POLL Strategies | Songs & Chants for Preschoolers

[ Singing ]

>> What do you do?

[ Singing ]

The song and chant is throughout the day.

That's like one of our key experiences
that we can use that repetition

of the vocabulary and intentional message.

If you notice, our vocabulary and
intentional message are both in that song.

So we're repeating that all throughout the day.

During the transition, it's a whole group.

I usually open and close with that before
I excuse them to do something else,

transitioning inside to outside, going to meals.

You'll hear them spontaneously singing
it throughout the day during an

independent exploration.

It's just throughout the day that's become one

of our most important pool
strategies that we use.

Baby. Should we say toddler or kid or child?

>> Child.

>> What do you think?

>> Child.

>> How do we say child?

So we'll say baby, child, teen, and then adult.

>> Yeah.

>> Baby, child, teen, adult.

Ready? Let's do it.

[ Singing ]

Wait. If you don't plant us, what happens?

A baby is born then it grows into an adult.

Baby, child, teen adult, teen adult.

Can we both change?

Trees and adults.

So a song and chant can come out of nowhere.

When I first started with Pool,
I was like, I cannot write songs.

There's no way I can do this.

But now they're my favorite part.

And as you saw like the children love them too.

They help come up with the
gestures and their thinking comes

through in those songs and chants.

So we made one up right on the spot and
I never thought we'd be able to do that

but their thinking is amazing
if you just let them.

So on the whole strategies
board, we have everything.

And that reminds us but also the
children, they reference that a lot.

When I talk about the anchor text and
the song and chant, they are experiences.

So having the song and chant up
there is another way they can recall

that experience that we've had.

I've had children come up to it and just
start pointing and singing as they see it.

And so it's important for it to be up so
that they can reference that over and over.

I know they can't read the words, but they
know those visuals, they know the gestures,

they know what we've been doing,
so they're able to reference it.

You can remember songs from years
ago that you had an experience with.

So singing that over and over, it gets in your
head in a different way that reading does.

Yes, books stick with you, but
music has a whole other power.

So songs and chants are very powerful in
conveying different messages and vocabulary.

It's really the repetition
and the beat of the music.