Learning Songs

I hear it

tune: „Los peces en el rio“, spanish Christmas song

My friend can you hear it? It´s just here!

My friend can you hear it? It´s so very near!

I hear it, I hear it, Ine ndikumva (Chichewa)!

My friend I can hear it, hear it with my ears!

Ten blue bottles

[Originally "ten green bottles", but we wanted to avoid trouble with the parents because of Carlsberg green, the popular beer in Malawi in green bottles... Also, water in Malawi´s stores is sold in blue plastic bottles - so we had only blue bottles to show when singing the song.]

Ten blue bottles hanging on the wall,
Ten blue bottles hanging on the wall,
And if one blue bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be nine blue bottles hanging on the wall!

(…)

One blue bottle hanging on the wall,
One blue bottle hanging on the wall,
And if one blue bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be no blue bottles hanging on the wall!

Do you know the continents?

Oh, do you know the continents?
The continents
The continents
Do you know the continents?
Name them if you can

North America, South America
Europe, Asia, Africa
Don’t forget Australia
Don’t forget Antarctica

Oh, do you know the continents?
The continents
The continents
Do you know the continents?
Name them if you can

Look who´s got the ball

Look who´s got the ball

(Choose a child)´s got it, she will roll it

Who will get the ball?

Drum-song

Listen, Listen Here I Come
Someone special gets the drum
(Hand the drum to a child)
“Kefas”, can you play along as we sing?
Repeat (Go through all the children)

My darling likes little green mangoes

tune: My darling is over the ocean

My darling likes little green mangoes,

My darling likes them really green,

My darling does not like ripe mangoes,

Oh he likes them really green, oh green!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he likes,

He likes!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he likes!

My darling loves little green mangoes,

My darling loves them really green,

My darling does not love ripe mangoes,

Oh he loves them really green, oh green!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he loves,

He loves!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he loves!

My darling eats little green mangoes,

My darling eats them really green,

My darling does not eat ripe mangoes,

Oh he eats them really green, oh green!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he eats,

He eats!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he eats!

Colour Songs

Ladiladida or The little green frog

1)      Mmm-mmh, went the little green frog one day
mmm-mmh, went the little green frog
mmm-mmh, went the little green frog one day
and they all went mmm-mmh-ah!

We all know frogs go – (start hopping like a frog on the ground) la-di-ladi-da
ladiladida, ladiladida,
we all know frogs go – la-di-ladi-da
they don´t go mmm-mmh-ah!

2)      Mmm-mmh, went the little pink flamingo one day
mmm-mmh, went the little pink flamingo
mmm-mmh, went the little pink flamingo one day
and they all went mmm-mmh-ah!

We all know flamingos go – (hop on one leg) la-di-ladi-da
ladiladida, ladiladida,
we all know flamingos go – la-di-ladi-da
they don´t go mmm-mmh-ah

3)      Bzz-bzz, went the little yellow bee one day (…)

4)      Miau-miau, went the little black cat one day (…)

5)      Graw-graw, went the big orange tiger one day (…)

6)      Peep-peep, went the little white Co-coa-bird one day (…)[these are the birds how appear  in huge numbers every sunset and sundown at the shores of Lake Malawi]

7)      Peep-peep, went the little red Timba-bird one day (…)

8)      Blubb-blubb, went the little blue fish one day (…)

9)      Hopp-hopp, went the little purple grasshopper one day (…)[grasshoppers have purple wings in Malawi]

10)  To-röö, went the big grey elephant one day (…)

For each animal, you can do one characteristic activity when singing "Ladiladida". Be creative!

Pass the colour

Tune: Row, row, row your boat

Pass, pass, pass the color,

That´s the game we play!

When the little song is through,

The color name we'll say.

What Color Are You Wearing?

Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb

If you're wearing red today, red today, red today,

If you're wearing red today, stand up and shout “Hooray!”

If you´re wearing blue today , blue today,

If you´re wearing blue today, stand up and shout "Hooray!"

Rainbow song

Tune: Twinkle, twinkle, little star

Red and orange, green and blue,

Shiny yellow, and purple too.

All the colours that we know,

Live up in the rainbow.

Red and orange, green and blue,

Shiny yellow, and purple too.

