Silly version of Itsy Bitsy Spider

Q has been enjoying changing the words of her favorite songs lately to say silly things...that may or may not make sense. This is her beginning to explore the relationships between words, word meanings, beginning sounds of words, and her ability as a writer to manipulate the order of words. All wonderful emergent literacy skills that show up in the preschool years.
We were singing silly made-up versions of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" in the car yesterday, so while she napped I decided to "record" our song using the flannelboard.


First I used felt to make the traditional pieces--water spout, rain, sun, spider.

Then the silly items:
Milk, juice, shampoo, soup

Click to see large sizes.
To make the pieces I just cut felt scraps and hot glued the pieces together.
The feltboard was one from my 1st grade classroom. You can easily make a feltboard by using spray adhesive, a sheet of felt and cardboard. Or you can just lay out a big piece of felt and that works fine, too!

"The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Down came the MILK and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the MILK
and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again."

I used a textile marker to write the words on each item as Q is beginning to pay attention to print and the starting letters of words.

This activity can be adapted for all ages--babies would enjoy listening to the singing and watching you manipulate the felt pieces (and very soon begin to "help" you move the pieces)

Preschoolers can actually cut the flt and help make their own pieces for songs they want to write new verses for. For preschoolers you might consider writing out a large copy of the song they wrote to post next to the flannelboard--they can sing it and point to the words.