 Listen to this song.
This song is available on Alan Riva and Karin Howard's
"Exploring Language Through Song and Play"
QUESTION TIME
Puppets, puppets, puppets - this will be the key to a successful activity
to this song. You can make these puppets with the children out of
construction paper, fun foam or any scraps of material you find around
the house or classroom. If you happen to have won the lottery recently,
you may purchase expensive, extravagant puppets... but any puppets will
do. You will need four puppets that preferably resemble a little girl, a
little boy, a mom and a dad. Listen to the song a couple of times before
you do the activity so that you know which puppet to use during the
appropriate place in the song.
The song starts out with the little girl in a family making a decision to
ask her mom some questions. As you will hear, this sets off a chain
reaction of questions throughout the entire family. Move the mouths of
the corresponding puppet and respond with the appropriate answering
puppet. Continue this turn taking style throughout the song with quick
puppet switches when appropriate. I like to have the two puppets dance
in a swaying motion during the musical interludes and then make my
quick puppet change.
It is so nice for the children to get to see the back and forth style of
question and answers with puppets along with the verbal model that
they are hearing. It is also important for them to realize that, for
example, the mother first answers questions and then goes on to asking
the questions. By emphasizing the different roles, the hope is that the
child will be more exploratory in the emergence of their questioning and
answering skills. Note that some children are good at asking questions
all day long, however, they do not respond so directly when they are
asked questions. Even without this activity the children can gain a lot of
information about the art of asking and responding to questions.
To extend this activity in a group setting, you can give the children the
puppets, and have them come up two at a time and ask each other
questions. At home you and the child can do a modified version of this
with one puppet each taking turns asking and answering questions of
their own. It’s also okay to drop the puppets and just have fun asking
each other questions.
Many thanks to Alan Riva for permission to display these lyric excerpts.
©Alan Riva. All rights reserved. Used with permission. |
Exploring Language
Through Song and Play
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please click here.
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