New Counting Song and Flashcards

January 5, 2009 at 5:37 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs, Teaching Tips: Games | Leave a comment
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onefish-icon So it’s a new year, and isn’t it nice to teach some new things? I actually wrote the One Fish Song at the end of last year, and have been using it lately in my classes. It teaches the counting of objects, in this case fish and cats.  I chose fish because the plural of fish is fish so it is an easy introduction. Next in the song we count cats. Cats has an s in the plural form so this is also a nice intro.

Free Flashcards too

If you have checked out the Dream English site lately, you have probably noticed that I am adding flashcards (as well as worksheets and coloring) so with this song you can download for free flashcards, a worksheet, coloring, and a game. So you can teach the vocab with the flashcards, sing the song, and then do some coloring or play a game. Sounds like a  lesson plan to me.

Connecting Songs

Now that there are more and more free songs and flashcards available from Dream English, you can begin to connect the songs. For example, today in a class with 1-3 year olds we did the One Fish Counting Song lesson, and the It’s a Dog Song lesson. These two songs go really well together since they both include animals. By the end of the lesson, the words were becoming very familiar to the kids. And how did we finish off the lesson? A book about dogs of course!

Jingle Bells

December 1, 2008 at 5:06 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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santa1 Over on the Dream English site with the free Dream English Jingle Bells download there a bunch of teaching ideas for the song. This year I added a new downloadable and printable lyric sheet of the song. This should make it easier if you are teaching the song, and for older students you can make copies and practice reading the lyrics together! Check out the song here.

Learning from each other

Jingle Bells was the second free download I added to the site last year, and it was a big success. Teachers from all over the world emailed me, and told me their great ideas for teaching the song, and one teacher even sent me a video. After watching this video, I started using her idea of having the kids say the action twice after I sing it in the song like this, Me ” I can jump”  students ” jump, jump!” You can watch this in the video below, I think it is a great idea for small kids. It is this type of sharing ideas that led me to the current version of  Dream English, and although I give away a lot of free materials and songs, I have learned so much in return it has been more than worth the effort. To that end, I just added a Forums to the Dream English website, so please give it a visit, and share some of your knowledge with us.

And without further ado: Dream English Jingle Bells performed by students in Thailand. Thank you Shari for sharing this.

Santa Clipart provided by Webweaver.

Teaching 2 to 3 Year Olds English

October 5, 2008 at 12:33 pm | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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There is not a lot of great information out there, that I have found at least, on teaching this age group. I have been teaching 2-3 year olds for over 2 years now in many different situations: Mommy and Me classes, group classes with up to 10 kids, and smaller classes as well.

New Tips Page

I have just added a new page to the Dream English website on teaching 2-3 year olds. I just started this page, and will be adding a lot in the coming months, if you have any comments or ideas, please let me know. It is a page with song ideas, coloring suggestions, and more. To go to the Dream English teaching 2-3 year olds page, click here.

Have fun with the little ones!

Dance, dance, dance!

October 3, 2008 at 7:24 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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It’s no secret if you’ve seen any of my videos, or been in any of my classes: I love to dance! As a musician I think dancing is really important. Whenever I write or record a song, I make sure it is danceable. Last night I was fortunate to go see one of my favorite bands play live. It was amazing, and I danced for 2 hours straight!

Dancing to Dream English

In all my lessons, when I use songs, we dance. Sometimes it is a simple clap your hands dance, shake our bodies, or a dance that goes with the song. Here are a few of my favorite Dream English songs to dance to. Since they are al free downloads, check them out and see for yourself.  What are your favorites?

1. Wake Up (daily activities song)

2. The Hokey Pokey

3.  Let’s Count 1 to 10!

4. The Goodbye Song

6.  I Like English Warm up

So I hope you and your students will enjoy dancing and singing to these songs as much as we do!

New Halloween Song for Young Kids

September 18, 2008 at 12:53 pm | Posted in Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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I decided I needed a new Halloween song for my 2-4 year old students, so I wrote a simple little song called, “Walk Like a Ghost.” I put the free download up on the Halloween page,

How to Teach

It’s very simple the lyrics go like this:

walk, walk, like a ghost (x3) on Halloween
fly, fly, like a witch (x3) on Halloween
hop, hop, like a black cat (x3) on Halloween
smile,smile, like a pumpkin (x3)on Halloween!

