Whether the craze is done or not is probably up for debate, but it's tough denying that those Beanie Babies are cute, cuddly, and sometimes, almost realistic! What a great teaching tool to use with the kinder set! They know Beanies anyway and could probably rattle off the names of each species! Beanies are a great ice breaker to use with the extra-shy youngster, and can make the imagination explode.

Artie Almeida is chock-full of ideas on using Beanies, or any stuffed toys:
"I always try to do at least 5 or 10 minutes of steady beat activities in each k-2 lesson, and beat buddies really appeal to the kids. I asked for donations of stuffed toys in the school newsletter and some fun ones were brought in! Whales, snakes, Disney characters, vultures, etc. The kids love them.

I take the big beat buddy box and dump it out in the middle of the circle, then let a few kids at a time pick their beat buddy (call them by clothing colors, hair color, birth month, pets they own, whatever). I'll use the buddies 3 or 4 times throughout the year.

We bounce them on our laps and sing nursery rhymes, or chant poems. Simple stuff is best, like Frere Jaques or Row Row Row Your Buddy (boat). Cobbler, Cobbler and To Market, to Market work well. When you do nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty, let the beat buddies take the tumble for fun. There's also a little parody of Frere in one of the Wee Sing collections "Walking, walking, walking, walking, hop, hop, hop. Hop, hop, hop. Running, running, running, running,running, running, now we stop (rest) Now we stop(rest). We stand up in the circle and do that one with our beat buddies in our hands.

They like to sing Rock a Bye Baby to their buddies, even the little boys. If they get rowdy, or unkind
to their buddies I take it until they remember their manners. Taking one instantly insures good treatment by all of the other kids - and I return it to the offender in about 2 minutes. :)

When we use them as melody buddies, we show the melody direction with our buddies. For instance, in mi-re-do songs like Hot Cross Buns, or Mary's Lamb, we put them on our head for each mi, our shoulders for each re, and our laps for each do. We'll sing Do-a-Deer and move them up and down in front of us. Teddy Bear
(with its repeating 5-5-3, 5-5-3 pattern works great, and so Twinkle. We add our own bodies on the repeats, showing the direction with our buddies in our hands.

One of their favorites is singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider and they sing whatever their buddy is. Ex -
The Itsy Bitsy Penguin . . . etc. This is also a good solo opportunity. One child brings his beat buddy up front and he sings the first line as a solo "The itsy bitsy doggie went up the water spout - the whole class sings the next two lines (down came the rain . . . out came the sun . .) then the soloist finishes the song with "and the itsy bitsy doggie went up the spout again." The soloist dramatizes the verse with their buddy up in front of the class. I usually pick 3 or 4 soloist each time we get the buddies out."

You can also use Beanies in conjunction with children's literature used in the music classroom: for example: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, The Cat Came Back, or any other book that uses animals.

In a take-off of "Apple Tree, Apple Tree, will your apple fall on me?", my students enjoy passing around the Beanies and getting extremely silly. Piggy tree, piggy tree, will your piggy fall on me?" Why not use any beanbag activity and improvise with animal names and animal sounds?

There are many, many children's songs that use animals, as Artie mentioned. Some others:
"Monkey Sits in the Coconut Tree" (available from Vol.4, No. 5of the Music K-8 Magazine).
"Going to the Zoo" (found in Silver-Burdett and McMillan series both. Both of these also have a multitude of other animal songs)

At the beginning of the year, many teachers use puppets to "sing" for the kids, to help them introduce themselves, etc. This can also be done with Beanies. Let the Beanies "speak" for the child. Again, this helps the shy kids gain confidence.

We'd love to hear other Beanie/stuffed toy ideas that you might have! Please let us know how you've used them with your kinder set!