THERE WERE TEN IN BED (SANDRA MARCOS)

 I've chosen the popular rhyme. "There were ten in bed" to performance a classroom show with little children.

It's a great way of introducing counting down and dramatization.
This popular rhyme involves a lot of memory skills and it's repetitive structure helps young children to learn the words quickly.
In the performance they move along using chairs instead of a bed and then roll off when it's their turn.
For the show I'm going to introduce a little musical ensemble for dramatizing the rhyme.
I will need:
Set of maracas and set of single bells.
One child will sing the "Roll over...roll over" part in the song .
A hand drum.
The children are divided into 2 sections:
-the children playing the maracas will sit together and those playing the bells will sit together in another area.
The child who sings "Roll over.." part will sit a little ways from the others.
Lastly the child who plays the drum will be in his/ her area.
I often play the drum myself the first time so that children hear when it is to be played.
The challenging part is that not all instruments play at the same time.
Sometimes only the maracas will play and sometimes only the bells.
Sometimes only the drum and sometimes no one will play when a child is singing Roll over..roll over.
The maraca section only plays on the first two lines of the song " there were ten in the bed...and the little one said" ( signal for musicians Stop)
Nobody plays when a child sings Roll over, roll over..
Then it's the bell section turn.
And one fell out ( signal for musicians Stop).
Everyone stops playing after the word out and only the drummer plays a little boom.
During the performance children can wear an animal mask.