Spring & the Life Cycle of Animals

2 min Magic Box hook

Today the box will not quite shut — something is sticking out of one end. Hold it up. Whole class chants:

Shake it — a dry little rattle of twigs. Now lift the lid a crack and sniff, loudly, with your eyes shut. Sniff again. Let your face go amazed.

The branch goes right round the circle and every child touches one bud with one finger. Then everybody curls up small and stretches up tall: “Spring!”

4 min Teach · Spring

Everybody curls up on the floor as small as they can. We wake up twice — slow, then quick:

Then the branch itself, standing in its jar. Count the buds together, touching each one as you go. Now say the plain true thing, slowly: nothing on this branch is finished. Every bud is on its way to being a leaf, and we are going to watch it happen all week.

Littles curl and stretch and say “Spring!” Bigs take the frame: “It is spring.” “The buds are growing.”

Teacher fails: stand the branch in the jar upside down, blossom under the water, roots-end waving in the air. Step back and admire it. Hold it. Wait.

Chinese moment: lay the 春 card at the foot of the jar and say 春天来了！ once, all together. Leave the card there; the row grows by one card a day. Then 春分立蛋 — stand the raw egg on its end on the shelf and leave it standing there all week.

3 min Song · Wake Up, It's Spring! — chorus + Monday verse

The one song of the week — same chorus at every circle, one new verse each morning, the whole thing on Friday. Chords and the full sheet are on the Song tab. Sing it standing round the branch, always.

3 min Game · Wake up, spring!

“One, two, three — eyes on me!” Everybody chooses one thing to be — a seed, a bear, a bulb, a sleeping bug — and curls up on the floor, completely still. One child is the sun, with a yellow scarf.

The tapped child uncurls, stretches, and says what they are: “I'm a flower!” “I'm a bear!” Littles just stretch and say “Wake up!” — a full win. Then that child becomes the sun and the game goes on.

Chinese moment: this game is the poem. Say 孟浩然's 《春晓》 over the top of it, quietly, while the sun walks: 春眠不觉晓，处处闻啼鸟。 Waking up in spring and hearing birds everywhere — that is exactly what is happening on your carpet.

1 min Close

Standing round the branch, curled small and ready to grow. Whisper → normal → shout:

Got 3 spare minutes? Mouse's First Spring (Lauren Thompson) — one small animal finding one new thing on every page. Let them guess what is under each flap of grass before you turn it.

2 min Magic Box hook

Today the box is heavier on one side, and it must be carried flat, in two hands. Chant it first:

Lift the little nest out with both hands and hold it very still. Then, in a whisper: (one finger touching the shell)

Two hands make a ball: “Egg!”

4 min Teach · Egg

The hard-boiled egg goes round the circle, one child at a time, held in two hands, in complete silence. Nobody speaks until it comes back to you. Then, twice, with the actions:

Now ask it and take every answer: what is inside an egg? A dinosaur, a snake, a cake — take them all seriously. Then tell them: a chick. Tomorrow. And say the true part too: the egg on our shelf came from the shop and will never hatch; the ones that do hatch sit warm under a hen for three whole weeks. Three weeks is a very long time, and that is why waiting belongs in this week.

Littles make the ball hands and say “Egg!” Bigs owe you the frame: “This is an egg.” “The chick is inside the egg.”

Teacher fails: announce that you will keep the egg warm, and start lowering yourself onto it to sit on it. Keep going. They will stop you.

Chinese moment: the 蛋 card joins 春 — 鸡蛋. Then everybody gets one turn at 春分立蛋: stand the raw egg on its own end on the shelf. It really does work if the hands are patient, and patient hands are the whole lesson today.

3 min Song · Wake Up, It's Spring! — chorus + Tuesday verse

Sing this one quietly, rocking the nest, and let the last line be the joke it is. Then straight back into the big chorus. Loud, quiet, loud is the shape of every good circle.

3 min Game · What's in the egg?

“One, two, three — eyes on me!” The feely bag holds four or five things they have already met: a bud, a feather, a stone, the eggshell, a little chick. No looking.

Naming it before seeing it is the work. Littles get a hint and one word: “Egg!” Bigs give a sentence before they pull: “I think it is an egg.” Then out it comes and everybody sees whether they were right.

Put the same thing back in twice, on purpose. A child who feels the egg a second time and names it instantly, without stopping to think, has just shown you the word is theirs.

