Little Hands-On abc's and 123's - Hokey Pokey abc's

 

All children love to be active.  The Hokey Pokey is such a fun song to get all the wiggles out.  The best thing about the Hokey Pokey is that it can be used to teach and review so many things if you just tweak the words a little.

Here’s the Hokey ABC as an example.



You put the “A” in

You put the “A” out

You put the “A” in and you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself about
That’s what it’s all about!

You can sing the song using letter names or letter sounds.

When my daughter and I used to play the Hokey ABC, I would put five letters on the floor.  When we sang, she would find the letter I had just inserted into the song.  If your child doesn’t yet know the letters well, I recommend having doubles of the letters so that you can pick the letter up and have your child find the matching one for the song.

Extension: For a child who knows their letters well and is beginning the journey of sounding out words, you could insert three letter words sounded out and have them find the picture or object that matches to “shake all about.” For example, place a toy dog, cat, and pig on the floor and sing “You put the “c-a-t” in, you put the “c-a-t” out….”

Now that I’ve just remembered singing this with Bear, I’m off to try it with J-jo!