Learning by clothesline

I forgot to take a picture of our clothesline song, but this is a very simple activity that gets the children involved. All you will need is:

• clothesline (or sturdy string - I used yarn)
• clothespins (the spring kind)
• visual aids that can be pinned to the line

I made all of my visual aids on paper.  I then used magnets to pin them all over the chalkboard.  We sang the new song once through.  Then we started with the first line.  I called a child up to find the very first picture in our line.  Once they picked the right one, they hung it on the line (which I had attached across the room, or you can have two very patient kids hold it).  Once we had two lines of pictures on the string, we would sing those lines.  Do this until the song is complete.

For the older kids, who learn the song quickly, I would then randomly remove pictures and see if they could remember the words. If they made a mistake the picture would have to be added back.  The goal was to have an empty clothesline by the end of singing time.

Another option to make this more of a game is to hid/tape the visual aids all over the room so they have to search for it.  Depending on the number of children you have in your primary you can have them seek one-by-one, or an entire class at a time.