What’s in your Bag? (stationery song)

Gestures and activities to use with the “What’s in your Bag?” song

There is a great activity to go with this song.

• before class, prepare enough bags of stationery (with all the objects in the song) so that each student has a bag.  It may be easier if you tell your students (or their parents) what to bring in the preceding class – though have plenty of spares for students who forget.  For the bags, simple supermarket bags are fine.
• play the song and have students listen and take out each item of stationery as it is sung and place the items on their desk in the correct order (you can check by using the song poster).  This can be quite challenging, but good fun!  You may want to play the song two or three times to give everyone a chance of getting the correct order.

Using the “What’s in your Bag?” song in class

This is a great song for learning different classroom stationery.

Preparation: before class, prepare enough bags of stationery (with all the objects in the song: pencil, pen, book, glue, crayons, ruler, eraser (GB: rubber), scissors, pencil case, stapler, pencil sharpener, tape) so that each student has a bag.  It may be easier if you tell your students (or their parents) what to bring in the preceding class – though have plenty of spares for students who forget.  For the bags, simple supermarket bags are fine.

NOTE: if you don’t have enough stationery items for everyone you can use flashcards in a bag instead

1. Introduce the vocab: Have everyone sit so they can see the table you are going to use.  Before class, put the following stationery items in a bag: pencil, pen, book, glue, crayon, ruler, eraser (GB: rubber), scissors, pencil case, stapler, pencil sharpener, tape.  First, hold up the bag and teach / elicit and chorus the word “bag”.  Then take out the first item from the bag (e.g. a pencil) and elicit / teach and chorus the word.  Place that object on the table.  Do the same for all the objects, each time placing them in a line on the table.

   When all the items are on the table, point to each in turn and elicit the item.

2. Play “What’s Missing?”.  Tell everyone to close and cover their eyes.  Take away an item from the table and hide it behind your back.  Then say “Open your eyes”.  Point to the missing space on the table and encourage everyone to shout out the missing item.  Keep playing until you have practiced every word.

3. Play “Bring me the item”. Pick up all of the items from the table and place them around the room.  Then select a student and say “Bring me the (scissors)” – that student will have to stand up, locate the object and bring it to you (dropping into your bag).  Do this for all the objects, each time selecting a different student.  For a challenge, you can have everyone close and cover their eyes as you put the objects around the room.

   Next, put students in pairs.  Each pair should have one bag of the stationery objects between them.  One of the students should place different items around the room and then ask his/her partner to collect each item and place into his/her bag using the structures:

   • “Bring me the (tape), please.”
   • “Put it into my bag.”
   • “Thank you.”

   When the bag is full, the students can change roles.

4. Sing the “What’s in your Bag?” song. By now your students will be ready for the song.  Make sure everyone has a bag full of the items from the song.  Explain that they have to listen carefully and take out each item in the order of the items in the song – and place them in a line, in the correct order, on their desk.  Play the song and then check the order of everyone’s items after the song has finished (you can use the song poster for this).  You may want to do this activity 2 or even three times until everyone can get the order right.
5. Play “Object Swap”.  By the end of the song activity, everyone will have their stationery objects in front of them, on their desks.  We are going to mix them all up amongst the students and then everyone will have to find their objects again!

   Start by saying to one student, “Collect the (pencils) and give everybody a different pencil.”.  Do the same for all of the objects (using different student to distribute them), so by the end everyone has a bag full of stationery which isn’t theirs.

   Everybody now has to find their own stationery.  Get everyone to stand up and mingle, using the structure:

   • “Do you have my (pencil)?”
     

   As everyone mingles they have to swap their objects (each student cannot have two or more of any one item) and continue until their bag is full of their own items.

6. Do the “Classroom Stationery Match-up” worksheet. Give out the worksheets and have everyone color, read and write the words for each object.  Circulate as everyone is working away, and ask lots of questions (e.g. What’s this?, What color is this?, Do you have a (pen)?, etc.).
7. Set Homework: For homework, give out the “Stationery Matchup 3” worksheet.