Children can remember just about anything if they learn it in a song! I love to make up songs to help my students remember the names and beats of musical notes. Watch the videoto hear my Whole Note Song!
Learn the name and beat of the half note in a super easy song!
This chant is a super easy way to remember and learn the name and beat of a half note.
Half notes are musical notes that are held for 2 beats. They are white or not colored in, compared to the quarter note that is completely filled in black.
Children remember best if the words are clear and rhythmic.
Half note, two
Half note, two
One, two,
Half note, two!
Carolyn, at Wise Owl Factory, has a fun Free Do You Know Your Music Notes Power Point. This is a great way to practice the names and beats of the notes as well as seeing how all the notes compare with one another.
Musical Twister Hopscotch is another fun way to reinforce note names and beats. My students love playing it whenever we get a chance. They spin and have to tell the name and beat of the note the spinner lands on. Then they get to hop to the correct colored circle.
5 Little Turkeys is the perfect finger play to teach your children for Thanksgiving!
My students have been laughing at the turkey finger puppets that I made to go along with this finger play. They think the feathers look like a hat coming out of the turkeys' heads instead of tail feathers! Oh well!
We Sing About a Variety of Spiders in the Popular Children's Song
We are continuing with our Halloween theme this month for Finger Play Fun Day. Today's song is the very popular children's song - The Itsy Bitsy Spider. But in our version, a few other spiders come to visit too.
We have the Great Big Hairy Spider,
the Very Fast Spider and
the Very Slow Spider!
Children enjoy songs that they know but with a little twist. These variations help develop a bigger vocabulary, including opposites such as fast and slow, itsy bitsy and great big. I encourage you to be creative and make your own pairs of opposites!
Pumpkin and Jack-o-Lantern Finger Play for Halloween
Fall has arrived and Halloween is just around the corner!
Today's finger play "Oh, Once I Had a Pumpkin," is a wonderful song about turning a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern.
To make the song even more fun, I made a simple pumpkin out of orange felt. I also cut out 3 black triangles for 2 eyes and a nose and a funny mouth with teeth cut out.
I have been singing this in all of my classes for the last few weeks and the children love helping me make the jack-o-lantern. They take turns putting on the eyes, nose and mouth and then laugh at the funny face they made!
Today is Finger Play Fun Day and we are doing a children's song that everyone knows - The Alphabet Song!
But the reason I am featuring this well known children's song is to emphasize the sign language that can be taught to children as they sing the song.
Many children learn by doing an action with their body. Making finger signs for each letter helps them learn the alphabet that much quicker and easier.
All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in a Children's Song
Today, I have listed 10 skills that children can learn through a children's song. There are certainly more than 10 but I thought this was a great place to start. I actually wrote this post for Dandelion Magazine's Blog over at GoDandelion.com and hope you will go there to read the list of skills and song ideas.
Today's Finger Play Fun Day is a fun song with lots of animals sounds! The Good Day Song, is also known as When Cats Get Up in the Morning.
In the video I sing about a cat, a dog and a bee but you can sing about all kinds of animals and what they say when they get up in the morning. I used finger puppets but this is another great song for making hand signs for different animals.
After my girls and I sing about a bunch of animals, we often start putting family members' names in the verses and make up what each person says in the morning.
Summer vacation is over and school has begun. Fall and apple season is on the way!
The Apple Tree is the finger play for today's Finger Play Fun Day.
This is a simple finger play that my students always want to repeat and do again. I made some cute little apple finger puppets out of felt but these are not necessary for doing the finger play! Plain fingers do just as well.
Carolyn, at Wise Owl Factory, has created free worksheets: Counting Apples-Counting and Skip Counting. These are wonderful for children to practice counting by 2's and by 3's. One worksheet has the children circling apples and then going back and counting the groups. Another worksheet has the children filling in missing numbers.
Today's theme is all about the Tooth Fairy! The mysterious creature who comes at night to take our baby teeth and leaves money in it's place.
Loosing a tooth is an important passage that every child goes through. It seems every family has a different tradition concerning what and how much the tooth fairy leaves behind. But every child gets excited about the arrival of the tooth fairy.
There aren't many simple songs about the tooth fairy so I wrote and performed one that everyone can learn and sing.
Scientists say that hearing begins at 19-20 weeks
gestation.That means babies can hear
talking, singing, and musical instruments before they are even born!Singing songs lays groundwork for language
growth, reading, speaking and self-expression.The best advantage is the potential of music to convey feelings of love,
delight and security to baby and the ability to bond the family together. For
more advantages of music read The
Benefits of Music.
Nursery rhymes and lullabies are used in every corner of the
world to teach, calm and soothe babies.The repetition, rhyming words and stories in these songs teach babies
language skills, cultural history and beginning math.To learn more about how to use nursery rhymes
and children’s songs read Teach
Your Child Using Nursery Rhymes and Children’s Songs.
Listening and creating real music helps baby figure out his
place in space and time, organize his movements and gain control of his body.
Newborns:Sing
lullabies to your newborn baby.She will
not care what you sound like but she will be soothed and comforted by your
voice and the vibration you make while she lies on your chest.
Lullaby ideas:Rock a Bye Baby
Hush
Little Baby
Jesus
Loves Me
You
are My Sunshine
Angels
Watching Over Me
Amazing
Grace
Ready to Play:One of the best ways to engage little ones is through songs and finger
plays.You are teaching them about their
bodies and the world round them.
Finger play
ideas:This Little Piggy
1,
2, 3, 4, 5, I Caught a Fish Alive
Peek-a-Boo – not
technically a song but you do sing-song when you say “Peek-a-Boo” and that is
teaching pitch and timing!
Ready to Sing:These little ones are ready to join in the fun.There are great songs to help teach and
develop gross motor skills and body coordination.This is also a great time to make music using
big fat rhythm sticks, rattles and bells!
Movement
song ideas:Head, Shoulders, Knees and
Toes –even if they can’t stand yet, you can place their hands on the correct
body parts!
If You’re Happy and You Know It
BINGO
– substitute your child’s name and he will soon be spelling his own name!
Music comes so naturally to babies.Lullabies can calm and soothe.Songs and finger plays can teach and
entertain.And singing together will
show love and create wonderful memories.
Today, for Finger Play Fun Day we are going on a bear hunt!
Do you want to come too?
This song is a great way to enjoy music as a story. Each verse is another obstacle to get through to get to the bear. There are a lot of movements so this is a great one to sing when children need time to wiggle! This song also teaches sequencing as each verse is sung in order and at the end you have to go back through the obstacles from last to first. There are many different ways to sing this song. I put together my favorite verses and made up this version!
Carolyn, at Wise Owl Factory has done a great post with a review of the fun bookWe're Going on a Bear Huntby Michael Rosen. Check out the wonderful free PDF and free PPT she has made to go along with the song.
.jpg "Rock - a - Bye Rests - Learn the Names of Musical Rests")
.jpg "Learn About the Whole Note with an Easy and Fun Song")
.jpg "Easy Half Note Chant")
.jpg "Finger Play Fun Day: The Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Great Big Hairy Spider")
.jpg "Finger Play Fun Day: Tres Colores")
.jpg "Finger Play Fun Day: The Good Day Song")
.jpg "Finger Play Fun Day: The Apple Tree")
+(2).jpg "Finger Play Fun Day: Do You Know the Tooth Fairy?")
.jpg "Finger Play Fun Day: Going on a Bear Hunt")
Carolyn, at Wise Owl Factory has done a great post with a review of the fun book We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. Check out the wonderful free PDF and free PPT she has made to go along with the song.
