Tag Archives: songs

100 Days of Ukulele

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For the 100 days challenge, I created a collection of fun songs for singalongs with video tutorials. Start reading here to learn about the challenge and learn more about Rise Up Singing, or skip straight to the song list.

Introduction

Cynthia Lin organizes a “100 days of ukulele” challenge, starting each year in March. Participants are encouraged to record a video every day of themselves playing ukulele and post it for the community to see. (Find it on Facebook, or her Patreon or on Instagram or YouTube using #100DaysUke2025.) The goal is to commit to a practice, and daily work on your skills. This year, I gave myself the challenge of playing lots of new songs, using each to practice and strengthen my: chord changes, choosing the best strum pattern and/or building my skills at finger picking. I figured I might as well record these as tutorials that I can share with others.

I chose to work with songs from the group singing book Rise Up Singing (Amazon affiliate link, or buy directly from the publisher). There are 1200 songs in the book! So, I am choosing some of my favorites / things I think may be commonly sung. Many of them also appear in the Daily Ukulele Songbook. (Amazon, publisher). Or they appear in the songbooks for the Eastside Ukulele Players group I play with.

Most of my videos will include chord diagrams. They contain at least some of the lyrics, and some contain info on how the chords align with the lyrics. If I don’t have all the lyrics and chords in the video, I will try to link to where you can find them. I do strongly encourage you to support the authors/publishers of Rise Up Singing and Daily Ukulele and honor their copyright by purchasing your own copy of each book. If you do singalongs in a group, purchase enough copies of the book for everyone in the group.

Rise Up Singing

Rise Up is a folk music singalong book, first published in 1988. It contains 1200 songs, sorted into 35 categories, well indexed by title, artist, and subject. For sheer number of songs, it’s incredible! In order to fit that many songs into a compact, affordable book, this is not full sheet music and comprehensive lyrics for all know verses. It just includes the lyrics and chords, not the melodies, so you either need to know the song, or look for a recording online to learn it. I love this book!

And… as a beginning musician, it was really hard for me to use it, even for songs that I knew.

Here’s a sample song. So the “C – F G /” means that for the first line of lyrics, you’ll play C, continue playing C, then F, then G. You have to figure out for yourself when to switch from one to the other. The second and third lines of lyrics are similar, then you’ll see for the fourth line, it just says 2nd. That means you play the second pattern. There’s a lot of thinking involved as you play, which was hard for me when I started.

The Rise Up Singing versions aren’t the fanciest arrangements – they lean toward using simpler chords and not a lot of chord changes, so in some videos, I include more interesting variations on the song. Also, I find the key doesn’t always feel right to me. An Amazon reviewer says “The keys chosen work well on guitar (tuned to key of E so lots of Es and Ebs and whatnot), not always so easy for uke players. I do find myself transposing on the fly.” I agree, so in some videos I offer a second version of the song, played in a different key than shown in Rise Up.

Song List

Here’s a list of all the recordings I did, in alphabetical order. Some are full tutorials, some are playthoughs of the full song, some just snippets… just what I was able to complete on that particular day of the challenge, depending on my other commitments. I starred the easier songs for beginners.

Simple Children’s Songs

I also have a series of videos made for preschool teachers or children’s librarians, using just a few simple chords on the uke to play these songs:

  • using C and F – Row Your Boat, Brother John
  • C7 and F – Skip to my Lou, Mulberry Bush, More We Get Together, etc.
  • C and G – Open Shut Them, Ring Around the Rosie, Clean Up
  • C and G7 – London Bridge, Looby Loo, Peekaboo
  • C, F, G7 – Twinkle, ABC, You are My Sunshine, Happy Bday, and more
  • C, F, G – If You’re Happy, Teapot, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Teddy Bear
  • D7, C, G – Old McDonald, Thumbkin, Coming Round the Mountain,
  • More Chords and Songs: Dm – Muffin Man; D and A7 – Bingo, A and E7 – Speckled Frogs, Em and B7 – Ants Go Marching; Am – Over in the Meadow

Fun with Toddlers: Zoo or Jungle Theme

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Toddlers enjoy learning about all sorts of animals, including those that can be found at a zoo, or in a jungle. Here are some fun activities about wild animals.

Songs to Sing

We’re Going to the Zoo by Raffi – YouTube

To the tune of Wheels on the Bus: “The lions at the zoo say roar roar roar, roar roar roar, roar roar roar. The lions at the zoo say roar roar roar all day long.” Repeat with any animal sound you want.

