Dumb Ways to Die - Video Lesson Plans for Teachers



Dumb Ways to Die

Teacher's notes

The song is divided into four sections with different activities:

Section One

Dictate the following list of animals (students working individually):

• piranha

• grizzly bear

• rattlesnake

• moose

• wasp

Students get together in small groups and compare their spellings and their definitions of the animals.

Show them the list so they can check (you can show any animals they're not sure about on Google Images).

Tell students that they are going to listen to something. Ask the groups to predict what they think it is (don't tell them it's a song!) and write their predictions on the board.

Now show them the following table where the endings don't match the beginnings and get them to match beginnings and endings. (There's a bigger version of the table to project or print at the end of these instructions)

|Set fire |at a grizzly bear |

|Poke a stick |that's out of date |

|Eat medicine |as piranha bait |

|Use your private parts |to your hair |

Play the first verse of the song without lyrics to hear the correct answer but stop just before the chorus!

Now check the answer and see if anyone's original prediction above was correct.

Ask what they think the song title is and write down predictions again.

Section Two

Write down (or project the larger version at the end of these instructions) the following beginnings from the next verse:

Get your toast out with a ___________

Do your own ___________work

Teach yourself how to ___________

Eat a two week old unrefrigerated ___________

Remind them that the song has an AABB rhyming pattern and give them a few minutes to guess the missing words.

Then play the song from the beginning of this second verse until the end of the chorus that follows it.

Check answers to see if they guessed correctly.

This is also the time to elicit the name of the song and check it against their predictions on the board.

Section Three

Show the mosaic and explain that from right to left, the images are in their corresponding pairs. Each pair of images represents a line in a verse but they're quite, and in some cases, very cryptic. Can students predict any of the ways to die from the images? Give them about 10m to work on this and then another 5m for all the groups to compare suggestions before listening.

Now play the song as far as, and including, the line “Disturb a nest of wasps for no good reason”. Students listen without writing and then discuss what they've seen and whether any of their ideas were correct.

Now get them to listen again to the same section and then try and write down as many of the lines as they could make out.

Now play the version of the video with lyrics so students can check.

Section Four

Tell students that they still haven't heard the last few lines, which will reveal the true message behind the song. Tell them it was written for an advertising campaign. Before listening, ask them to guess who and what it was for.

Play the last part of the song and ask students for the real answer to the question above. And can they remember the lines for the last three “dumbest ways to die”?

Finally, draw students’ attention to the dance routine for the chorus. Get everyone to stand up and practice for a couple of minutes.

Now, still standing up, we're going to do the official karaoke version, singing along and doing the dance routine whenever there's a chorus.

Finally, send them the Wikipedia link to read at home, which explains the whole process behind the creation of the song and how it went viral.

Dumb ways to die

Set fire to your hair

Poke a stick at a grizzly bear

Eat medicine that’s out of date

Use your private parts as piranha bait

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die, dumb ways to di-i-i-ie, so many dumb ways to die

Get your toast out with a fork

Do your own electrical work

Teach yourself how to fly

Eat a two week old unrefrigerated pie

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die, dumb ways to di-i-i-ie, so many dumb ways to die

Invite a psycho-killer inside

Scratch a drug dealer’s brand new ride

Take your helmet off in outer space

Use your clothes dryer as a hiding place

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die, dumb ways to di-i-i-ie, so many dumb ways to die

Keep a rattlesnake as a pet

Sell both your kidneys on the internet

Eat a tube of superglue

“I wonder what’s this red button do?”

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die, dumb ways to di-i-i-ie, so many dumb ways to die

Dress up like a moose during hunting season

Disturb a nest of wasps for no good reason

Stand on the edge of a train station platform

Drive around the boom gates at a level crossing

Run across the tracks between the platforms

They may not rhyme but they’re quite possibly

The dumbest ways to die

The dumbest ways to die

The dumbest ways to di-i-i-ie

So many dumb

So many dumb ways to die

"Be safe around trains. A message from Metro."

Large versions to print or project:

|Set fire |at a grizzly bear |

|Poke a stick |that's out of date |

|Eat medicine |as piranha bait |

|Use your private parts |to your hair |

Get your toast out with a ________

Do your own ________work

Teach yourself how to ________

Eat a two week old unrefrigerated ________

Video of song without lyrics:

Video of song with lyrics :

Official Karaoke version on Youtube:

Wikipedia entry:

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