Chinese New Year Level: Key Stage 1 - Skills & games

What Shall We Do with A Chinese Dragon? (pulse, pitch)

This song uses the tune of What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?, which has such a good tune but is now thought to be unsuitable for use in school due to the associations with alcohol.

Teaching How to Keep in Time

The skill to be practised here is that of playing in time to accompany the song. First teach the son using the First Me, Then You method explained in the FAQs section. Once the song is known, the first step is to practise tapping the pulse on knees.

Teaching Which Notes to Play

If the children are new to playing instruments to accompany their singing, the activity will need careful explanation and modelling. The best instruments to use are individual chime bars because the children can concentrate just on the timing having too look carefully which notes to play. If you are using xylophones with removable bars, it helps to take off the bars not being used (be sure they are put back because they are easily lost).

Two notes are needed to accompany this song, D (for dragon) and C (for Chinese). D sounds right for most of the song but, for two phrases, it clashes with the tune and you need to change to C - see below which note to play when. Children do pick this up well if they have a visual cue and it need not be difficult to achieve - here, I’ve simply used little bears to show the pattern and the children latch onto it straight away.

• What shall we do with a Chinese dragon? (D)
• What shall we do with a Chinese dragon? (C)
• What shall we do with a Chinese dragon? (D)
• Early in the (C) morning (D)
• __
• Polish her scales and make them shiny (D)
• Polish her scales and make them shiny (C)
• Polish her scales and make them shiny (D)
• Early in the (C) morning (D)
• __
• Ask her what she'd like to eat for breakfast (D)
• Ask her what she'd like to eat for breakfast (C)
• Ask her what she'd like to eat for breakfast (D)
• Early in the (C) morning (D)
• ©Music-Playtime: Arts Enterprise Limited

Extension - Make up an intro (rhythm, pitch)

Help the children to make up an intro to each verse using just the notes D and A and some untuned percussion instruments, based on the word pattern of Here's a Chinese Dragon.

Cat and Mouse (rhythm, pulse)

This is a traditional Chinese children's chanting game for which you need a large space. One child is the Cat and one child is the Mouse. All the other children form a circle, holding hands, with the Mouse inside and the Cat outside.

Teach the chant first, making sure it sounds rhythmical. The children could first clap in time, before practising walking in time to it (most will find clapping in time easier than walking in time).

When the chant is known, the children circle round, chanting:

• What's the time?
• A quarter to nine
• What's the cat doing?
• She's ready to dine

When the rhyme stops, the children stop and the Cat starts to chase the Mouse, who weaves in and out of the ring of children. The Cat MUST follow the mouse's path. When the Cat catches the Mouse she can pretend to ‘eat’ him. Say the rhyme again as two more children take a turn.