Super  Simple  Learning  Tips

In trying to make games fun and interesting for young learners, teachers and parents often add an element of competition when no competition is needed. You can play the same games without anyone ever being “out.” This is especially true for kindergarten and preschool students who enjoy playing the game regardless of whether anybody wins or loses.

For an example of a non-competitive version of a popular game (musical chairs) and more thoughts on playing games with young children, check out this article: Elimination Games With Young Learners.

Sometimes it is easier, and more fun, to encourage children to speak by intentionally making mistakes so that they can correct them. For example, if you are reviewing the names of different fruits with children, instead of holding up an apple and saying, “What’s this?” you can hold up an apple and say, “Ooh look, a banana. I love bananas!” The children will excitedly say, “Nooo!!! Apple!” or, “No, that’s an apple!” You can then say, “Oh, you’re right! It is an apple. Thank you. I like apples...do you like apples?”

You have started a conversation that the children are engaged in, rather than drilling them with boring questions. For more examples on how to elicit engaging reactions from young learners, check out this blog post on  making mistakes in the classroom.

Young learners with developing language skills may have difficulty understanding the meaning of new vocabulary and phrases. Try demonstrating conversations with a puppet first. This exposes young learners to new vocabulary and phrases in context, making it easier for them to understand. Plus, they’re excited to see the puppet!

For more ideas on using puppets with young learners, check out this blog post: Puppets As Communication Aids.

When reading to young learners, don’t be afraid to adapt the story so that your children can understand what is happening. You might have a great book with beautiful pictures and a wonderful story, but the text in the book is too difficult for your kids. It’s okay to change some words, skip some text, and adapt the story to suit the level of the children you are reading to. Use the illustrations to help you tell the story at a level that makes sense for your situation.

Do you have some students acting up in class? Not paying attention? Sleeping? Distracting other children? Always remember that there are many factors that can affect a child’s behavior, and many of them are out of your, and the child’s, control. He may not be getting enough sleep, may not have a proper diet, may be having stressful issues at home, or, he may just be having a bad day.

Being a teacher can be exhausting at times, but we always need to remind ourselves that there is a lot going on within the lives of each and every one of our students, and kids who are “acting up” need our guidance and understanding.

Sometimes students can feel a bit self-conscious when called upon to speak. Some young learners may not even understand that you want them to speak or answer a question. Using a pretend microphone can help. Have a toy microphone on hand, or just pretend to hold a microphone. Demonstrate by speaking into it as you ask a question, than hold it up to the child’s mouth for the answer.

Have a class that is hesitant to sing along? Sing a line yourself into a toy mic, then hold the mic towards the class encouraging them to sing along with you. You can also use them for circle-time activities and interview-style pair activities. Passing the mic back and forth helps young learners understand the collaborative, turn-taking nature of a conversation.

As teachers, we use our voices all day long, and singing class after class can take its toll on your vocal chords. Sore throats almost always seem to end up turning into colds, making things even worse. So, if you’re using music in your classes, lip sync when you can. Your voice will thank you for it! Take a break sometimes and let the music do the work for you. If you have a song playing on the CD player and a room full of students singing along, nobody will know you’re just mouthing the words.

Lip syncing also provides an opportunity for you to better hear your students and gauge their progress, making adjustments as needed.

It’s very easy to go home after a tough day in the classroom focusing on everything that went wrong, blaming yourself, and feeling like you are not a very good teacher. Most teachers experience those feelings at one point or another. While it’s important to take some time to reflect on what went wrong so that you can learn from the experience, it’s also important to remember everything that went right!

Keep a notebook of all the little things that go well in your classes (even when you have a “bad day”). It will help you focus on the positive and can become an invaluable tool when lesson planning for future classes.

When you have only one student, such as in a private lesson or a tutoring session, it can be challenging to add songs to your lesson. There is no group energy, and there is no one to hide behind! Singing face to face can feel awkward for both the teacher and the learner.

You can make singing less awkward by singing while you are working on an activity sheet, or coloring, or playing catch with a toy. In other words, do something where it’s not two people singing to each other, but two people singing side by side while doing something else. You can also try singing with puppets! It’s amazing how introducing puppets can help young learners feel free to communicate (and sing) without feeling embarrassed.

Songs are an incredibly powerful teaching tool, so be sure to use them even in one-on-one or small group situations.

Using play money is a great way to teach basic math skills, increase vocabulary, and roleplay real world activities in the classroom. To make a shopping activity even more fun, make your own play money, but use a picture of you (or the teachers at your school) for the image in the center of the bill. Kids will get a huge kick out of this!

You can make play money with software like Photoshop. Or, an even simpler way is to cut out your image, tape it to a piece of play money, and then photocopy as many bills as you need.

Use the money for role play activities other than shopping! Try a Wheels On The Bus activity where students get on the bus and a driver takes their payment. Or, make a pretend zoo with stuffed animals and a ticket window! Let’s Go To The Zoo is a great song to use for this activity!

On rainy days, children don’t have an opportunity to go outside and play as much, so when they come to class, they have a ton of energy stored up! You’ll notice on these days that children will often be restless and may have shorter attention spans than usual. Be prepared! Have a lot of active songs ready to give children a chance to move around and burn off some of that excess energy.

Here are a few of our favorite get-up-and-move songs: We All Fall Down, Head Shoulders Knees And Toes (Speeding Up), Count And Move, and Walking In The Jungle.

