10 Preschool Transitions
Preschoolers LOVE music. They enjoy moving, making sounds, and singing! There’s something about music that draws them in and points their attention at whoever is making music.
A few summers ago, I took a class on early childhood transitions with a lot of preschool teachers. The course was designed to help teachers plan out an effective schedule and transitions to help decrease the number of behavior issues that happen throughout the preschool day. After taking the class, I was inspired to write more songs and transitions for preschool teachers and homeschoolers to use.
What are Transitions
First of all, what is a transition? A transition is something that helps moves children from one activity to another. An example would be from lesson time to story time or clean up time to snack time. Transitions can be rhythmic chants, songs, or short stories. It is super important to have these transitions as a classroom teacher. Whenever you have dead time, that’s when the behavior problems start happening! (Am I right fellow teachers?!) Something I really love about transitions is that it introduces kids to music, rhythm, and rhyming. You do not need to be a great singer to use these at home! Just try your best and your child will love it! 🙂
10 Preschool Transitions
Today I’m going to be sharing with you 10 transition songs and chants to help your preschool day run smoothly.
Wiggle Your Fingers, Stomp Your Feet!
This chant is great for helping a child get their wiggles out and ready to focus on school!
Do You Know What Time it Is?
This is a great song for practicing time! Maybe if you’re transitioning from playtime to school time, then you would sing this song to signal that school is starting.
Movement SongÂ
This is a happy song to sing anytime during the day! It’s also wonderful for talking about emotions and getting the wiggles out!
Clean Up Songs
Here are 2 songs that are fun to sing when its time to clean up!
Color Song
I love this song for practicing colors! It’s also excellent for learning to follow directions.
This is the Way I Move!
This is a wonderful way to get your child moving and exercising while singing!
Finger on Your Lips
I use this song when I want my students to be quiet and listen.
Little Wiggle
This is a perfect chant to help get the wiggles out! And we all know that preschoolers need that!
Washing Hands Song
Here is a simple song to sing while washing hands!
Criss Cross Applesauce
Check out this chant to help students sit down quietly.
Try them out and see if these transition activities make a difference in your classroom!
Free Printable
If you’d like to download this printable and start using it with your students right away, just fill out the form below! The printable will be sent to your inbox.
Video
To hear the songs and chants, check out my video below!
Frequently Asked Questions
Start by telling your students that you are going to teach them a new song. Sing it a couple times and invite students to start singing it with you. It may take a few times for them to catch on but they will!
Under the title of the song, it says what tune it is. They are all well-known nursery rhymes or folksongs. You can look it up on YouTube if you aren’t familiar with the tune. I hope to make audio versions of each song in the future!
I only have the one video included in this blog post. I also hope to make these songs into videos soon.
I am student teaching and transitions were giving me trouble, I can’t wait to try these!
Great!! I hope they work well for you!
This is Christina from the Howling Horn. Thanks for the great songs. I used them during my letter “C” week for cleaning songs. I used the washing your hands song and tidy up. They are great way to make cleaning up fun! I talked about them on my blog and shared your page with my followers. http://howlinghorn.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-week-of-letter-c_4.html
I Love It!!!!! Thank You.
Your ideas are wonderful. thanks for sharing them! I am a preschool teacher of 27 years and it is great to find new ideas.
Songs help with so many things. We often sing them on our way to school (a new school) to help keep the crying at bay. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Carrie recently posted…Flamingo Friday–Paper Plate Flamingos
Breaking out into song for ANY age is great and helpful. 🙂 Love this.
Jolanthe recently posted…Constitution Day Printables – Free Printables
Oh these are awesome!!!! Thank you for posting!
Kali @ For the Love of Spanish recently posted…Bilingual Tot School–24 months
Thank you so much!
Oh my goodness, these are great! I am starting a new job at a preschool and these will be so helpful to transition kids! Love it!
Thank you for sharing at our Pinning for Play link party!
Thank you, they are amazing
These are all amazing!!! I just printed and put my in a binder — thank you 🙂 I’m sharing on my FB page 🙂 Have a beautiful weekend!!
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Brilliant, I will be trying all of these. My kids are adopted and ANY transition, however little is difficult and I am always looking for easy ways of moving along. I can’t wait til my cheeky six year old boy finds his own rhyme for ‘finger on your shoe’. Just a matter of time.
Thanks, Gina! I am so happy to hear this will help you out. 🙂
Thank you so much for these. I love them! Here is another that I hope you will add to the list. http://grandmatimes.com/2017/01/20/just-walking-along-singing-a-song-kids-activity/