Issue 2: Songs for the New School Year – Keystage 1

I’ve chosen a few of my favourite Keystage1 songs from the Singup website.  These have all been very popular with the children I work with, and provide plenty of scope for actions or using school percussion.  I have used a number of these songs with year 3 and 4 as well.

Here’s the website link: www.singup.org

If you haven’t tried it yet, go now!  It is choc-a-bloc with goodies; songs, warm-ups, teaching hints, associated activities and all for free.

My dog is a good dog – very quick to learn, great for adding actions.  It is the same tune as the children’s gospel song “My God is a good God”.

A B-U-G – fun song about where bugs hide in the house and garden.

Sunshine in my heart – cheerful song about sunshine and friends.  Again, good for actions, and you could easily add percussion to the different sections of the song.

Kye kye kule – “Listen and copy” song.  Add rhythmic actions to each line (pat head, pat shoulders, etc).

John Kanakanaka – Call and response song.  Try adding some simple partner dance movements; stamp on “John”, pat alternate knees on each syllable of “Kanakanaka” , clap hands on “Too li” and clap partner’s hands on final “ay”.  If I am feeling brave we do a “dos-y-dos” with our partner on the first and third lines (the calls), and we might make up our own calls to replace the original lines of the song.

Going over the sea (this way, that way) – very rhythmic song with ten verses “when I was one we had some fun, the day I went to sea” etc.  You can invite children to make up their own rhymes to replace 1-fun, 2-shoe 3-knee, etc – but be alert and ready to deal with the more “lavatorial” offerings for rhymes with two and three!

Tingalayo – great song about a naughty donkey.  The Singup version is slightly different to the Music Express and Junior Voiceworks versions that I am more familiar with, but has two verses that I hadn’t heard before and will be using in future.

 

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