If you're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Hello, and welcome back to that music podcast. I'm really excited to chat about my favorite songs for preschool music. So if you know anything about me, you'll know that I love teaching preschool. And I actually haven't taught preschool the last few years because after COVID, like my schedule kind of blew up. And I'm so excited. I finally have them back this year, I actually get to do an am and a pm preschool class. And it's been so much fun already. So I wanted to share a little bit of my about my favorite seven songs, I had to narrow them down to seven songs that I use for preschool music. So I'm going to share the songs. If there's a link, I'm going to share the link and also basically share how I use them and why I use them what I think they're good for. So let's go ahead and get started. My first song is called Grizzly Bear. It is something I use in kindergarten. But if the song goes like this, it goes
grizzly bear or grizzly bears sleeping in his cave. Please be very quiet, very, very quiet. If you wake him, if you shake him, he'll be very
I'm not going to do this parallel because it'll be like my Michael beard. It'll be he'll be very mad and you like Scream, or like shout, man, the kids love it because they get to shout. It's also a lot of fun, because for a few different reasons, first of all really good for Dynamics, because you're going to be doing it quietly at the beginning. And then you're going to do louder at the end when you're screaming mad. It's great for dramatic play the game that I play with this, I'll be honest, I don't know if this is the real game. I don't know if this is a game I learned from someone else. Or if it's a game I just decided to do one day. The game that I use is we have one student that kind of curls up and puts their head down and falls asleep quote unquote, in the middle of the circle, the rest of us tiptoe around us. We're singing the first part, grizzly bear or grizzly bears sleeping in his cave. Please be very quiet. Very, very quiet.
If you wake him, if you shake him, he'll be very
and I'm mad. The person the middle of the bear wakes up and makes a scary face. And I usually tell them we're not going to make any sound because that might get too loud. The bear is not going to grow or anything like that. But we are going to have the they're gonna make the scariest stories all right. Sometimes they're like I don't want to scare you make the silliest face whatever they can. That's great for dramatically. It's great, great for Dynamics. It's great for kind of tiptoeing on the beat. It's great for thematic stuff because there's a lot of stuff that goes with Barris you can think in brown bear brown bear the book, you know, there's a lot of different ways that you can bring that in. So that's what my favorite ones. It's also great because they when they get into it and kindergarten, they already anyone that I had for preschool will already know that song. So it's a great kind of connection between the two. My next song is kind of an ollie and you might already know it, you probably already know it. And that's down by the bay. If for whatever reason you don't know what I'm gonna go ahead and say it because
down by the bay where the watermelons grow back to my home, I dare not go for if I do, my mother will say and then you come up with a rhyme something like have you ever seen a goose that was kissing? Down by the bay?
It's a great song. The kids love it. And honestly, not a lot of my kids know it already by the time they get to me. So I feel like I have like, I just love that song. So why do I teach this song one, it's just fun to it's great for rhyming. Rhyming is a big thing in kindergarten. So whenever we can give them more exposure, because again, you'll say, Have you ever seen a goose kissing a frog and you're like, not quite. But having them have that practice of you know, Goose moose things that rhyme. It's great for that. But it's also a great thing for prompting that's going to come in to play a lot of the a lot of what I do in pre K music, I do a lot of things that allow them to have some prompts that allow them to join in. So I might say down by the and a lot of them are likely going to go PE right it's giving them an option. So if you stop and kind of like give them the the beginning of the phrase and like leave out a word they just natural, like human nature is to want to fill that in, in that and that's a great way to get them to sing. That's a great way to get them to verbalize because I know a lot of preschoolers. They're either very talkative or very shy. So that's a great way to make that connection. Also, it's great for just fun like they might come up with some silly things like goosing goose kissing a moose, like That's so silly and they will laugh. The way that I use it. I use my ukulele. It's just a couple of chords. We can go through there by the CCC, CCC, right? It's super simple. The kids love it. And honestly, they really liked doing the song, they want to do it again and again. So down by the bank, I know it's, I wouldn't say it's overdone, but like you'll likely know it. But I promise you, the kids don't necessarily know it as well as you think they have. Because a lot of the the a lot of them are aren't taught this song. So that's where I do it. The next song is a new one for me, and I absolutely adore it. I'm going to be linking it in the the show in the show notes for this episode. The song is called Breathe. It's by Stephanie level. If you don't know Stephanie, she's amazing. She's the music therapist behind music for kiddos. Again, I'll put the link in the show notes for that because you need to check her out. She has a lot of information she presented at the elementary music summit this past year. And this is one of those songs that I have used so much with my students, especially at preschool. It's great for you know, social emotional learning for self regulation. I'm not going to do the whole thing because one you need to listen to Stephanie's version on Spotify, because it is just gorgeous. But it's all about getting the students to deep breathe. So sound goes,
breathe, just breathe, take a deep breath. And just breathe and the whole time you can reach your hands up high touch reach your fingers to the sky and breathe. Just breathe. And it's just
it's one again, listen to Stephanie's version. It's on Spotify, I'll put the link in the show notes. It is absolutely gorgeous. And it's great for allowing the students to breathe. Because that self regulation, especially a preschool, especially kindergarten, honestly, I think any class could use this. It's a great way to remind them of that breathing. It's great, kind of like a little brain break. But it's still very musical. We're still I still use my ukulele for this. It helps them practice kind of slowing it down. And I love this song. Stephanie, you rock for making this song. Please give Stephanie some love because she's amazing music for kiddos DICOM is great. The next one is one that I actually learned in undergrad at the lab preschool that I worked at. So I worked at a lab preschool working with a three year old classroom, the blue room if you were wondering. And I worked there, and one of the things that the teacher of that classroom, I was essentially a classroom aide. And that one of the things that the teacher did was in a once I kind of got my feet wet and kind of got it got into the groove. She was like, Hey, do you want to do like music at the end of the day for like 1015 minutes? And I said, Well, yes, obviously, I drove down to Columbus from Delaware, Ohio. And I bought myself my first ukulele ukulele that I still use today. And I we do music class. And this is a song that she did and that I have stolen and use forever. So let's say my students name well that cats right here on the desk. You can't see her but she's here. So let's pretend I'm singing the cat. So I would say cat, what do you like on your pizza? And you know, some of some of them? They might have their idea. They you might have to give them a choice like do you like pepperoni or cheese? And then you choose and you will say cat likes pepperoni on her pizza.