Doing gestures while singing songs helps children learn and remember the meaning of the lyrics. However, it’s not necessary to gesture every word in a song. When learning songs with very young learners, too many gestures can confuse and frustrate the students. When using more complex songs with older learners, there may be too much language in the song to gesture everything. Identify the key words in the lyrics and create gestures for them. Simple is often best!

Do you use Super Simple Songs in your classroom? If so, you can find gesture suggestions for all of the Super Simple Songs on our website.

Music is very powerful for setting a mood. There is a BIG difference between entering a quiet classroom, and entering a classroom that has some welcoming music playing. It’s important to set the tone of a lesson right from the start and one way to do this is to have music playing when students enter the classroom.

It’s also a great way to expose children to different genres of music. Try classical, jazz, latin, orchestral soundtracks, or even the didgeridoo! There’s an endless supply of music in the world that can help shape your classes. You might even discover some new favorites yourself!

As a teacher, there can be a lot of pressure to keep your students’ constant attention. We all know how difficult it can be to rein in a class that has lost their focus! You can minimize the chance of losing your students’ attention by always having a few favorite activities ready to go. If you find your class moving along quickly and need another activity or if an activity simply isn’t working and you need to try something different, “grabbing” an activity from your bag of tricks will ensure that your class flows smoothly.

As you gain experience as a teacher, you’ll learn to use these backup activities to perfect the timing of your classes. In the meantime, simply knowing that you have an extra activity or two to fall back on will help you gain confidence in your skills as a teacher.

Picture books make a great addition to your bag of tricks. Here's a list of our top 10!

Masks often seem like a good idea for a fun activity with young learners. However, very young children can be quite scared of masks. Not being able to see their teacher or caretaker’s face can be a traumatizing experience. Instead of masks, try making a headband where you attach the image to a construction paper band around the child’s head. Children can still have fun pretending to be their favorite animal or character...minus the tears!

Check out these free downloadable headband sets in the Super Simple Learning Resource Center:

Jungle Animal Headbands
Halloween Character Headbands

With smaller classes, passports are a great way to keep track of attendance and, if you use a reward method in your class such as stickers, it’s a great place to keep all of those reward stickers. Passports are also the perfect opportunity for one-on-one time with the teacher. Get to know your students by asking them about their likes/dislikes before stamping their passport. Or review topics that you’ve been teaching with some quick comprehension questions.

If you are using stamps for attendance, allow your students to choose the stamp they would like to receive that day. If possible, use stamp sets that work with your current class topic (i.e. animals, foods, shapes, etc.). If children have trouble deciding, use a choosing rhyme. Eeney Meeney Miney Moe is one of our favorites!

See this blogpost for more ideas on using passports in class and to download your own free printable passport! Caution: Not recommended for international travel! :-)

We love to find and identify colors that are all around us using our two favorite color songs, “I See Something Blue” and “I See Something Pink.” When you are making materials to use in the classroom, try making them in the eight basic colors found in these songs (blue, yellow, red, purple and pink, orange, brown, green). This way, after you finish your main activity, you can go right into singing one of these songs as a color review.

Try it with these Shapes BINGO games: Game 1, Game 2, Make You Own BINGO. First play BINGO and practice identifying shapes. Then, sing one of the color songs and have children point to the shapes in those colors.

When you have a new group of faces in front of you such as in the first class of the year, a substitute situation, or a demonstration lesson, it can sometimes be difficult to get the class’ attention. However, you probably don’t want the class’ first impression of you to be an angry, screaming teacher! Sometimes, silence can work magic!

Do a simple warm up without saying a word: stretch up, touch your nose, clap your hands, touch your toes, turn around, etc. It may take a moment for everyone to catch on to what is happening but within a few minutes, everyone will be following along quietly. Smile, make eye contact, be warm, and sometimes be silly. Your class will make an immediate connection with you and they’ll be ready to begin the lesson on a positive note!

There’s something very special about the ways that music affects us and helps us to learn. But combine music with some relevant gestures, and you’ve got something that not only helps students retain the language longer, but it’s a lot of fun!

Can’t think of a gesture to use with a word or phrase? Consider using the American Sign Language sign. Even if the sign is too difficult, it may help you think of a gesture that will work well with your song. A great resource for American Sign Language is Signing Savvy. Take a look! And even if you have all of your gestures covered, ASL is a beautiful language and worth learning.

Need more ideas on using gestures? Check out this blog post on Music and Movement - Using Gestures on our blog.

Are you looking for ways to become a better teacher? Watching other teachers in action can give you some new ideas and techniques for your own classroom. Most teachers will be flattered when you ask for permission to sit in on their class. Be sure to take notes on ideas that you want to incorporate.

If you don’t have access to other teachers who work with the same age group you do, try looking up videos on YouTube for classroom teaching ideas.

You can also invite a teacher into your classroom to observe you. If you want feedback on a particular topic, give them a list of things to watch for. Or set up a video camera and record yourself. This will give you a chance to see how you are doing and also see how students are responding. Some things you might watch for are how students respond to instructions, transitions between activities, and what kids are doing when you aren’t directly interacting with them.

Looking for an activity that needs no equipment, builds fine motor skills, you can do anywhere, and is super fun? Try fingerplay songs!

This kind of song often tells a story and can be acted out with your hands. Fingerplay songs are a great creative outlet. They help kids understand sequencing and storytelling. They also build dexterity and hand coordination (important skills for beginning writers!). Plus they are a great ready-to-go activity if you need to fill a few minutes of time.

Here's a list of our five favorite fingerplay songs. Have any others that you love? Share them with us in the comments of the blog post.