Head and Shoulders Baby

A Music and Language Arts Lesson for Grades 1-4

I taught my daughter's third grade class Head and Shoulder's Baby and then we played the singing game to explore verbs and nouns. Here's a copy of the singing game played by my methods class back in Missouri followed by a lesson outline:

Overview
Participants will learn Head and Shoulders Baby and sing it in new ways to explore nouns and verbs.

Standards
Music (singing, non-locomotor movement, coordination)
Language Arts (nouns and verbs, creating lyrics)

Process

Teach the Song

• "While I sing the song, clap every time you hear 'baby'." Sing the song or watch the video.
• "Close. Let's try again." Sing the song again or watch the video again.
• Try one more time.
• Touch head and shoulders at the appropriate time.
• Try again.
• Change head and shoulders to knees and ankles and sing the song again.
• Try again.
• Learn the clapping pattern (with imaginary partners) slowly (baby, one-clap, two-clap, three) as in the video
• Add the hand clapping pattern (with imaginary partners) to entire song, head and shoulders and then knees and ankles
• Try it with real partners. Demonstrate first and then give students five or so minutes to practice it and then try it all together. 
• Teach the chorus (Ain't Been to Frisco) by singing sections of the song and having students repeat

On a subsequent day adapt the song as follows:

• Instead of head and shoulders, sing throw the ball and milk the cow (or some other action with a verb followed by a noun)
• Write the new lyrics on the board under the headings "verbs" and "nouns"
• Have the students choose new verbs and nouns to put in the song. Sing the song with the new lyrics.

By the way, Sophie's class absolutely loved this song and even chose to play it on the playground during recess.