1 min Close

Everybody's hands cupped round an imaginary egg. Whisper → normal → shout:

Got 3 spare minutes? An Egg Is Quiet (Dianna Aston) — every kind of egg there is, on one enormous spread. Let them find the smallest one and the biggest one.

2 min Magic Box hook

While the class chants, tap the underside of the box quietly with one fingernail — tap… tap… tap — and look as if you have no idea where it is coming from.

Hold the two empty halves apart and look inside them, puzzled — where has it gone? Then reach back in and bring out the chick. Pecking beak with finger and thumb: “Cheep! Chick!”

4 min Teach · Chick

Everybody is an egg — curled up on the floor, hands over your head. We hatch twice, slow then fast:

Then hold the chick and the shell up together and put the story in order out loud, pointing: first the egg… then the crack… then the chick… and one day, a big hen, who lays an egg. Draw the circle in the air with one finger as you say it. It goes round.

Littles peck and say “Chick!” Bigs owe you a sentence: “The chick comes out of the egg.” “The chick is growing.”

Teacher fails: try to post the chick back into the shell and press the two halves together round it. “In you go. Back you go.” Keep trying. Wait for the uproar.

Chinese moment: the 长 card joins 春 · 蛋 — 长大, to grow up. Say it about the chick, and then say it about them, pointing at one child at a time: 你也在长大。

3 min Song · Wake Up, It's Spring! — chorus + Wednesday verse

Do the three cheeps higher each time and the three pecks lower each time. By Friday they will be doing the up-and-down without you and it will be the loudest verse of the week.

3 min Game · Chick, chick, cheep

“One, two, three — eyes on me!” Duck-duck-goose, played entirely in cheeps. Everybody sits in a circle; one child walks round the outside tapping heads.

Littles walk it rather than run it, and a grown-up walks with them. Nobody is out and nobody stands in a middle; the child left standing simply becomes the next one to tap.

Say chick five or six times before you say cheep. The waiting is what makes them listen, and listening to one word inside a string of another word is the exact skill they need for English.

1 min Close

Everybody crouched in a shell, pecking beaks ready. Whisper → normal → shout:

Got 3 spare minutes? From Egg to Chicken — real photographs, in order, of the whole three weeks. Lay the pages against our own shell and chick on the mat as you go.

2 min Magic Box hook

Today the box is small and light, and when you tip it something inside slides very slowly from one end to the other. Chant, then tip it — slowly.

Count the holes together, out loud, pointing at each one. Then bring out the caterpillar itself and hold it in two hands, low, so everybody has to be quiet to see it. One wriggling finger: “Caterpillar!”

4 min Teach · Caterpillar

One finger wriggles up the other arm while you say it, twice, and the second time the whole circle wriggles with you:

Then the story, told with your hands: he eats, and eats, and gets bigger… and bigger… and then one day he stops eating, and hangs himself up, and goes to sleep inside a little bag called a chrysalis. Hold up the stocking — but do not open it. “Tomorrow.” Put it on the shelf where everyone can see it and leave it there, unopened, all day.

Littles wriggle a finger and say “Caterpillar!” Bigs owe you the big frame of the week: “The caterpillar becomes a butterfly.” “He is very hungry.”

Teacher fails: insist, confidently and repeatedly, that the caterpillar is going to grow up into a chick. “Cheep cheep!” Nod wisely. Do it again. Let them shout you down — and make them tell you what it really turns into.

Chinese moment: the 虫 card joins 春 · 蛋 · 长 — 毛毛虫. Say it with the wriggling finger, slowly, and let them say it back three times, getting faster each time.

3 min Song · Wake Up, It's Spring! — chorus + Thursday verse

This is the one verse with the Am in it, and Am is the sad-sounding chord — which is perfect, because the caterpillar is hungry. If Am defeats you, play the whole verse on C and nobody in the room will know.

3 min Game · Caterpillar crawl

“One, two, three — eyes on me!” The whole class becomes one caterpillar: everybody on hands and knees in a single line, each child's hands on the ankles of the child in front, and a line of paper leaves laid down the corridor.

Crawl, munch, crawl, munch, all the way down the corridor. Littles at the front where they can see; a grown-up at the back so nobody is left behind. Count the leaves you have eaten when you get there.

Go slowly. A fast line falls over and turns into a heap. Slow crawling with twenty children joined together is one of the best things they will do all term, and they will ask for it again tomorrow.

1 min Close

Everybody down low, one finger wriggling. Whisper → normal → shout:

Before home time: chalk or tape the four life-cycle stations on the floor for tomorrow, in a circle, not a line — egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly — and lay one ring card at each. Tomorrow the class walks it, and walks it again.