I just introduced the kids to the Halloween characters with some flashcards, then I taught them the actions. Today I taught in a big room, so we walked around in a big circle and sang the song. It was a blast. I even had one 4 year old singing along by the end of the song. It’s also not scary at all, so I think its good for small children. So check it out, and Happy Halloween singing!

How to teach the Hokey Pokey

June 29, 2008 at 10:55 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs | 2 Comments
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As promised, here is another video for you. It is the Hokey Pokey from the same concert as the Let’s Count 1 to 10 video. This video does not contain the whole song, but I think you will get the idea of how I teach the song to the kids. This song is a definite crowd pleaser. Download the Dream English Hokey Pokey for free here.

Let’s Count 1 to 10! Video

June 28, 2008 at 4:44 pm | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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I did a kids concert today at a local preschool. It was a blast, the kids had never heard my songs before, but they were fantastic. We got some good video of the concert. Here is a video of my Let’s Count 1 to 10 song. You can watch the video here, then go download the song for free at the Dream English website here and use it in your classes! pretty cool huh?

More videos coming soon!

The Hokey Pokey and Student Choice

June 2, 2008 at 7:31 am | Posted in Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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When I was a kid I loved the Hokey Pokey, it was one of my favorite songs to dance to. When I started teaching English to children I was using an old version of the song that was a bit hard for the younger students, so I decided to make my own. My version is very simple, and I have been using it in classes with students from 1-8 years old.

Student Choice

When I have the opportunity, I like to ask my students what they want to do. For example, if we are going to sing a song, I ask them which song they would like to sing. Today as I was getting ready to sing the Goodbye Song a bunch of students started saying, “Hokey Pokey!” We had been singing the song in class the previous weeks, but not this week. So, I let them choose the Goodbye song for the day, the Hokey Pokey. I think allowing students to make decisions, when possible, allows for a better teacher/student relationship. Often they have better ideas than me!

The Hokey Pokey is a free download from Dream English Kids Songs Volume 2.

Dream English Kids Songs 2!

May 30, 2008 at 6:10 am | Posted in Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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I am very excited to tell you that Dream English Kids Songs 2 is now available exclusively as a download! I put a lot of work into this album, and I hope you will enjoy listening and teaching with it!
I decided to do something different with this album, and 9 of 11 tracks are available as free downloads:
http://www.dreamenglish.com/freedownload

Also, for a limited time you can buy the album as a download with all 11 songs, and lyrics for US $5. The purchased album does not have the web add heard on the free downloads. For information on buying the download album and a full track listing please check out:

http://www.dreamenglish.com/kids2

So there it is, enjoy it, share it with your friends and family. I hope you have as much fun listening to it and singing it as I did writing and recording it! Happy Singing!

It’s a dog, “woof, woof!” Teaching about Animals

May 19, 2008 at 11:53 pm | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching ESL Songs | Leave a comment
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I do a monthly children’s English radio segment on Love FM here in Japan where I am living. Each month we take a simple theme, and teach some phrases to go along. I also always end the segment by singing one of my Kids Songs

It’s a Dog

We had a lot of fun this month with animal sounds. Animal sounds that kids make when imitating animals are different in Japan than the USA, so it was really fun to compare them. For example, in the USA for dogs we say, “woof” or “bark”. In Japan its “wan, wan” very different!

The phrase we taught this month is, “It’s a dog” and “It’s a cat” simple but useful. I often go on walks with my kids and say, “Look! It’s a dog!” This is very useful English.

The Song

On Dream English Kids Songs Volume 1 there is a song called “It’s a Dog”. Whenever I teach this song, I always say the animal sounds while I am teaching it. The students really enjoy saying the animal sounds, and the name of the animal. To learn more about this song on the Dream English website, click here.

So have fun with animal sounds! Your students will have a lot of fun, and you will too!

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