Rhymes to Say

Five Little Monkeys jumping on a bed (video of motions)
Five little monkeys jumping on the bed.
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said:
“No more monkeys jumping on the bed”.
Four little… three…

Five little monkeys (in a tree) – video
Five little monkeys sitting in a tree,
Teasing Mr. Crocodile: “You can’t catch me!”
Along comes Mr. Crocodile
As quiet as can be and…SNAP!
Four little monkeys sitting in a tree… three… two…. one
… Along comes Mr. Crocodile
As quiet as can be and SNAP! One little monkey says “Ha Ha! Missed Me!

The Funky Spunky Monkey (tune Itsy Bitsy)
The funky spunky monkey climbed up the coconut tree.
Down came a coconut and bopped him on the knee.
Out came a lion a shaking his mighty mane.
And the funky spunky monkey climbed up the tree again.  OR
The funky spunky monkey climbed up the coconut tree.
Down came a coconut and bopped him on the knee.
Along came his mama who hugged away the pain.
And the funky spunky monkey climbed up the tree again.

Alligator, Alligator
Alligator, alligator, long and green (hold out arm: 4 fingers, thumb below)
Alligator, alligator, teeth so mean (open and close fingers and thumb)
Snapping at a fly, snapping at a bee,(snap with fingers and thumb)
Snapping at a frog, but you can’t catch me! (arms slap together, then shake head)

Building Projects

Build a Zoo: Take out blocks or Duplos and toy animals. Build a zoo with your child.

Outdoor Play: Build a habitat for plastic animals with rocks, sticks, and plants.

Games / Activities

Pretend to be an Animal: Make cards or dice that have pictures of animals, or put plastic animals in a bag. The child rolls (or draws a toy from the bag). Then you both pretend to be that animal – moving like it or making the sound.

Habitat Sorting: Put out plastic animals or pictures of animals, plus pictures of habitats. Talk with them about which animals live on farms, which live in jungles, in the ocean, or in the desert.

Art Activities

Bead Snakes: Thread beads on pipe cleaners. Fold ends over. Optional: Add googly eyes.

Hoof and Paw Prints: If you have toy animals, check out their feet. Find ones who’ll make different shapes of tracks. Set out paint, paper, and animals, and make tracks. (You could also make tracks in play-dough.)

Paper Plate Snake: Decorate a plate, then cut it into a spiral snake. (see photo at top) Add eyes. 

Books to Read

Dear Zoo by Campbell. Fabulous lift the flap. “I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet…” See what they send!

Good Night, Gorillaby Rathmann. A charming wordless book about a gorilla escaping its cage.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? or Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? by Carle. Great repeating rhyme and rhythm. Children love to predict what will be on the next page.

Giraffes Can’t Dance by Andreae. A sweet story about everyone finding their special dance.

More ideas (and source citations) at: www.pinterest.com/bcparented

Here’s a handout version of these Jungle / Zoo themed toddler activities. For more theme-based activities, check out the Fun with Toddlers series.

Great New Resource for Kids Songs

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Let’s Play Music is a phenomenal resource!
http://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com/free-kids-songs-directory/

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.

Fun with Toddlers: Duck Theme

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duckEach spring in our classroom, we have a spring theme with rain, raindrops and flowers, and on week 3 of the theme, the ducks appear! There are tons of great picture books about ducks, so in this post, I include lots of book recommendations and ideas for activities to accompany those books.

Songs to Sing

Five Little Ducks Went Out One Day
http://tmas.kcls.org/five-little-ducks-went-out-one-day/

Five Little Ducks went out one day, over the hills and far away.
Mother Duck said, “Quack, Quack, Quack,” but only four little ducks came back.
Four little ducks went out one day… …but only three little ducks came back.
(Repeat counting down to “but no little ducks came back.”)
Sad mother duck went out one day, over the hills and far away
Mother Duck said, “Quack, Quack, Quack.” Five little ducks came running back.

Six Little Ducks that I Once Knew http://tmas.kcls.org/six-little-ducks/

Six little ducks that I once knew, Fat ones, skinny ones, fair ones too!
But the one little duck with the feather on her back,
She led the others with a quack quack quack.
Quack quack quack. Quack quack quack. She led the others with a quack quack quack.

Down to the river they would go, A wibble wobble, wibble wobble, to and fro.
But the one little duck with the feather on her back,
She led the others with a quack quack quack.
Quack quack quack. Quack quack quack. She led the others with a quack quack quack.

