Caitie is sharing tips for using the preschool song “Open Shut Them #4” 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. “Open Shut Them #4” is filled with a whole new group of opposites for learning or reviewing including important vocabulary like on and off, empty and full, and high and low.
Try these ideas in the classroom or at home!
- This song is wonderful for exploring and reviewing opposites. If your students are familiar with the other Super Simple versions of Open Shut Them, they will be excited to sing about a whole new set of opposite pairs.
- Along with a new set of opposite pairs, we get new gestures, too! Encourage your students to try out the gestures. You can even do opposite charades! One student can act out the gesture of one of the opposite pairs, and everyone has to guess what the opposite is. Sometimes an important part of gestures is our facial expressions. Be sure to exaggerate your facial expressions to best express the meaning of the word.
- In this song, we sing about the opposite pair on and off, which can have different meanings. In the music video, we show the lights being turned on and off. But it can also mean being on and off of something, like a book being on a table, or off the table. You can discuss both meanings and create gestures for both.
- Use the vocabulary from the song for a fun group game. Assign each student a word from the song (you can use words from other versions of Open Shut Them too) making sure each word has a pair that is also assigned. Then have them walk around the room making the gesture to represent their word until they find their opposites pair to make a match.
- See if your students can find ways to demonstrate the opposite pairs from the song in real life around the classroom. For example, for on and off they might turn the lights on and off. For clean and dirty, they might show their hands and then wash them. For empty and full, they might show a glass full of water, and then drink it all for empty. Finding the opposite pairs in real life will help little ones better understand the vocabulary and retain the information.
More resources for this song (1)
