Our friend Caroline of Paper Cat English recently shared this origami craft to go with the “Who Took The Cookie?” song. Try making these paper cookies with your students or kids. When they are finished, have a picnic, sing the song, and find out who took the cookie!
12 Days of Animals DVD Giveaway
Update: The contest is now closed. We had a great time meeting friends from around the world! Thank you for participating. To celebrate the release of the Super Simple Songs – Animals DVD on March 17th, we’re giving away one copy of the new DVD every day for 12 days! To enter, look for the… Read more »
One, two, three, four, six. Making mistakes in the classroom.
I’ve had the opportunity to observe some great teachers of young learners over the years, and one little device that all of them used to some degree is feigning ignorance. It might be holding a potato and saying, “Mmm…I love apples.” Or in a delightfully silly way, forgetting the names of all the students. Or… Read more »
Teaching Older Learners With Songs
Our youngest learners will sing and dance all day long, all the while picking up vocabulary, grammar, and the rhythm of English naturally and easily. When they go home, the songs that they sang and played with in class will still be bouncing around in their heads. Songs are uniquely effective learning tools in that… Read more »
“Let’s Go Fishing” Game
These colorful fish come in upper and lowercase letters and numbers. Kids love to role play and use their imagination. Here’s a fun and easy way to learn or review letters, numbers, and colors by going fishing! Not only can kids practice motor skills by guiding the fishing line to the mouth of the fish… Read more »
Apps: Miracle or Mirage?
To mark the launch of the Potato Pals 1 app, author and guest blogger Patrick Jackson asks some important questions about app time. My son Kai is 10 and hooked on his iPad. We should really call it a KaiPad. He’d use it pretty much all day long if we let him, (although he tells… Read more »
Simple in Seattle
We’ve moved! To the beautiful city of Seattle, Washington. Actually, we began this move a little over a year ago, but it’s taken us a while to get settled in. If you’re not familiar with our story, around 2005, we (Devon, Troy, and Tanja) started making simple songs for teaching basic language skills to young… Read more »
Super Simple Songs In Burma
Our friend and colleague, Sara Wall, recently went to Myanmar (Burma) to volunteer for two weeks at an education monastery in the northern Shan State. We were excited to hear that she took Super Simple Songs along and wanted to know more about her experiences. Tell us about the project. There were 17 volunteers, including… Read more »
Puppets as communication aids
Puppets are great helpers. We know that children connect with puppets in a variety of ways. Children listen to what the puppets say. Children really hate to disappoint puppets, and children are remarkably willing to change their behavior to keep the puppets happy. They also have conversations with puppets that they won’t have with anyone… Read more »
Weekend Reading: Music and the Brain
We’re fascinated with music. We’re fascinated with how it makes us feel, how it helps us learn, and how it relaxes our minds. We’re not the only ones. These articles and programs on music on the mind stirred our imaginations this week. We hope you’ll check them out and take a moment to think about… Read more »
