Songs and chants: the vocabulary glue nothing else replaces
Aylara A.
Kids' teacher · founder of AylaraTalks
Adults hum songs from kindergarten decades later — melody and rhythm are memory's oldest trick. You don't need to sing well or find the perfect video: a home-made chant over a steady clap beats a polished song the kids only watch.
The 30-second chant formula
Take four topic words. Clap a steady beat. Chant: 'Cat, dog, fish, bird — one, two, three!' Repeat, replacing one word each round with a new one. That's it — you've written a chant. Kids will demand it tomorrow.
- Whisper round: same chant, tiny voices — control practice disguised as fun.
- Speed round: twice as fast until it collapses.
- Gap round: you stop before the last word; the class shouts it.
Where songs belong in the lesson
- Opening: one fixed hello song — the ritual that starts the English switch.
- Mid-lesson: a chant with the day's new words, right after first meeting them.
- Transition: a 10-second 'tidy-up tune' when switching activities.
- Goodbye: same song every time; the day a child sings it unprompted, it worked.
Online: rhythm survives the lag
Singing together over video fails — latency smears it. Chant call-and-response instead: you give the line, they echo. The lag becomes the structure. Mute nobody; the mess is the music.
⭐ Take this with you
One hello song, one goodbye song, and a fresh four-word chant per topic — a complete musical curriculum that costs nothing and outlives every worksheet.
🎈 Put it into play
Everything here pairs with our free classroom games — no prep, no accounts.
About the author
Aylara A.
Kids' teacher · founder of AylaraTalks
Aylara is a kids' teacher who spent years hand-making every classroom game — cutting cards and drawing boards on paper sheets. She created AylaraTalks so no teacher has to start from a blank page again.