The site is developed by Sara Mullett, who has 15 years of experience teaching kid’s music classes. There are over 150 songs on the site, and for each, she includes lyrics, sheet music, videos of her playing the tune on a xylophone, circle time ideas including puppets, movement games, etc.
You can also follow her page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/personalisedlullaby, where she shares her own posts and also puts links to other helpful resources on the web.
For my other favorite resources for kids songs, look here, and for links to lyrics for, and videos of, my favorite kids songs, look here.
Circle time is a lot of fun for the children in the room and for the parents, but beyond that, singing songs with your children helps your child to learn in many ways, and enhances your connections as a family. Singing builds:
Here are a few of my favorite resources for kids’ songs:
King County Library has videos of librarians singing LOTS (hundreds!) of classic children’s rhymes: http://kcls.org/content/. If you’re trying to remember any childhood song, this is a great place to look! They include versions in multiple world languages (e.g. Russian, Urdu, Spanish, Vietnamese…)
Jbrary is a YouTube channel featuring two children’s librarians singing songs and finger rhymes from library story times: www.youtube.com/user/Jbrary/videos.
Nancy Stewart has lyrics and audio recordings (.mp3) of lots of traditional songs, including “songs every child should know” and campfire songs: http://singwithourkids.com/song-library.htm. She also recommends books which include songs, or have rhythmic text that can be sung, to reinforce music and early literacy skills: http://singwithourkids.com/bookshelf.htm.
Let’s Play Music was developed by Sara Mullett. It includes over 150 songs – each has lyrics, sheet music, a video of the tune being played on a xylophone, and activities / motions to go along with the song. http://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com
Music Connections offers some great posts on teaching rhythm and a steady beat to kids age birth to five: A Parent’s Guide to Beats and Rhythms, Developmental Progression of Steady Beat, and “Catching” a Steady Beat with Very Young Children. This includes tips like: help your child experience steady beats by singing with them, dancing with them, or tapping on their knees in rhythm. When they’re doing repetitive movements, like tapping on something, sing or dance along in a steady rhythm that’s similar t o their rhythm. Have them walk or march to a beat.
YouTube has a huge collection of animated videos featuring traditional and new children’s songs, in a wide range of languages. For example, if you look for alphabet songs, not only would you find countless versions of the traditional alphabet song, you’d find many variations in melody (like ABC Rap), plus many elaborate alphabet songs (Animal Alphabet, Alexander Alligator, etc.), you can even find several different songs each dedicated to a single letter of the alphabet. (Even Q has 8 or more songs!)
I prefer the other resources to YouTube personally, because many of the things on YouTube are so over-produced – too much visual stimulation, overly ornamented music, and sometimes just a frenetic cheerfulness (a la Barney) that can wear on me.
As with everything on YouTube, the quality ranges tremendously, and there are some that are frankly inappropriate for children; however, it’s worth searching through and finding some of the great ones and setting up your own playlist. I will includes links to some good ones on my “favorite songs” page. Most kids love watching the videos along with the song, but if you’d rather not expose your child to videos, you can easily find a free program online which will allow you to convert videos into .mp3 audio files. (I use YTD Video downloader)
More Music Resources
On this site, you can also find:
Preschool music time curriculum with shaker songs, rhymes, songs, and recommended “books that sing” for 9 monthly themes – include ukulele chords.
Also, check out my post from October 9 for a link to Penn State’s handout on nurturing learning through music and play.
Supporting make-believe play: www.toolsofthemind.org/parents/make-believe-play/. This is a great article that covers the benefits of imaginative play, gives concrete tips for make-believe games to play with different age groups, and gives tips for choosing pre-schools and children’s activities that encourage make-believe.
Round and Round the Garden (rhyme) words and motions – we use variation 3
A welcome song: “I roll the ball to _____, s/he rolls it back to me.”
Are You Hiding? Done to the tune of Frere Jacques: “Are you hiding? Are you hiding? Yes I am. Yes I am. Now it’s time to come out, now it’s time to come out. Peek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo!”
And the peekaboo puppet song, also to Frere Jacque: “Someone is hiding, someone is hiding, who can it be? Who can it be? Now it’s time to come out….”
Check out lots more rhymes and songs here. And learn about the benefits of singing with your child here.
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