Duck Picture Books and Activities they Inspire

Five Little Ducks by Raffi. The words from the song (above) in a book with illustrations. And 10 Rubber Duckies by William Winburn. These are both countdown songs/stories, and they have a really great rhyme and rhythm – easy for kids to predict what will happen next and easy to memorize!

  • Sing the song, and act it out with rubber ducks or handmade puppets. These are great for learning to subtract and learning about zero.
  • You may also use foam numbers – put 5 numbers on the table (or on the wall of the tub). As each duck disappears, take away a number to see how many are left.

One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root. (Be sure to get the full version, not the board book – it’s abridged, and you miss some of the great language.) Fabulous rhyming, rhythmic words. And a counting book. And lots of fun marshland creatures.

  • Dramatic play: make masks or finger puppets of the animals in the book. One child pretends to be the duck and says “Help, Help, who Can Help.” Other kids (or the parent if you’re playing this one-on-one at home) come to the rescue.
  • Sensory play in muddy muck: give child a bag of dirt (or collect dirt from yard). Spend time exploring the dirt, describing it, looking at it through a magnifying glass. Add a little water. Explore some more. Then add more water till you’ve got gooey mud. Get a toy duck stuck.
  • Find photos of real ducks, real marshes, and real marsh-land creatures.

10 Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle. Based on a real-life story of a shipping carton of rubber ducks that fell into the ocean. Ten ducks float off in separate directions and encounter a variety of sea life.

  • Art: Make 10 paper ducks. Label 1 – 10. Your child glues them to a blue paper ocean
  • Numbers: Collect 10 rubber ducks, or use paper ducks. Child rolls dice, counts the dots, puts that many ducks in the tub to show “how many fell into the ocean?”
  • Talk about ordinal numbers and directions: the first duck swam north, the second duck swam south, and so on. Play a game where your child goes in the direction you say: “the little duck swam left, the little duck swam right, the little duck went up the stairs.”

Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafuri. A mother searches for her baby.

Little Quack by Lauren Thompson. A book about a duckling who overcomes his fear and learns to swim. It would be a great read in the weeks before starting swimming lessons!

Even more great picture books about ducks: https://homeschool.rebeccareid.com/duck-picture-books/ 

More ideas (and source citations) at: www.pinterest.com/bcparented

photo credit: shot_1305563005476 via photopin (license)

Fun with Toddlers: Winter Theme

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Bring the snow inside!Sensory Activities to Do:

Snow in the Shower. When it snows, parents will often excitedly bundle up their toddler, and take them out to play. Then the child just sits and shivers and looks sadly up at the parent. It’s not as fun as you expected it might be.

Instead, try bringing the snow inside! Make sure your bathroom is nice and warm, then bring a big bucket of snow and dump it on the floor of your shower or bathtub and put your child next to it with shovels and toys. (He can even be fully clothed to stay warm.) As the snow melts, it disappears down the drain, so no clean-up required! When your child is done playing, run a warm bath or shower to warm him back up.

Ice Play

  • Hockey rink: freeze a cake pan of water. Make mini “hockey sticks” and use a checker as the puck. Hit the puck back and forth to score.
  • Excavation: Use a loaf pan or large bowls to make blocks of ice. Freeze items inside (e.g. plastic penguins or Legos). Set it out on a tray to catch the water as it melts. Give your child a toy hammer and other tools to excavate the toys.
  • Melting experiments: Give your child ice, water with pipettes or eye droppers, salt to sprinkle. Let them explore how to get the ice to melt. Add food coloring or liquid watercolors to make it prettier.

Dry Ice Experiments: Check out my post for lots of ideas. Note – this requires close supervision!!

Games to Play:

Indoor Snowball Fight. Make or buy big white pompoms, or soft white balls. Or just wad up a bunch of paper into balls. Or ball up pairs of socks. Fill a basket with them. Then spontaneously start snowball battles anytime you want to! Not only is this tons of fun, I like playing games where I throw (soft) things at my kids. It helps them be a little bolder about ball games later in life – a little more willing to “head” the ball in a soccer game. This also allows them to get out their throwing energy indoors without much risk of damaging anything.

Crafts to Do:

http://www.howwelearnathome.com/2013/01/build-shape-snowman.html

howwelearnathome.cm

Mittens: Cut out 10 paper mittens. Have your child decorate them. (Or for younger kids, have them scribble / finger paint all over a piece of paper, THEN cut out mitten shapes.) Then do the 10 little mittens rhyme together.

