Caitie is sharing tips for using the preschool song “Five Little Elves” in the classroom and at home for lots of fun learning with little ones. She has lots of great ideas! And she’ll lead us through the song using gestures – an excellent way to introduce a song to children. “Five Little Elves” is a fun Christmas song based on the classic children’s song Five Little Ducks – it’s great for practicing counting down from five.
Try these ideas in the classroom or at home!
- This is a great song for some festive counting down from five. Encourage your little ones to follow along with their fingers and they’ll be practicing their fine motor skills, too!
- Make some drawings of elves with your students – each student can make their own. Once they’re done, draw a big sleigh on the board at the front of the class and have everyone bring their elves to the front to place in the sleigh. Count all the elves together. Then have your students close their eyes and say “ho ho ho ho” while you remove one or a few of the elves from the sleigh and place them outside of the sleigh somewhere else on the board “in the snow.” Then have them open their eyes and count the elves again. You can count the elves in the sleigh, and the elves that have fallen in the snow. Keep going for lots of fun counting practice.
- You can also act out this song with your students! Pick five students to be elves, and one student to be Santa. If you’d like to include more students, you can have more than five elves and start counting down from a higher number for a bigger counting challenge.
- This is also a great song to sing and act out at a Christmas performance for parents. Students can dress up and act out the song as they sing. It’s a super festive and cheery song, perfect for the season, and it ends with Santa wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!
- Try making our Five Little Elves Crafty Play Set to go along with the song and use the crafty pieces to act out the song as it plays or make up your own adventure!
More resources for this song (1)
