Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches… There is a certain part of my childhood where I practically lived off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They evoke the feelings of warm, sunny days when I would make my own lunch (usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with fruit, potato chips, or whatever else we had around the house) and disappear to the park with my friends for the entire day. There was a period where my brother basically refused to eat anything other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! If you ask him, he will get mad and deny it… Nowadays in America, many kids have severe allergies and peanut butter has been banned from schools, but for a lot of kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are still an important childhood comfort food, maybe along the lines of onigiri in Japan.
 
My preschool students who are studying WELCOME to Learning World PINK absolutely LOVE the Student CD. They listen to it in the car all the time. They (and their younger siblings) know all of the songs from the book long before we ever “play with” them in class. They especially love the Peanut Butter and Jelly song which is in Unit 8. It’s a real favorite. And it is even more fun for the students because the final activity with the song is making real peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! None of them had had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before, so they really looked forward to this.
 
 
The first thing we did was to sing the song using gestures. We used gestures almost like in the sample video.
 

 
The kids loved singing the song with the gestures!
 
The next thing is that I like to take the gestures a step further. I make a set of “bread”, “peanut butter”, and “jelly” for each of the kids. My teacher’s set is laminated for longer use, but the students’ sets are not. To make them, I print the sheets on paper, use “tape nori” on one half, fold the paper in half so the sides line up, and cut out the parts.
 
Peanut Butter and Jelly PDF
 
Following the lines of the song, students:

1. Pick up the peanut butter and make the crushing gesture.
2. Pick up the jelly and make the squashing gesture.
3. Pick up one piece of bread, put the peanut butter on it, and make the spreading gesture.
   Pick up the other piece of bread, put the jelly on it, and make the spreading gesture.
4. Put the pieces of bread together with the peanut butter and jelly in the middle.
5. Pretend to eat their sandwich.

 
The students had a lot of fun with this. But the next part was even more fun! Using skinny sandwich bread, we made real peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. With the song playing on repeat in the background, we made sandwiches. When the verse for the step we were on played, I would emphasize it and the students would say it. They were very happy to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a glass of milk.
 

 
We also used language like:

• Bread, please. Peanut butter, please. Jelly, please. Milk, please.
• Thank you.
• Can I have more?
• It was good. It was yummy.

 
This is one of my favorite lessons because it is really fun for the students, they get to really use the language and do something with it. Also, it is fun for me to share a bit of my childhood with them. They can get a bit of American culture.
 
** I did make sure to ask the moms about food allergies and make sure it was okay to feed them in the couple of weeks before the lesson with food.