Ms. Margot's Early Learning Blog: sing along songs

Saturday, November 23, 2024

Thankfulness Songs that Help Young Children Develop Empathy

To continue my study and practice of using music to help develop empathy, this year I wrote a new song about thankfulness. I wanted a simple song that shared ways to show gratitude, one not necessarily tied to Thanksgiving, but one that could be used throughout the year. Gratitude is that awareness that someone is caring for us AND acknowledging that care. It's empathy because we need to be able to understand someone else's intentions.

Luckily, there are so many opportunities to say, “Thank you,” so there are many chances to practice developing that empathy! Every time children are served food, every time children receive help with anything, we can help our little ones to give thanks. Giving your children an opportunity to remember to show gratitude before giving a gentle reminder helps them develop a habit of saying, "Thank you." Heap on the praise when they remember!

And of course having songs that celebrate thankfulness help as well! Here are the words to the two I'm sharing this week:

1. "Thank You"

Thank you for the sun

Thank you for the sky

Thank for the rain

And for the birds that fly

Thank you for the stars

That twinkle in the night

They mean the world to me

(This is another one where I can't find the composer, and another one I learned while teaching at Black Pine Forest School in Berkeley, CA)!

[chorus]

Giving Thanks, giving thanks

We give thanks for the world, we give thanks

We give thanks for our food, we give thanks

We can show our thanks when we eat our food

[chorus]

We give thanks for our home, we give thanks

We can show our thanks when keep things clean

[chorus]

We give thanks for our friends, we give thanks

We can show our thanks when we care for friends

[chorus]

We give thanks for our love, we give thanks

We can show our thanks when we share our love

Here are the words in Spanish!

[chorus]

Gracias, gracias

Gracias por el mundo, gracias

Por el comido, gracias

Tenemos gratitud cuando comemos

[chorus]

Por la casa, gracias

Tenemos gratitud cuando limpiamos

[chorus]

Por los amigos, gracias

Tenemos gratitud cuando preocupamos

[chorus]

Por el amor, gracias

Tenemos gratitud cuando amamos

[chorus]

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Saturday, November 16, 2024

Kindness Songs that Help Young Children Practice Kindness!

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

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!

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!

How Ella Jenkins Revolutionized Children's Music - The New York Times