Lots of pepperoni pretty please put some pepperoni on her pizza. Don't forget the extra cheese.
I love this because it gives the student choice. You can ask them your kind of models that communication, what do you like on your pizza, I like cheese on my pizza. Okay, perfect. It's also great for prompting, especially once they know the songs really lots of pepperoni pretty. And the students are raring to go, please, it kind of model kind of dictates those baby steps into singing route, you know, the kind of filling in the gaps rather than singing the whole thing with you. It allows the student choice. Some ways that I modify this, especially for my students that might be mighty nonspeaking is having little Velcro, little icons, essentially. So if they like pepperoni they have they can give me a pepperoni card. Or another simple way, depending on the student, I might say do you want pepperoni or cheese and they like touch whatever hand that they want. So if they touched his hand, they want pepperoni. And then I would say this on the kids love this. It's easy. It's a great way to just be silly, because sometimes, very often something will you'll get one student that says something silly and then all of them are really silly. And then you can just be like, oh my goodness, they like shark on their pizza or they like Spongebob on their pizza or whatever. And it's just it's just fun. It's an easy song. Again, I use my ukulele for this. I don't use my ukulele much in K through four or K through six really. But I do use my ukulele a lot in preschool. My next song is another one that I absolutely love. I will put the link in the show notes. It is We are the dinosaurs by Laurie Berkner. If you don't know this song, it is just fun. I will say if you ever see me doing this song in kindergarten, this is typically when we have like five minutes at the end and the kids just need to move and I'm like, alright, well what can we do? Let's do we're on the dinosaurs. Again, I use my ukulele. This is great because it's a minor game. It allows them to stomp it allows them to do dramatic play. It goes through you know, highs and lows and that movement and kind of it allows them to show that the basically the type of movement that we want, right, we're not running we're stopping we're, we're you know, we're sleeping in our nest, we're eating our food. The chorus goes like this, because we are the dinosaurs marching, marching.
We are the dinosaurs. Why do you think that? We are the dinosaurs marching, marching, we are the dinosaurs. We make the earth flat. We make the earth flat.
It's a great one. I'll put the link in the chat as well. That is we are the dinosaurs by Laurie Berkner. Another one by Laurie retina that I absolutely love is the goldfish. You might know it as let's go swimming. Technically, I think it's called the goldfish song. It's another great one. And it goes it's kind of that the same thing storytelling. It goes through the you know different phrases of movement versus you know, non movement.
It goes let's go swimming. Let's go swimming. Yeah, let's go swimming. Let's go swimming. Let's go swimming at the bottom of the ocean.
It's just a lot of fun. That's a great one. And the last one that I want to talk about is one that again, I do in kindergarten, first grade music, it's snail snail. If you don't know the song goes,
snail snail snail snail goes all round and round and round. And
that's the whole song. I know, you're typically either pro snail snail or very anti Pro, anti snail snail. So if you don't like the song, don't do it. But what I love about is one, it's slow. We do a lot of fast songs. Because kids like fast, but it's a slow it allows to slow down. I have a snail puppet that my preschoolers love when I bring out to help them sing that song. And something that I discovered kind of by accident was this is a really good song for sensory input. So I have the students on their hand on their palm, kind of trace a little spiral, you know, the spiral of like the snail shell on their hand as they're singing the song. So it's a good kind of SEL piece a little bit and kind of SEL adjacent I guess, you just saying go snail snail snail SNU goes
round and round.
And you know, the students like Oh, Dad, can I take holes, you know, you can do it to their hand, you can have them do it to your hand, you can have them do on the floor. It's another way to bring in some sensory input as well. Again, it's fun. It's a song that they get to know that they'll get to know in kindergarten first grade. Thank you. It's a song they're gonna get to know in kindergarten first grade as well. So why not do double duty, I think it's great. The kids love it. And they love doing nothing on their hand. So again, I can talk for days about my favorite songs for pre K music. So here are my top seven songs. They will likely change or likely learn some more ones. If I mentioned any links, I'll be putting those into the show notes of this episode. I'm gonna leave it there for today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did enjoy today's episode, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave a podcast review wherever you are listening to this on. So whether you're on iTunes or YouTube, wherever you're listening, if you could leave a review that really helps us out helps us understand what we want more of how can we improve the podcast and also helps get the podcast in front of new listeners. So with that being said, I hope to see you next week here on that music podcast.