Songs for the Morning circle

Welcome-Train

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

Welcome to Shamilu, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

Welcome to Vanvica, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

(…)

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

(train stops, teacher pulls a imaginary rope)

Chu chu!

children: chu chu!

teacher: Chuuuuh. (deeper)

children: chu…

Thank You – Song

tune: Danke für diesen guten Morgen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMCeBIDHHhU

Thank you for this beautiful morning

Thank you for this bright new day

Thank you that we are all together

And can learn and play!

Don Pepito

for learning how to greet and how to express feelings

tune: Hola Don Pepito

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsx4JzpjO-A

with gestures

I know two really crazy neighbours,

Two neighbours very polite.

I know two really crazy neighbours,

Two neighbours way too polite.

When they meet at a street corner,

Or they meet in a tee room,

You always hear them greet each other,

And see them shaking,

Shaking hands –

Hello Don Pepito! (shake hands with a partner)

Hello Don Jóse!

How are you my friend?

I am very fine today! (show thumbs up)

What about your grandma? (lift shoulders and hands)

I think she´s fine as well. (lift shoulders and hands)

See you, Don Pepito! (wave goodbye)
See you, Don Jóse!

(repeat 2 times, each time a little bit faster)

Winding Bubblegum

with gestures

Winding bubblegum (wind your arms forward)

Winding bubblegum

Pull pull, clap clap clap! (put fists in front of your chest together and pull them apart, clap your hands)

Winding back again (wind your arms backward)

Winding back again

Pull pull, clap clap clap!

Point to the roof, point to the floor (point upward, point downward)

Point to the window, point to the door

Clap hands together, One two three

Put your hands down on your knees.

children shout: Faster! Faster!

You repeat the song, every team faster and even faster!

Once I caught a fish alive

with gestures

One, two, three, four, five (count on your fingers)

Once I caught a fish alive (throw an imaginary fishernet over your shoulders)

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten

Then I let it go again. (sweep with your hands forward)

Why did you let it go?

Because it bite my finger so. (left hand "eats" the right hand)

Which finger did it bite?

This little finger on my right. (show the little finger on your right hand)

possibility to make learning the song easier: teacher sings first, children repeat

teacher: One, two, three, four, five

children: One, two, three, four, five

teacher: Once I caught a fish alive

children: Once I caught a fish alive (…)

In the land of Paradise

with little dancing steps to the left and right

In the land of paradise,

Where we will be no suppliers,

No sorrow, no worry, that´s all.

It´s okay, it´s okay

It´s okay, it´s okay

It´s okay to my body over thee-ee-ee

Rainsong

whenever it rains in the raining season

Tune: Schneeflöckchen, Weißröckchen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_i-qiA0pBI

with movements. we start standing very closely (Make a circle, make a circle, smaller circle, smaller circle)

1)      Raindrop, drip drop, drip drop (imitate raindrops with your fingers on the palm of your hand)

Where did your journey start? (protect your eyes with one hand from an imaginary sun and look to the sky)
You come from the clouds (point up to the sky)
Your way must be far! (take each other´s hands and pull the circle outwards to make it a big circle)

2)   Raindrop, drip drop, drip drop

You let the grass grow (imitate growing grass with the fingers and hands)
You give the world green colour (form a globe with your hands and arms)
and let the rivers flow! (take each others hands and produce a wave with your arms that goes around the circle)

3)      Raindrop, drip drop, drip drop

Thanks for coming by
You water the fields (imitate with your arms a wide plane landscape)
and make the maize come up high! (stand on tiptoes and stretch your fingertips to the sky)

Morning circle

1)      children enter the nursery-hall and sit down on chairs, teacher greets the children: “Good morning, learners! – Good morning, madam! – How are you? – We are fine, and how are you? – We are/ I am also fine. Let´s go outside for the morning circle!”

2)      Outside under a tree we take each others hand and form a circle: “Make a circle, make a circle! Bigger circle, Bigger circle!”

