After writing about developing skills for understanding kindness and empathy for the past few months, I wrote a couple of my own songs about kindness to use in my music classes. The choices I made to include movement, ASL, and taking turns allowed me to engage the students. The songs helped us practice kindness! Here's a video of the songs, and notes on how I used them below.
"Kindness Grows Like a Rainbow" by Margot Bevington ©2024
Kindness grows like a rainbow
Kindness grows in your heart
Kindness is all colors
Love is where it starts
We are kind to _____
We say "I love you"
When we're kind our rainbow
Shines so brightly too, Whoo!
First of all, using scarves is a favorite activity for my classes. In this song, the best part is tossing the scarves on "Whoo!" In addition, if you read my previous blog, you also know that the differently colored scarves are a learning opportunity as well, hence the line, "Kindness is all colors."
The other great thing about this song is that you or your children can choose what to put in the blank for the line, "We are kind to _____." In the video above, you'll see that I chose family, friends, etc. In my classes, however, we took turns putting everyone's name in. If you have a lot of kids, you can get creative on how you do that (a few at a time, take turns over multiple classes, etc).
In my classes, I got everyone's name in, but I didn't return to the "Kindness grows like a rainbow" part until the very end, which made it go faster. Taking turns like this gave everyone a chance to receive that love and kindness from the class, which was the best part! Saying "I love you" is just one kind thing to say that fits with the music. You can play around with different kind things to say for that part as well!
"Be Kind" by Margot Bevington ©2024
In a world
Where you can be
Anything
Be Kind
It's our world
That we share
It's our choice
It's our love
We play
We laugh
We learn
We love
We say
Kind words
We do
Kind things
We see
Your tears
We care
We help
In a world
Where you can be
Anything
Be Kind
It's our world
That we share
It's our choice
It's our love
This is an echo song, which turns up the listening and participation right away. In a way, it's an act of kindness to fully commit to singing together, and I remember really enjoying hearing the kids' voices in the quick back and forth. My hope for this song is that it shows kindness in actions that children are able to do- and choose to do using empathy!
Before I go today, I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about Ella Jenkins, who passed away recently at 100 years old! If you aren't familiar with Ella's music, if you follow the link, you'll probably discover that some of the songs your music teacher used with you were on her groundbreaking children's music albums. The best thing about Ella's music was that it was designed to be singable by everyone, even from a very young age. Thank you Ella, for paving the road for children's music!
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