Here are some songs that work well for Elementary students, with fun activities to complement each song:
Songs in alphabetical order:
- Dans la jungle
- Song poster (please note I changed “est mort” to “dort”)
- I sing “A droite, a gauche, en avant, en arrière, tournez, tournez, tournez, tournez” instead of “awimbawe”
- Copyright free images
- Stories that go well with the “jungle” theme: Le lion et la souris, Le gorille jaune (movie talk)
- J’aime Papa
- Images from the wonderful book “one family” to introduce students to diverse families: I ask them to find “a papa”, ‘a maman” “a grand pa” etc. in a way that respects all family structures
- Super cute 2 min video with lyrics (I also take screen shots of the family members in the video and I bring a dog, cat, and elephant plush toys. I hand them out to the kids, they have to raise them in the air when they hear the family member)
- Promenons-nous dans les bois
- I introduced the song by telling this story using the toolkit
- Song poster
- Game: choose one student to act as the wolf. Guaranteed fun!
- Tape, tape petites mains
- Song poster
- Copyright free visuals
- Super cute 5 min video we watch once students are demonstrating solid comprehension of the song. I ask them to identify the difference with our song (the butterfly).
Looking for songs for older students? Check this post out.
I love this YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8I-UIlXPNS4luC4iV7dRdQ?disable_polymer=true
I use it with my students even in high school, but it is really geared more elementary.
Merci Angela, je l’aime aussi!
[…] / children’s songs sung with gestures or with some type of movements => check this out Cecile Laine’s blog post on songs for elementary students! it’ s a list in […]
I love using songs for teaching, especially with my young students (pre-K – 2nd grade). But I often have trouble introducing a new song. Do you have any advice on how to teach it? I try to add gestures (especially for the non-readers). But I find I end up just repeating the song a lot, and it feels frustrating. This year, I’m trying to repeat songs more throughout the year, which does seem to help. But if you have any tips, I’d appreciate it! 🙂
Kate, because I have a comprehension-based classroom, I don’t teach song for my students to know them all by heart, I just teach them as a fun way to take a break and if eventually they end up nailing the song, that’s added bonus. So, with that in mind, I start by showing them the gestures for the song, and I am saying the words (not singing yet), then I show them the words on a poster (still not singing), then I sing and they do the gestures. I will try to record some of them and add in the post. After our story of the day, we”sing” a song together. Sometimes we don;t sing a song for weeks and it just comes back one day because the kids ask me or I feel like it. By now they know some of the songs by heart and some of the songs they are still gesturing and that is OK as long as they are having fun and receiving comprehensible input from me. If you feel frustrated, stop that song and do something else, come back to it another day 🙂
Hi Cecile! Thank you so much for your response! I have been meaning to reply – for months now 🙂 But finally as I sit down to start preparing my lessons for the next year, I am making the time to do so. The way you describe how you work with the songs sounds great. It’s kind of what I’ve been trying to do. Sometimes I can’t think of gestures to go with the songs, though 🙂 And I have one questions: when you say you show them the words on a poster, are you showing the entire song text? Or main words?
One thing that ended up working for me last winter was repeating the same song for a few weeks. The children felt more comfortable with it over time and really loved singing those songs. 🙂
Thank you again! You are such an inspiration!
Salut – Tu cherches tojours ce clip? https://www.bilibili.com/video/av18896494/
Oui! Merci beaucoup!