Topic plan: Ourselves (KS1)

A topic-based plan by Sue Nicholls, offering six weeks of activities across the KS1 curriculum to integrate Song Bank songs with everyday classroom delivery.

Young children are notoriously egotistical! This 'Ourselves’ topic plan explores the notion of the child as the centre of his or her world, developing some new curricular links through singing. 

Hello me 

PSHE, Speaking and Listening, Writing, Art

• Sing If you’re happy and you know it as a song to launch your topic. It’s a great favourite and may well be familiar to many of the children. The Song Bank version has three verses but there is scope for many more! Sing this song to explore PSHE issues and use Speaking and Listening time to explore a range of emotional levels.

• Include the children’s ideas about moods and emotions to invent extra verses eg. 
  
  o 'If you’re sleepy and you know it; give a yawn …'
  
  o 'If you’re fed up and you know it; give a frown …'
  
  o 'If you’re hungry and you know it; rub your tum …'

• It may be appropriate to change the middle line for more subtle or challenging moods: 
  
  o 'If you’re lonely and you know it, then perhaps you’d like to show it, if you’re …'

• Alter the words again to limelight individual names and invite solo action responses:
  
  o 'If you’re Anna and you know it; give a wave …'

• Still focusing on the individual child try these three songs with linked themes: Well done, everyone, I’m OK and Good to be me! These Song Bank songs fit the PSHE curriculum perfectly because the lyrics offer praise for effort, acknowledge the individual, build self-assurance and reward achievement – each were written to boost children’s self-image and self-esteem. Use the songs to expand PSHE strands about Personal Development, combined with Writing.

• Ask everyone in the class to draw a detailed self-portrait on A3 paper, but leaving a 5cm margin all around the edge. In a Speaking and Listening session, encourage the children to talk in simple terms about themselves: their achievements, their personality traits and their physical appearance. Using these personal perspectives, ask the children to add positive words and phrases about themselves in the border spaces, offering support as necessary. 
  
  

Modern Foreign Languages, PE, Dance

• Use three Song Bank songs that focus on parts of the body to enhance and embed vocabulary: Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, One finger, one thumb keep moving and Jean Petit qui danse. The first two are very familiar songs; the third teaches the French names for parts of the body and would support MfL work and PE or Dance lessons.

• Display a large line drawing of a person and write the different names of the main parts of the body on separate cards. Encourage the children to match names and body parts correctly. There are several ICT software products providing matching games for this activity.

• Play ‘I’m leading with my nose’ as a warm-up for a PE lesson. Model examples of how different parts of the body can lead a travelling movement. Call out: ‘I’m walking and leading with my nose’ so that everyone has to walk with their noses leading the way. Vary the travelling style and body part:
  
  o 'I’m galloping and leading with my shoulder …'

  o 'I’m shuffling and leading with my knees …'
  
  o or even: ‘I’m hopping and leading with ma pouce!’

• Invite individual children to be the leader and expect some highly comic results!
  
  

Other people

PSHE, Literacy, Questions and Answer, Drama, ICT, Dance

• Move the attention away from the child towards other people, by singing the Song Bank song: People who help us. The lyrics focus on the work done by firemen, farmers and the police, including sound effects, and would serve well as a starter activity for work in Literacy; Questions and Answer and Drama.

• Invite a farmer or member of the fire brigade or police force to come and talk to the children about their work. If none is available, invite another member of the community who provides a similar service. Prepare for this Speaking and Listening session by asking the children to write down questions and encourage them to practise saying them out loud, ready to address the person directly: use ICT skills to record and capture the answers.

• Prepare several different cartoon scenarios built around four pictures each telling a simple storyline that involves a farmer, fireman or policeman. Display the cartoons on a whiteboard and talk through the sequence of events, eliciting the children’s ideas of what is happening. In a Drama lesson, arrange the children in groups and ask them to work on their cartoon, apportioning characters, creating dialogue and using actions, gesture, mime or narration to retell the story.

• Finally, sing Grandma rap and Pirates! about contrasting characters to develop story-telling and characterisation. Grandma rap has a whole unit of work devoted to this lively and appealing rap, so go to the Magazine section of the Sing Up website to find an article full of ideas for cross-curricular development. Pirates! is a jaunty sea-faring song, full of description to use in Dance and Drama.

• Once the Pirates! song is familiar, use the lyrics to choreograph a sequence of related dance moves to tell a story: try rowing actions, swaying with the waves on deck, unfurling the sails and digging for treasure. 

• Perhaps you could incorporate these sequences into a grand performance of the song with some token costumes and props, using the Song Bank backing track to accompany the dance.

Other ‘Ourselves’ songs in the Song Bank include:

• Do your ears hang low?

• Here comes Sally

• I’ve got a grumpy face

• Hello, hello

• Make someone happy

• Who are we?