Hi chaps

My CoT asked me teach my grade 4's an English song. I'm going to teach them the cups song. Any tips on teaching them how to sing the song? I can teach cup bit, but the singing...

I use songs in almost every class. I either use the book (sometimes their ok) or make the songs myself. It was wildly successful in doing the English Flea Market with 3rd grade. They really impressed the principal. And my school is poor students, fairly low level (about 1/2 of them).

Play the song first, and then give them the lyrics (with transliteration if you have some really low level students).  Do a listen and repeat with the sentences or words they're going to struggle with.  You may have to sing a couple of lines so the kids can recognize where the sentence they're saying fits in the song, but they're 4th graders - they don't care if you suck.  If it's a tough song, or they're struggling, stop every few lines or so and practice with them.

I'm not sure which song you mean, so if I'm wrong, I'm really sorry.  But if by "the cups song" you mean the one Anna Kendrick sings in Pitch Perfect, I honestly think that's going to be way too hard for them.  Even if you have high level kids, it's really fast and has lots of expressions they won't know.  (Also, it mentions whisky, so you may want to run it by your co-teacher first, since he or she will probably end up fielding questions from the kids about what the song means.)

Personally, I normally stick with ESL songs from YouTube for fourth graders.  We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" last month, and the kids had a good time with it.  If you really want to do a pop song, I think you're better off with something like "Lemon Tree" by Fool's Garden.  I know everyone uses it, but there's a reason - it's a much more doable pace, and they'll be familiar with a lot of the vocabulary.

Yeah it is the Anna Kendrick one. I thought it would be a good song because the lyrics are a bit repetitive (easier to remember), and they enjoyed the song. They also like trendy songs. The older stuff and kiddy songs don't interest them at all.

This is how I learned to teach songs to my students. I learned it from my co-teacher and it works really well and students learn pretty quickly. (If the song is their level.)

1. Listen to the song all the way through. (Maybe a music video?) Also, print the lyrics and give them to the students.

2. Listen to only the 1st verse again.

3. Sing 1 line. Students repeat after you. Repeat this 2 times. (Usually, I sing the 1st time slow and the 2nd time faster.)
-Teacher: (slow) I got my ticket for the long way round.
-Students: I got my ticket for the long way round.
-Teacher: (fast) I got my ticket for the long way round.
-Students: I got my ticket for the long way round.

4. Sing the each line this way until you finish the verse.
-Teacher: Two bottles of whiskey for the way.
-Students: Two bottles of whiskey for the way.
-Teacher: Two bottles of whiskey for the way.
-Students: Two bottles of whiskey for the way.

5. Sing the entire verse with the music.

6. Repeat steps 2-5 with the next verse, etc.

7. When you finish singing a new verse with the music, go back to the beginning and sing everything again up through the newest part.



Side note: I would agree with the others. "Cups" seems a little difficult for 4th graders. If you have higher level 4th graders, here is a list of pop songs I've done with 5th grade.

-Don't Worry, Be Happy (Bobby McFerrin)
-You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman - Toy Story)
-Lemon Tree (Fool's Garden)
-Hot and Cold [CLEAN] (Katy Perry)
-Best Song Ever (One Direction (They have a lot of slower, repetitive songs, by the way.))
-Boom Clap (Charlie XCX)
-Firework (Katy Perry)
-Radioactive (Imagine Dragons)
-Same Old Love [RADIO DISNEY EDIT] (Selena Gomez)
-Move Along (All-American Rejects)
-It's All About You (McFly)
-The Show (Lenka)

If it helps, Youtube has a slow function, but its a bit janky and limited to 50% or 25% speeds. Rather, if you have an mp3 available, you can slow it by a custom percentage in Audacity.

Get it from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
You may also need LAME. See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Lame_Installation

1.   Open mp3 in Audacity.
2.   Edit > Select All
3.   Reduce the speed (the speed option is in one of the top menus). I find -15% works well.
4.   Increase the pitch (the pitch option is in one of the top menus). Increase the pitch equal to the decrease in speed. For example, I’d use +15 pitch adjustment.
5.   File > Save as MP3. Give it a different name, such as Song Title (85 percent).mp3
6.   If you get an error, it means LAME is necessary and not installed, or you need to tell the computer where the LAME file is (typically C:\Program Files\LAME for Audacity).