Got 3 spare minutes? The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle) — and let them poke a finger through every hole on the way past.

2 min Magic Box hook

The box comes out bulging and will not quite shut.

Pull each thing out and hold it up in complete silence. They will supply the word before you can.

The budding branch → “Spring!”  The egg → “Egg!”  The chick → “Chick!”  The nibbled leaf → “Caterpillar!”

Last of all, one soft grey thing at the bottom: the chrysalis. Hold it up. Nobody knows. Then reach in and draw the butterfly out of it, slowly, wings first, and open them. “BUTTERFLY!”

4 min Teach · Butterfly, then the whole week

Everybody stands. We do the whole life cycle with our bodies, twice — slow, then fast:

Then the four ring cards, laid out on the floor in a circle, not a line. Walk it with one child while everybody names the stations out loud — egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly — and then keep walking, straight past the butterfly and back to the egg. It does not stop. Then the question that ends the week, asked quietly, to each child: and what are you turning into?

Littles do the four gestures and shout the words. Bigs owe you a whole sentence each: “The caterpillar becomes a butterfly.” “It is spring.” “I am growing too.”

Teacher fails: lay the four cards out in a straight line, stop firmly at the butterfly, dust off your hands and say “The end.” Wait for somebody to bend it round into a circle for you.

Chinese moment: the 蝶 card completes the row — 春 · 蛋 · 长 · 虫 · 蝶, the whole week on the mat, and 蝴蝶 is the one they will keep. Say 《春晓》 all the way through, once, while they lie on their backs: 春眠不觉晓，处处闻啼鸟。夜来风雨声，花落知多少。 Then tell them about 清明 on Monday: 清明去扫墓，也去踏青 — families go out to the countryside in the spring. School is closed on Monday; we come back on Tuesday.

3 min Song · Wake Up, It's Spring! — Friday verse, then the WHOLE song

The finale: chorus → Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday → chorus, walking the four stations as you sing, all the way round and round again. They learned it one verse a morning without ever noticing, and this run-through is the review of the whole week.

3 min Game · Walk the life cycle

“One, two, three — eyes on me!” Four stations on the floor in a ring, one ring card at each: egg (curl up tiny) · caterpillar (crawl and munch) · chrysalis (freeze, arms wrapped round yourself) · butterfly (fly).

Go round three or four times, faster each time, until the whole class is doing it without being told. Littles simply follow the child in front and copy; that is exactly how they learn it.

Never stop at the butterfly. The moment they carry on round to the egg on their own, without you saying it, the big idea of the week has landed — and that is the assessment, no worksheet required.

1 min Close + awards

Every child gets a “You are a STAR!” award to take home with the long-weekend news. Then, standing in the ring, all four gestures:

Say the dates at the door. Monday is 清明 and school is closed; we are back on Tuesday and it is a short week. Send the branch home with whoever wants it — by Monday its buds will be leaves.

Got 3 spare minutes? Waiting for Wings (Lois Ehlert) or 《春天来了》 — and then lie on the floor with the lights off and be a chrysalis for one whole quiet minute before home time.

The four chords

Tempo: gentle at the start of each verse and a little bigger every line, like something opening. Am is the one new shape this week and it is the easiest of all four — one finger, second fret of the G string — and it appears exactly twice: at the end of the chorus's third line and at the start of Thursday's caterpillar verse. Chant the song without the uke first; add the chords once they know the actions.

Chorus — sing it every single day

Sing the chorus twice each time. The actions are the whole point — a two-year-old who curls up small, makes the ball hands and flies on the last line has understood the week, whether or not a single word comes out. On “and so are you” point at a different child every single day.

One verse a day — four of the five are just C and G7

The build: each day sing chorus → today's verse → chorus. By Friday they know five verses without ever “learning” the song — and Friday's finale, sung walking the four life-cycle stations, doubles as the review of the whole week.

If you're brand new to ukulele

Practice this loop for five minutes tonight: C (4 strums) → F (4 strums) → C → G7 → C. That is the whole chorus except one chord, and the one chord left is Am, which is a single finger on the second fret of the top string — put it down, strum once, and you have it. C is one finger, F is two, G7 is three, Am is one; learn them in that order. If your fingers get stuck, put the uke down, give one child the nibbled leaf to hold up and do the finger-play instead: the class will not notice, and the actions carry the meaning either way.