September Music

 

We've finished up our first month of music fun! While every class is a little different, there are some things that I do with every class—including the Old Lady series of books. 

In September we sang There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books, and There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. I switch some of the words from the chorus section so the kids can sing along and do some silly motions.  For the Old Lady and the Fly, we all sing "I don't know why she swallowed that fly...Maybe she'll cry! WAAH! WAAH!" and do lots of pretend crying.  For the Old Lady and the Books, it's "I don't know why she swallowed those books...Can you give her a silly look?" Of course, we then all have to make really silly faces! Finally when the Old Lady swallows leaves, we pretend to sneeze (while practicing sneezing into our elbows so we learn not to spread germs!)

We also spent some time singing our September Bible story song "Who Built the Ark?"  After telling the story of Noah and the Ark, we sing the Noah song.  Here's the chorus:

Who built the ark? Noah! Noah!
Who built the ark? Brother Noah built the ark.
Old man Noah, he built the ark, he built it out of the hickory bark. (Here we pretend to use a hammer while building our own ark.) 
He built it long and wide and tall (We stretch our arms in all of these directions.)
For all of the animals, big and small! 
REPEAT

We read the book See You Later, Alligator! and practiced synchronizing our claps and counting to four as we sang our own version of the chant:

See you later, Alligator. (Clap, clap, clap, clap)
After while, Crocodile. (Clap, clap, clap, clap)
See you later, Alligator. (Clap, clap, clap, clap)
Make me smile, Crocodile! (Put a big smile on your face!)

In some classes we've read and sung various versions of The Gingerbread Man. The kids love to shake their fingers while chanting: 

Run, run, as fast as you can!
You can't catch me 'cause I'M the gingerbread man!

Some of our classes also sang and marched along to The Ants Go Marching. It was especially fun to march "Down to the ground, to get out of the rain, BOOM BOOM BOOM!" on music days when it was raining.

In October we'll share some Halloween songs and stories as well as the Bible story of Jonah and The Whale. . 

Stay tuned!