachers Pay Teachers yet click here to go straight to their sign up page (Remember it is free!).