The Farmer in the Dell and the end of the school year

The end of this school year came faster than I expected. I am leaving my present school and moving to a new school in the diocese. Which means that I had to pack up over 27 years of material. Not so much fun. It was a good time though to clean and purge out those things that have long ago become useless. Lots of recycled things! And since I am at the end of the year, no classes, but as I said I will reflect on past lessons and get some of my files uploaded.

The Farmer in the Dell

I used the Farmer in the Dell from the Song Play book, " a collection of playful songs for ages 4-7, written by 8 Montana educators and compiled and edited by Dr. Peggy Bennett." I love this book and really enjoyed the Farmer in the Dell. This particular version comes with a script for the storytelling of the song. My students loved this even though 99% of them already knew the song. Which I think proves that everyone loves listening to a good story. Good storytelling is whole other discussion but one worthy of investigating. Not today though.

Back to Song Play- I used the story in the book but I also created and used a Smart Notebook lesson file. There is one on the Smart Exchange site if you prefer but you are welcome to access my file here.

DOWNLOAD FILE


During my lesson, I told them the story and then we reviewed through the characters. We stopped and talked about each character. For instance we spent a lot of time discussing farmers; where they lived, what you might find on a farm, what a farmer might grow and so on. We also discussed if a farmer could be a girl or a boy. Each character in the story had many things to talk about and this could easily be an entire lesson just with sharing their thoughts and ideas. Unfortunately, most of us don't have time to hear every comment so you will have to gently set parameters about how many answers you need or tell children that if they did not get to answer they will get to the next time. It is very important that children understand that you respect and value their contributions to the class discussion.

We moved to the song next, sing each part and using the images on the Smart Notebook lesson as a guide. By the time we got to the game the song and story were well established in their minds and we were able to easily play. The Song Play book has wonderful directions and script to go along with this song. This is certainly one of my students favorite lessons.