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�鶹������ҳ��� Teach > School Radio > EYFS > Listen and Play > Traditional Tales

Liz Kitchen returns with more songs, rhymes and listening games to join in with and a traditional African story called ‘Who’s in Hippo’s house?’

Suggestions for classroom use

Introduction:
Listen all around: traditional African drums, sounds of insects. Individual sounds: tree frogs, lion, hippopotamus.

Song:
ONE big hippo balancing,
Step by step on a slippery log.
He thought it such tremendous fun
He called for another hippo to come.

TWO big hippos balancing,
Step by step on a slippery log.
They thought it such tremendous fun
They called for another hippo to come.

THREE big hippos balancing…

FOUR big hippos balancing…

FIVE big hippos balancing,
Step by step on a slippery rock;
But all of a sudden, they fell in the mud
And down came all the hippos with a great big thud!

Count on fingers and move hand to show the hippos balancing. When the song is familiar, practise miming a hippo balancing on a rock, then put children in groups of five and let them act it out while singing.

Rhyme time:
A zebra makes a very strange sound
Whoop whoop whoop whoop
As it crosses the groundIts body is striped black and white
A zebra is a very strange sight.

Invent further verses, e.g.
*An elephant makes a very strange sound
Trumpet, trumpet
As it crosses the ground
Its body is big and its skin is grey
And it swings its trunk all night and day. *

A hippo likes to splish and splash
He wades in the mud and wallows in his bath
He can walk underwater along the river bed
With water above and over his head
He really is an amazing fellow
All day long he loves to wallow!

Story time: Who’s in Hippo’s House?
To hold attention on first hearing, show appropriate pictures for the animals. Use art, drama, hot-seating to familiarise children with the story. Make up actions to use on repeated hearings and encourage them to join in until they can retell it.

Small group discussion:

• Africa – what do the children know/remember about it?
• What do they know about hippos, zebras, lions?
• What do they know about different animals’ “houses” (habitats) – who lives underground, in water, up trees, in caves, in forests?

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