5 Little Pumpkins
Went to my first parent-teacher meeting at my Italian school. Mama mia…. that was interesting!! It’s a group meeting, not a one-on-one, and many people talk at the same time…. The Italian language has something called ‘overlap’, where responding person starts talking before the first-talking person is finished. It felt like a friendly family gathering.. Nothing formal about it.
The teacher is wonderful. Even speak some English and has one hour a week dedicated to this international language. Unlike most Italian teachers, she seeks parents school involvement, so as a native English speaker, I received a little job: a Halloween rhyme – something at the preschool/first grader’s level. Italians often use poetry and literature to convey important concepts and yes, they start young.
I decided to go for ‘5 Little Pumpkins’ as it would allow the Italian kids to learn to count to 5 in English, it would be colorful, it would be easy, and… it would allow me enough time left over at the end, for a Halloween craft project.
Earlier, I had spotted ‘clothes lines’ in the classroom with CLOTHESPINS that were NAKED!!!…. ‘Craft Opportunity!!!’ I had thought when I first saw them. So this Halloween, I will let the class make Clothespin Bats, which will be both a great way to decorate the classroom for Halloween and offers a way to hang up the class’s Halloween drawings.
Here is the nursery rhyme first.
Five Little Pumpkins
5 little pumpkins sitting on a fence
The first one said: “oh may, it’s getting late.”
The second one said: “There are witches in the air”.
The third one said: “But we don’t care”.
The fourth one said: “Let’s run, run, run”.
The fifth one said: “We’re ready for some fun”.
Then it went ‘whooo’ with the wind, and out with the light
and 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight”.
Teaching Notes for the ‘5 Little Pumpkins’-Nursery Rhyme
1. make a fist of your left hand and hold your left arm horizontally before you. This is the fence.
You can let the fence move if you want, open and close the gate/fist.
2. hold your right hand behind fence and your right-hand fingers stick out above your left arm. These are your 5 pumpkins.
3. Move each of the fingers separately as you are telling the story about them.
4. Move both hands in the air to make wind movement
5. Make a ‘roly-poly’ movement with both arms with fisted hands to let the pumpkins roll down.
Next come the Clothespin Bats
