The hello song

Lyrics:

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Hello, hello,
How are you today?

I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Gestures and activities to use with The hello song

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

• Wave as you sing the “Hello, hello” parts.
• Gesture to others as you sing, “How are you today?”
• Point to yourself as you sing, “I’m fine, thank you”
• Hand gesture towards another student as you sing, “And how about you?”.

Using The hello song in class

Use the song each lesson as the warm up to the class.  Here is a suggested warm up routine which you can use in each of your young learners’ classes:

1. Greetings: Greet your students by name as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down. It’s a good idea to have a cushion for each student (and parent if also taking part) as this makes sitting arrangements easy to organize. Try and arrange the cushions beforehand spaced out in a fan-shape around you.
2. Name tags: Before class prepare some name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) with each student’s name written on in lower-case letters. Sit down with your students and lay out the name tags in front of you. Pick up each tag and call out the name. Try and encourage each student to put their hand up and say, “Yes”. Hand over the tags and help to pin / stick on.  Later on as your students recognize their written names you can have each student in turn pick out their own name tag.
3. Glove puppet greetings: Use a glove puppet (such as a Sesame Street puppet) to greet the students. Keep him in a cloth bag. Bring out the bag, open it enough to see in and shout into the bag the puppet’s name (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Then move your ear to the opening to listen – nothing. Go to each student and encourage them to shout the puppet’s name into the bag – each time nothing happens. Finally, get all the students together to shout the name at the same time. This time the puppet wakes up and jumps out of the bag! The puppet then chats to each students: “Hello”, “What’s your name?” “Goodbye / See you” before going back into the bag and back to sleep. In later lessons (as the students learn the words to the Hello Song) you can practice using the target vocab via conversations between the puppet and each student (E.g. Puppet: Hello, how are you today?  Student: I’m fine, thank you.  And how about you?”).
4. Sing “The hello song” (or a review song): Sit in a circle and sing along to the song. Encourage students to clap along, pat their laps or use gestures in time with the music. The hello song is a good song to start the lesson with, especially as it has an accompanying Goodbye song to sing at the end of the lesson.
5. Homework check: Check each student’s homework set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “What color is it?”), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker or a stamp – I draw a smiley face). Tell your students to put their homework back into their bags.
6. Do “Exercise routine” activity: Say the following and have the students follow your lead: “Stand up (teacher stands and so does everyone else), “Hands up / hands down” (x 3-5), “Jump” (x3-5), “Run! / Stop!” (x3-5), “Turn around! / Stop!” (x3-5), finally “Sit down”. Throughout the course you can introduce other commands, such as “Hop”, “Star Jump”, “Wiggle”, “Crouch” and so on. Extra activity: Once your students have got to know these exercises you can play “Teacher says” using these actions.
7. Review past lesson vocab / structures / games / songs / etc.: Reviewing past lessons is very important – students need constant practice of new vocab, structures, songs, games and so on. Always review your last lesson as well as some parts from other previous lessons. You can spend 5-10 minutes reviewing – it’s fine to recycle games and activities from your past lessons to review as kids enjoy playing familiar games (although be careful not to play a game to death).