Flannel Friday! Little Peter Rabbit Song/Word Game

Last week, while looking for rabbit storytime ideas, I found this song on the Kididdles site:

Little Peter Rabbit

[sung to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (you can hear it on the Kididdles page)]

Little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his ear,

Little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his ear,

Little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his ear,

And he flicked it ’til it flew away…

Little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his _______. etc…

Little Peter Rabbit had a ____ upon his ___. etc…

Little Peter ____ had a ____ upon his ____. etc…

Little ____ ____ had a ____ upon his ____. etc…

Now, I like the song all on its own, without removing any words. I can see adding all kinds of motions like bunny ears and a buzzing fly with your fingers. You can shoo the fly away from your ear. The song is also very rhythmic, so you can slap your thighs or clap along. Or march! For toddlers or babies I would go one of these routes.

However, for my audience, preschoolers, I decided to turn this into a flannelboard to build up the kids’ print awareness. I put the words on pieces of felt with a few picture clues, using red for the words that we removed:

We say, and then sing, the song, while I underline each of the words.  Then we start removing words, beginning with ear:

This time, as we sing, we substitute a clap for the missing word (like bingo). We work our way through, removing one by one each of the red words (the kids keep wanting me to make it “harder!”), until we have this:

Hardly any words, and all claps! Finally, we put the words back (they help me “read” them) and we sing one last time the “right” way.  While the kids couldn’t always manage both singing and clapping, they enjoyed this very much and wanted to do it AGAIN! I think it’s a fun way to reinforce print recognition and the idea that words/letters have meaning. Also, I run my fingers under them periodically to remind them that print runs left to right (in English).

One of my classes wanted to put the words in the wrong place, so we mixed up “rabbit” “ear” and “fly” to make some silly sentences. What fun! It’s really been a blast to perform with the kids and they’ve had a good time (as have I). The possibilities, I think, are endless!