Music For Kiddos Podcast
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We made it to February! This is one of my favorite months and when it comes to themes that naturally come up in the month for our preschool and kindergarten music classes, we celebrate Black History Month and it’s also Valentine's Day.
Valentine’s Day can bring up a variety of themes like friendship, community, lifting each other up, kindness, working together, so there are a lot of options for the month of February when it comes to planning for our early childhood music classes.
On this blog post and on episode 88 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast, I’m going to share some Valentine's Day themed resources and ideas.
Valentine's Day Resources for Preschool and Kindergarten Music
1. K-i-N-D
The first resource I'd like to share is a song of mine called K-I-N-D, and it's a song that I perform with my daughter.
The minor key bridge sort of of gives kids a language for things, for ways that they can speak to their friends and ways that they can be kind to their friends. So it's a great song for discussion.
It's also a great song for lyric substitution where kids can write in their own things in there. This is also a song that works really, really well on ukulele. I used this as a spring program song for my first, second, and third graders. The third graders played the ukulele and the first and second graders sang it and they absolutely loved it. One group of kids would sing the letters, the other group would sing the verses, and it worked out really well for a lot of different kids and different ways that they could each participate and feel really successful in the song.
2- Bear Hug
“Bear Hug” is a sensory regulation song, and it is a song that could absolutely be used as part of a “love lesson plan theme about loving yourself. This song is commonly used by teachers when the kids need some sensory regulation or they use it as a cool-down song at the end of music time and before you give them back to their teachers (the song right before the goodbye song). Doing this helps reduce the need for a big transition there and helps to end class with a goodbye song in a really quiet way after this song. So this song is also a great transitional tool.
The lyrics are:
“Give yourself a bear hug because you're strong.
Give yourself a bear hug because you're brave.
Give yourself a bear hug cause you're important.
Give yourself a bear hug every day.”
What you would do for the sensory regulation portion is to have the kids start up at their shoulders and give themselves a great big hug and a great big squeeze. And then as the song goes, have them move down to different parts of their bodies to give themselves a squeeze for sensory regulation and some deep pressure And then of course, the song has a breathing section as well.
You can listen to this very simple yet effective song on episode 88 of the Music For Kiddos Podcast.
3- Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton
The third Valentine's resource that I'm going to recommend is the book Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton. I have the extra large board book and it's great. It is not very expensive, and it's huge and indestructible. This book is definitely geared towards younger age, so I would probably use it up through age four or so. I think probably kindergartners may like it but I would probably use it mostly with pre-K.
The song that goes with it is not a song that I made up. It is actually a song that somebody wrote to it and I share it on the YouTube video below:
I did not feel the need to rewrite this melody because I really like it. It communicates the playfulness in the melody as well. I like how it has some “little jumps” into another key for a second and then it kind of goes back to the original key.
Listen to this episode of the Music For Kiddos Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your favorite shows!
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