Use a School Readiness Activity to provide early language thinking experiences for preschool children that will prepare them to do well in the early grades.
Grades:
Subjects:
Itsy Bitsy Spider: Listening and Repeating
Purpose/Skills
- To listen to the words of a song and repeat them
- To match movements with words
- To build vocabulary
Materials
Picture cards that show a spider, sun, and rain
| spider | listen |
| sing | move |
| waterspout | up |
| down | out |
Literature Suggestion
Read any book that includes a spider.
Warm-Up
- Get children ready to use their fingers and arms.
- Show them how to make their moving fingers look like spider legs.
- Have them move their hands and fingers down like rain falling. Tell them to lift their arms high into the air like the sun.
Procedure
- Ask children to watch and listen carefully. Sing the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" song, using hand motions to act out the spider, rain, and sun.
- On the second round, invite children to join in. Give extra guidance to children who are having difficulty with the words or the hand motions.
- Repeat the song at least once more, with everyone joining in. Invite children to have fun using broad, dramatic movements.
- Help English Language Learners understand the vocabulary by showing or drawing pictures of a spider, a waterspout, rain, and the sun.
Teach children the song and motions to "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around" or "I'm a Little Teapot." Do the finger plays often, until children know them by heart.
Observation Assessment
- Proficient - Child can sit calmly to listen to and watch the teacher, and can repeat the song and motions.
- In Process - Child has difficulty paying attention to the song and actions, but does so enough to attempt to sing and do the hand motions.
- Not Yet Ready - Child is inattentive and does not yet sing or follow the motions.