3)      “Clap hands!” Clapping hands has the effect that the children let go each other´s hand

4)   the teacher steps out of the circle and goes around it, starting the welcome train: “The welcome train is coming, get on board, Chu chu! Welcome to Anifa, get on board Chu chu!” Every child that is welcomed by name steps out of the circle and gets part of the welcome train

5)   When the train is complete and every child is on board, the teacher shouts “Chu chuuu!” and the children answer “chu chuu!” and the train stops, the children make a circle again and we start singing the fist song, the “Thank you-Song” (see: Songs)

Growing up

(1) Body Changes

group work activity

1. I divide the group by gender: One girls group, one boys group. Each group receives a poster. On the poster we can see the bodies of a girl and a boy.

 

2. Compare the posters. We can distinguish a young girl and a young boy by the sexual organs – vagina and penis. But apart from that, their bodies look very similar. They are still young. The bodies of grown-up women and men do not look that similar anymore: When we grow up, we experience changes on our bodies – girls and boys develop different characteristics, and some changes are also the same.

3. Task for the groups: Please sketch in with a red marker the changes that one experienes on his or her body when he or she grows up.

4. Let´s talk about our work. Boys/Girls, can you show us your poster?

My learners were to shy to draw in all of the changes, so I took the red marker and had them watching me doing the job without mercy.

5. Let´s compare our work. What body changes are the same on our posters?

6. We note down a table chart:

Body changes during adolescence

BOYS	BOTH	GIRLS
Broadening of shoulders Enlargement of penis and testes wet dreams growing of a beard Deepening of voice	pimples on the face growing of pubic hair and armpit hair sweat/perspiration, body odour becomes stronger	Hips getting wider and more round Breasts begin to grow Beginning of menstruation (bleeding about every 4th week because of a hormonal cycle)

(2) The mysterious pink jumbo bag

"Today I have brought you my mysterious pink jumbo bag! Now I need a brave volunteer… Who wants to come in front and pick something out of my pink jumbo bag?

I want to make shure that you don’t see what you chose, so we will cover your eyes. Now put your hand into the mysterious pink jumbo bag and grab something. Show it to the class. Look at it. What is it? Can you tell me what the use of it is? What can we use it for? What does this have to do with body changes during adolescence?"

Useful thing	Use
Cleaning soap	To fight pimples
Deodorant	To fight the smell of strong sweat (my learners were very delighted that I allowed each of them to try out a little spray)
Razor blade	To shave beard, pubic and armpit hair
Sanitary towel	Used to catch the blood during menstruation
Condom	Adolescents develop interest in sex. Protect yourself against various infections (HIV is only one example) and prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

Simple Machines

Forces and Motion

A force is a push or pull.

• You push on a door
• The force of the wind pushes sailboats and windmills

The amount of force you have to use to move an object depends on its mass.

• I bring a cardboard box (originally for apples) and a rope into the classroom. I chose a tall learner and a short learner. First the short learner sits down in the box and someone pushes him or her through the room. Then I tell the tall one to sit in the box. The learners laugh. They know, that it is much harder to push that one!

Motion is a change in position. Every motion is started and ended by a force.

• If we throw (pushing force) a ball and nobody is there to catch it, in theory, it could fly on forever, but gravity pulls it down and makes it stop on the ground.

Gravity is the force that causes all things to fall to the ground.

Simple Machines

A simple machine is a tool that helps people to do work.

There are six types of simple machines:

Lever

Pulley

Wheel and axle

Inclined plane

Wedge

Screw

I show the learners a lot of pictures and let them identify the type of simple machine.

Inclined plane

An inclined plane is a flat surface set at an ancle to another surface/the ground.

Example: A load is pushed along the inclined plane onto a truck.

We build an inclined plane using our rulers as an inclined plane and our rubbers/sharpeners as heavy load.

Screw

A screw is like an inclined plane wrapped around a pencil.

Example: Screw, bottletop

Lever

A lever is a bar that moves on or around a fixed point (called the fulcrum).

I demonstrate the fixed point to my learners with a red drawing-pin.

Examples:

• Arm
• Seesaw
• Balance scale
• Pair of tongs, pliers
• Pair of scissors
• Bottleopener
• Crowbar
• Wheelbarrow
• Hammer

We build a seesaw ourselves using a ruler, a pencil and a small object as a load. The pencil is the fixed point/fulcrum of the seesaw. The ruler is the bar. As small object you can use a rubber.

