Submitted by Rosemary Shaw, Connecticut
Idea posted October 6, 2003
I started this poem with my kindergartners the first week of school. I used a poster with the numbers in red and the words in black.
We first clapped the numbers while saying the poem. Then I seated the children in a circle and placed insruments around, every other one was sticks. After each time we played and recited the poem I said, "Instruments down, hands off, now move over." After awhile this got so comfortable that I began to rhythmically recite, "1 2 3 4, move over now and play some more," which meant that each repetition and move were much more smooth.
Each week I added more instruments. The kids love this.