English Counting-Out Chant · Elementary Music · Grades PreK–6
A classic English counting-out chant with a rattlesnake, a jelly cake, and one of the clearest demonstrations of anacrusis (pickup note) in the entire elementary repertoire — for every grade PreK through 6th.
English counting-out chant
About this chant
As I Was Walking Down the Lake is one of those rare pieces of repertoire that does something no amount of notation explanation can quite replicate: it makes the anacrusis (pickup note) completely physical and visible.
When you use this chant as a counting-out rhyme, you cannot point to a child until the strong beat arrives on "I." Your hand must go up on the word "As" — the anacrusis — and then land on someone on "I." Students see and feel this in their bodies before they ever encounter it on a page. The pickup note stops being an abstract concept and becomes something they've already done dozens of times.
The chant also layers beautifully with other counting-out chants. Use "Red White and Blue" as the steady beat layer, add "As I Was Walking Down the Lake" on top, then add "Doggy Doggy Diamond" for even more rhythmic complexity. This layering approach turns three simple chants into a rich, genuinely challenging ensemble activity — the same technique you'll hear in Deborah's video on Red White and Blue.
And of course, the chant is simply funny. A rattlesnake eating jelly cake until its belly aches is an image children find irresistible. The silliness keeps them engaged through as many repetitions as you need to do the teaching work.
Teaching guide
The complete video demonstration is available inside a Singing Classroom subscription.
Like any counting-out chant, this is ideal any time you need to select one child for an individual turn — especially when you know you won't have time to give everyone a turn that day. The randomness of a counting-out rhyme feels fair to most children. Even older students are charmed by it if you use it occasionally rather than every class.
Once the chant is well known, use it explicitly to teach the pickup note. Point to children one at a time on the beat. Draw students' attention to your hand: it goes up on "As" (the anacrusis) and lands on someone on "I" (the first strong beat). You cannot point until the strong beat — so your hand must be in the air before it. That's the anacrusis. The physical demonstration is far more effective than any notation explanation.
Have half the class keep a steady beat while the other half claps the rhythm of the chant. The two-eighth anacrusis ("As I") falls between beats, which becomes immediately audible when layered against steady beat patting. This is one of the clearest physical demonstrations of how a pickup note works — it happens before the beat, not on it.
Divide the class into three groups. Group 1 chants "Red White and Blue" on percussion instruments — this becomes the steady beat layer. Group 2 adds "As I Was Walking Down the Lake." Group 3 adds "Doggy Doggy Diamond." The three rhythms layer into a rich, complex texture. Rotate groups so everyone experiences all three parts. See Deborah's Red White and Blue video for a demonstration of the combined layers.
Extension activities
Once students have felt the anacrusis physically through the chant, show them how it looks in notation. The "As I" at the opening sits before the first bar line — there's no full measure before the first strong beat. Students who have done the pointing activity recognize this immediately: "That's where the hand goes up!" The connection between body experience and notation is instant.
After experiencing anacrusis in this chant, send students on a search through other songs they know. "Happy Birthday" is the classic example — the "Hap-" is a pickup. So is "Oh" in Oh Row the Rattlin' Bog. Students who understand the concept in their bodies find it everywhere once they know what to look for.
Have students play the rhythm of the chant on unpitched percussion while another group keeps steady beat. The anacrusis becomes especially audible when the rhythm is played on a drum against a woodblock steady beat. The two-eighth pickup ("As I") stands out clearly between beats — easier to hear on instruments than when everyone is chanting together.
Red White and Blue is the ideal steady beat companion for this chant — the rhythm of "Red, White, and Blue" falls squarely on the beat, making it the perfect anchor layer. Once students can maintain their own part while hearing "As I Was Walking Down the Lake" on top, they've internalized the difference between beat and rhythm in a genuinely musical context.
More counting-out chants
The classic counting-out chant with tiri-tiri rhythm and AA form — ideal as the third layer in the rhythm-stacking activity.
See teaching guide →A railroad counting-out chant with multiple game versions — steady beat, quarter and eighth notes, and a great train whistle ending.
See teaching guide →The classic counting-out chant with tiri-ti rhythm and a mental math element that older students quickly exploit.
See teaching guide →Common questions
The full chant is: "As I was walking down the lake / I met a little rattlesnake / I gave him so much jelly cake / It made his little belly ache / One, two — out goes you." The complete lyrics are on this page above. The chant ends with a counting-out finale: "One, two — out goes you" selects or eliminates whoever is pointed to on "you."
Anacrusis (also called a pickup note or upbeat) is one or more notes that occur before the first strong beat of a phrase. In this chant, "As I" is the anacrusis — the chant begins with those two eighth notes before the first strong beat lands on "was." When you use the chant as a counting-out rhyme, you physically demonstrate this: your pointing hand goes up on "As" and must land on someone on "was." The hand cannot land until the strong beat arrives — so the anacrusis becomes visible and physical before it ever appears in notation.
PreK through 6th grade. Younger students use it as a simple counting-out chant and for steady beat. The anacrusis teaching is best introduced around 2nd–3rd grade, when students are ready to work with rhythm notation and the concept of beat vs. rhythm. The layering activity works well from 2nd grade up, and the notation analysis is most appropriate for 4th grade and up.
Divide the class into three groups. Group 1 performs "Red White and Blue" on percussion instruments — this is the steady beat anchor. Group 2 adds "As I Was Walking Down the Lake" on top. Group 3 adds "Doggy Doggy Diamond" as a third layer. The three rhythms together create a complex, satisfying texture. Rotate groups so every student experiences all three parts. Start with just two layers before adding the third — the transition from two to three layers is a moment students find genuinely exciting.
Yes — the chant is from the English folk tradition and was collected as part of the oral tradition of children's playground rhymes. Like many counting-out chants, it spread through oral transmission among children and exists in slight variants. The rattlesnake and jelly cake imagery has a distinctly playful, nonsense quality typical of English nursery rhymes. It's worth a brief cultural conversation with older students: rattlesnakes are native to North America, not England — how did a rattlesnake end up in an English chant? No one knows for certain, which makes it a fun historical puzzle.
The real problem
Every teacher knows this feeling. You find a song, try it on Monday, and something goes sideways — the kids don't engage, you're not sure how to introduce it, the lesson loses momentum. It's not that the song was wrong. You just didn't have a clear picture of how it actually goes.
That's what makes The Singing Classroom different. Every song in the library, including this one, is demonstrated on video, either by Deborah walking you through how to teach it or by the bunnies animation of the game, and many songs have both. You don't have to guess how to introduce it, how to structure the activity, or how to handle the tricky moments. You watch it. Then you teach it.
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