Tracks in the Snow. Take some colored construction paper. (Green, brown, or whatever you have.) Squirt white paint onto it. Use a paintbrush to spread it around, smoothing it. Then walk some toy animals or dolls across it. Point out their tracks. Drag a stick across it. Drag across a fork or a comb. Notice the paths they make in the paint. Then spread the paint back out again smoothing it over, and make some more tracks.

Tracks in the Snow, take 2. Make white play-dough. Play with toy animals and dolls in it, and point out the tracks they make. (Source, with pictures.)

Shape snowmen. Check out original idea here.

Snowy Day. Make a drawing (or find a picture) of an outdoor scene with trees and more. Put out white paint and show your child how to put one finger in, then dot it on the paper to make a snowflake. They make more and more snowflake dots till the landscape is covered in snow.

Rhymes to Say

Up the Mountain rhyme
Sit child on your lap
Up the mountain (run your fingers up one of their arms)
Down the other side (then run fingers down their other arm)
Brr it’s cold out… (hug them tight)
Let’s climb inside! (tickle their neck as you reach your fingers under their collar)

Five little snowmen
Five little snowmen standing in a row (hold up 5 fingers)
Each with a hat (pat head) and a big red bow (pull at neck like a bow tie)
Along came the sun (arms form big circle over head)
and it shone all day (lean sideways)
And one of those snowmen melted away! (put down one finger)
Continue until there are no snowmen left.

Disappearing Snowman
(make a paper snowman; cut as you tell story, making snowman smaller)
On Monday, I made a snowman. Just like that.
On Tuesday, the wind blew some snow away. Just like that.
On Wednesday, it rained on my snowman. Just like that.
On Thursday, the hot sun started to melt it. Just like that.
On Friday, it melted into a puddle. Just like that.
On Saturday, it snowed again. Just like that.
On Sunday, I made another snowman. Just like that.

Three little snowmen.   (mime 3 fingers perched on sled made by other hand)
3 little snowmen riding on a sled.  One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called…

Songs to Sing

For the first two songs, make your child a paper snowflake and have them put it on their head, their knee, etc.

Little Snowflake Swirling Round (tune: London Bridges)
Little snowflake twirling round
Twirling round, twirling round
Little snowflake twirling round
Lands on my head!
Repeat with different body parts.

It is Snowing (Tune: Frere Jacques)
It is snowing, it is snowing,
All around, all around.
See the pretty snowflakes, See the pretty snowflakes,
Touch the ground. Touch the ground.

Snow is Falling (tune: Skip to My Lou)
Snow is falling, what do I do? Snow is falling, what do I do?
Snow is falling, what do I do? What do I do, my darling
I’ll build a snowman bigger than you! …That’s what I’ll do, my darling!
I’ll ride my sled fast, how about you?… That’s what I’ll do, my darling!

Sing the My Mittens song in those inevitable moments when you’re searching for your child’s missing mittens.

Books to Read:
Amy Loves the Snow by Hoban. Sweet simple story for little ones.

The Snowman Storybook or The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. These are the same story, but the Snowman is wordless – you tell the story in your own words. Beautiful illustrations. Story of a snowman who comes to life. Note: This book has a sad ending. (I think that’s OK – helps to build emotional literacy. But some parents prefer to avoid.)

Red Sled or Red Hat by Judge or The Mitten by Jan Brett. All three are stories of woodland creatures getting into mischief with children’s belongings. On the long side for toddlers, so save for when they’re feeling calm and patient.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats. A little boy in the city enjoys a snowy day. This book, published in 1963, was noteworthy for being one of the first picture books to feature an African-American child. Note: this combines really nicely with the “tracks in the snow” activity above, where you can show how the doll tracks or the track from the stick is like what was shown in the book.

Other books toddlers love: Books that sing – Itsy bitsy snowman, I’m a Little Snowman. Counting Books – Millions of Snowflakes. A Winter Walk in the City. Other: Dr. Seuss’ Winter Things. Biscuit’s Snowy Day. Colors in the Cold. Snow Kisses. Let it Snow;

More ideas (and source citations) at: http://www.pinterest.com/bcparented

For my full collection of theme-based “Fun with Toddlers”, click on “Fun with Toddlers series” in the right hand side bar. These are great for parents or for teachers and librarians doing story-time for toddlers or preschoolers. If you would like theme information in printable handout form to share with students, click here.