Wedge

A wedge is two inclined planes stuck back to back.

Example: An ax. A pair of scissors is made up of two wedges.

Wheel and axle

In a wheel and axle, the wheel is larger than the axle. It takes less force to move the wheel than to move the axle. But when the wheel makes a circle it goes a longer distance than the axle.

Example: Bycicle.

Pulley

A pulley is a rope over a wheel.

It changes the direction of the force that you use. When you pull down one end of the rope, the bucket at the other end moves up. Because of gravity, pulling down is much easier than pulling up. Pulling down there are two forces: you and gravity. Pulling up you have to fight gravity.

We build a pulley.

Materials needed: empty toilet tissue rolls, wool, a small object as `load´, a pencil.

Put the pencil through the paper roll. The pencil is the axle and the paper roll the wheel. Wind the wool two times around the roll and attach a load like a pencil sharpener to one end of the wool. Then pull down the other side of the wool and see how the load is moved up!

Simple Machines poem

It´s easy to find – a plane that is inclined!

The edge looks like a – wedge!

Ouch, in my shoe there is a – screw! Screw you!

I hurry to pull the – pulley!

I think it´s clever to use a – lever!

For an easy deal I use – axle and wheel!

The States of Matter

What is matter?

Matter is everything that has mass and occupies space.

Mass is measured in what?

Mass in measured in kg.

Space/Volume is measured in what?

Space is measured in square metres m³.

What are the States of Matter?

Matter exists in 3 physical states:

Solid, liquid and gas.

Vocabulary help Chichewa

Mass = misa

State = kakhalidwe

Solid = chilimba

Liquid = zamadzimadzi

Gas = mtund wa mpweya

Brother Matter song

Tune: brother jakob

Brother Matter,

What´s your state of matter?

What is it? What is it?

Is it a solid?

Is it a liquid?

Or is it a gas?

Is it a gas?

Brother Matter,

You are heated,

How will you change? Will you change?

Will you melt,

melt to liquid?

Or condensate,

Condensate?

Brother Matter,

You are cooled,

How will you change? Will you change?

Will you freeze,

freeze to solid?

Or evaporate,

Evaporate?

Examples for states of matter

Solid	Liquid	Gas
Ice Brick stone Wood (table, door) Paper	Water Oil Melted candle wax	Water vapour (hot tea, clouds) Air (paper fan, bycicle pump) Gas in a lighter Dip an empty bottle in a basin with water and show the learners the air bubbles that are coming out of the bottle

Changes of States of Matter

The learners copy the chart from the poster:

I explain the Changes of States of Matter with this four pictures:

• We can watch candle wax melting when we lit a candle. The candle wax becomes liquid and drops down.
• Irene makes and sells freezes at our school. She puts a liquid juice into plastic papers, then she puts the plastic papers in the fridge till the next morning. There the juice freezes to ice.
• E-vapor-ation carries “[water] vapo[u]r” in the word itself. It means water becoming vapour. When we have a very hot tea, we can hold our hand over the cup and feel the heat, because the hot vapor is rising from the tea.
• Condensation can be watched when we boil water in a pot and lift the lid from the pot: The water vapour that has cooled down again drips off the lid.

We practice the pronounciation of the words melting, freezing, evaporation and condensation. When we say “melting” or “evaporation” we point up, when we say “freezing” and “condensation” we point down.

I say the words in confused order. The learners have to point up or down.

Exercise

(1) Look at the chart. What are the 3 states of matter? Write in the boxes a.,b.,c. the names of the 3 states of matter.

(3) Give two examples for

1. solids
2. liquids
3. gases

(4) The mass of Madam Elena is measured in…

A.     cm (centimeters)

B.     m³ (cubic-meters)

C.     kg (cages)

D.     m² (square-meters)

(5) Matter is everything that has

A.     mass.

B.     space and shape.

C.     mass and occupies shape.

D.     cells.

(6) Which of the following example is a gas?

A.     brick stone

B.     oxygen

C.     water

D.     candle wax

(7) If we leave a freezes in the sun, it starts…

A.     melting

B.     evaporation

C.     condensation

D.     freezing