BAT SONGS AND POEMS

   Thematic songs and poems for early childhood language and literacy development.  Suggested uses for the poems and songs are at the end of this page.

 

              The Bat              The Bat
Bats are creepy; bats are scary;

Bats do not seem sanitary;

Bats in dismal caves keep cozy;

Bats remind us of Lugosi;

Bats have webby wings that fold up;

Bats from ceilings hang down rolled up;

Bats are careful; bats use radar;

Bats at nighttime at their best are;

Bats by Batman unimpressed are!

        By:  Frank Jacobs

The Random House Book of Poetry for Children

 By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.

He likes the attic of an ageing house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.

His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the night.

Among the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against the screen,

We are afraid of what our eyes have seen.

For something is amiss or out of place,

When mice with wings can wear a human face.

    By:  Theodore Roethke

The Random House Book of Poetry for Children

     

                   Bats

                       Look up there around the tree

                                       Bats are flying gracefully.

                                Some are black and some are brown

                                     A few are hanging upside down.

                                          Bats flying in the night

                                         Hiding away at daylight.

                                                       

                                                           By:  Mrs. Alphabet

 

                                    Bat Song

           (Tune:  If You're Happy and You Know It)

 

             If you know bats are mammals clap your hands (XX)

                     If you know bats are not birds clap your hands (XX)

                        Some are black, gray or brown

                           With their wings they fly above the ground,

                          And they sleep in the day upside down (XX)

 

                                 Words By:  B. Sarah Froehlich

 

                         Bats Are Sleeping

                     

                    (Tune:  Are You Sleeping?)

 

                      Bats are sleeping, bats are sleeping,

                                         In a cave, in a tree,

                                     In winter they roost together,

                                      Waiting for warmer weather,

                                          Hibernate.  Hibernate.

  

                            Words:  B.Sarah Froehlich

                        

       Bats    Five Black Bats

    A bat's a most 

    Peculiar thing.

    A bat can fly.

    A bat has wings.

    It doesn't have feathers

    or build a nest.

    It hangs upside down

    in a cave to rest.

    Some bats use echoes

    To find their way.

    Some use their noses

    To go out and play.

    From all the facts

    it becomes very clear.

    That a bat is a mammal,

    Not a bird it appears.

 

        By Linda Holliman

 Five black bats ready to soar

One stayed behind, now ther are four.

Four black bats hanging from a tree;

One fell down, now there are three.

Three black bats wondering what to do,

One flew away and now there are two.

Two black bats sitting in the sun

One fell asleep leaving only one.

One lonesome bat, with no place to go,

Went hiding in a cave, Now there are zero.

   By Shel Silverstein

 

Suggestions... How to use poems and songs to develop phonemic

                  skills....

 

   All of my songs and poems are written on charts or sentence strips for pocket charts.  Pictures of some of my pocket charts can be found in the Back To School section of the Primary Nook web site.

 

    * Before introducing the poem or song, select specific phonetic skills to target for the mini-lesson.  Select different skills or language mechanics for each day that the poem or song is used in the unit.

 

    * Copy the poem or song on chart paper or sentence strips.  Add graphics to enhance the vocabulary.

 

    *  Read the poem while the students listen.  Set a purpose for the reading such as, "raise your hand each time you hear a rhyming word" or "listen and see if you can find out what colors bats can be."

 

     *  Choral read the poem each day.  Use the poem as a literacy center.  I have pointers for each unit based on the theme.  For bats and spiders, my pointers have a bat or spider on the end of the pointer. 

 

     *  Find word families in the poem. 

 

     *  Write the poem on sentence strips leaving out specific words.  The words can be word family words that rhyme.  See if students can guess the missing word.

 

     *  Use the poem format to rewrite a poem about bats..   Use the information that the students learned about bats in the unit.   An example may include:

 

               Bats are ___________________

 

               Bats can ____________________

 

               Bats live ___________________

 

               Bats are shy and gentle creatures.

 

 

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