During this past school year, I had so much fun being the music docent in my daughter’s kindergarten class. We had a great time singing together, listening to some orchestra music, learning the names of instruments, and dancing. Since many of the songs listed in our kindergarten music curriculum were familiar songs that most of the kids already knew, I needed some fun ways to make these songs interesting. We made up our own hand movements, sang them faster and slower, and added in our own rhythms with shakers and bells. But, their *most* favorite thing of all was changing the words, especially if we could use their names! Here are some of the songs we enjoyed “personalizing”:
Mary Had a Little Lamb: Natalie had a little cat, little cat, little cat. Natalie had a little cat, with fur as black as night.
Old MacDonald Had a Farm: We changed habitats for this one – Old MacDonald had a jungle/ocean/forest/etc.
If You’re Happy and You Know It: Sing about all different emotions – I loved seeing what the kids could come up with for a movement or facial expression for each emotion!
The Bear Went Over the Mountain: In the traditional version, all the bear sees is the other side of the mountain. In our version, he saw pink dragons, giant trash cans, rainbow flowers, and piles of donuts! A friendly pink dragon, a friendly pink dragon, a friendly pink dragon was all that he could see.
We also listened to some songs that were fun spin-offs of songs we knew, or lended themselves well to our creative lyric-writing:
Cluck, Cluck Red Hen by Raffi (think Baa, Baa Black Sheep)
Old MacDonald Had a Band by Raffi
Laurie’s Got a Pig on Her Head – Laurie Berkner
I Love My Rooster – Laurie Berkner
Aikendrum by Raffi
And, for really nice versions of many children’s classics, try Kids’ Club – Family Songbook. I downloaded it from iTunes and we have been enjoying it!
What songs do you like to sing with your kids?
Happy singing!
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I love these ideas. My daughter always appreciates changing the words to songs
We are currently loving any old timy folk songs by Dan Zanes and we want to learn all the words to Lisa Loeb’s new CD Camp Lisa (all the proceeds of this one go to help create scholarships for kids who have trouble affording summer camp). Our favorite song is I’m Going Away and that is followed by Disappointing Pancake.
Our current favourite is the B-I-N-G-O song. We substitute each child’s name. Just added my youngest to the mix for the first time. Kids love hearing their name.
How fun! My 18 month old is really into singing lately. She looks at me with wonderment and awe any time I sing a new song.
We sing a little of everything, but my 4 year old now loves the Baby Bumblebee song. And we have fun making up different words to it.
I love to do this! There is a great book called “If You’re Angry and You Know It”. I got it through Scholastic, can’t remember the author’s name and it’s in my daughter’s room where she is sleeping- sorry. It gives options for things to do when you are angry, “If your angry… stomp your feet, bang a drum, tell someone, take deep breaths, etc. The end states that then you’ll feel better. It’s a good one!