Are you getting ready for back to school? Maybe you’ve gone back already? If you are looking for music resources and activities for the upcoming start of the school year, then this blog post is for you!
5 Preschool and Kindergarten Music Resources For Back To School:
1. Music Lesson Plans:
Every month, I create new preschool and kindergarten lesson plans for the Music For Kiddos Community members. If you like the Frog and the Picnic Music Lesson Plans (which I’m sharing with you below), you might love my library of more than 400 (and growing) early childhood music resources, including lesson plans with original songs, visuals, sample music ed objectives, sample music therapy goals and suggested national core art standards. The Community welcomes new members twice a year. Learn more about it and sign up for the waitlist HERE! Hope you and the kids you work with love these lesson plans!
Frog Lesson Plan
Spring Lesson Plan
Done for you: Our Top 5 Lesson Plans
Our favorite lesson plans!! This bundle features our top 5 lesson plans, each featuring original music by Stephanie Leavell. Includes a 50-page PDF with chords, lyrics, and visuals, AND implementation videos for each lesson plan (for even more tips and tricks).
5 different themes:
🐻Bears
🌳Rainforest
🤖Robots
🪐Space
🚗Transportation
2. Free Music: Our Top 5 children’s songs:
Have you downloaded our top 5 children’s songs?
If you haven’t, I’d recommend you do! The best part is that you can download these 5 popular children’s songs for free! If you’d like some implementation tips and how I use these songs during my music therapy sessions or music classes with preschoolers or kindergarteners, you can read those ideas on this post.
These top 5 children’s songs are the songs that over the last four years have been the ones that music therapists and music teachers tell us are their go-to songs and honestly, the ones that the children they work with love the most.
Just Dance
"Just Dance" is an active movement song that engages kids in choosing the next movements, with an added element of surprise and fun when we all "freeze!" during the song.
Watermelon, Watermelon
“Watermelon, Watermelon” is one of those flexible spring and summer songs with multiple educational and therapeutic purposes. Students have the opportunity to use body percussion or hand clapping motions while they sing the song!
Shake-A My Egg
“Shake-A My Egg” is a song about (you guessed it!) playing an egg shaker, moving it up & down, high and low, "from the ceiling to the ground."
Move It, Move It
Get your wiggles out at home or in the classroom!
Hot Chocolate
A song about one of our favorite, yummy drinks… with some whipped cream on top, of course!
You can download the chords, lyrics and MP3s of all of these songs below!
3. A Book (& melody) for back-to-school) “All Are Welcome”
All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman is set in the early days of back-to-school that celebrates diversity and differences. Especially if you’re in a classroom, it is a great book that helps to reiterate your class values and offers encouragement to the kids you work with.
I created a melody to go along this children’s book, which you can listen to and enjoy in the video below:
4. A song for learning names during the first weeks of school:
It is such a struggle for me to remember names! I remember the kids' faces but names are really challenging for me. So over the years I have come up with a couple of tricks to help remember names. This song serves as an introduction and a musical name game! I took the popular chant “Hickelty Pickelty BumbleBee”, created a melody for it and change a bit of the structure for the call and response part in order to give a really clear timeline for when the call and response happens.
5. Hello & Goodbye Songs (free packet!):
A quality hello song (that is executed well) can set the tone for the rest of your music experience with kids. I definitely think so!
Every year, I write a new hello song and goodbye song that I use for the upcoming school year. This year is no exception, and I'm giving you my packet of Hello + Goodbye songs! This packet contains 12 new and past hello and goodbye songs that I use with my early childhood music groups (many would work for older elementary school students, too!) plus, I share some implementation & extension ideas, tips, and tricks. I hope it saves you some time!
I hope these early childhood music resources help you plan and feel prepared for this school year. For more inspiration and ideas throughout the year, follow us @Music_For_Kiddos on Instagram!
