Weather Songs For Spring: April Showers Bring May Flowers!
Spring is known for all kinds of weather, and we have some great songs for spring and activities for it! Rain sticks are super fun to make and you can get some really interesting sounds out of them. When played slowly, they can be very calming. Rain sticks are traditionally made of hollowed plant stalks and are thought to originate from Latin America, but they are played in different countries around the world. Check out our video below on how to easily make your own rain stick!
Our In All Kinds Of Weather, Kids Make Music CD & DVD have all our favorite songs about wind, rain, snow, and sun.
Here are some Rain Rhymes you can sing and play along with your rain stick:
“Mister Sun” is a sunny song you can play with a glockenspiel, triangle, or finger cymbals. Play triangles or finger cymbals after “sun” is sung each time. Play glockenspiels on your “G” bar when the word “sun” is sung on the phrase “Oh Mister Sun”.
Bells, bells, bells! All kids love bells. Shaking, dancing, and twirling with a bell in hand fills all kids with joy and giggles! Did you know that this shaking, dancing, and twirling helps your child develop their hand eye coordination and gross motor skills? These skills are super important and help them throughout their lives in sports and school alike. You can help your child by tapping the beat on their body or by shaking your own bell with the steady beat while listening to our favorite bell songs!
Our Favorite Bell Songs
Check out some of our favorite bell shaking songs! These can be used year round but are perfect for the holidays! Your kids can even practice for a performance for the holidays. Be sure to record it so you have memories for years to come!
After years of rigorous testing with Remo, Lynn now sells some of the safest bells for children of any ages. For children 2 and younger we recommend the Kids Make Music Baby Bell Rattle. For children 3 and older we recommend the Kids Make Music Bell Belt.
Here are our wonderful students last year at the 2019 Holiday Open House performance shaking their bells!
Holiday Open House Week 2020 – December 12-18th
This year’s Holiday Open House will be a week long to allow for social distancing and will be held outdoors in the Music Rhapsody parking lot! Click here to view the Holiday Open House schedule of performances.
Fill your child’s holidays with never ending fun! Our instrument kits are all high quality, rigorously safety tested, age appropriate instruments that coincide with your child’s developmental needs. The kits are color coded for each age group. Click here for details.
Know someone who wants to learn the Ukulele? This is the perfect place to start! Diamond Head features high-quality ukuleles, bringing the joys of making music to everyone! Available in a rainbow of colors, including mahogany with a matching gig bag.
Once you have the instrument make sure you get a great book to start learning right away. We recommend The Daily Ukulele Book! Strum a different song every day with easy arrangements of 365 of your favorite songs in one big songbook. All arrangements feature melody, lyrics and ukulele chord grids in uke-friendly keys, perfect for groups of one or one hundred. Includes hits by The Beatles, Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, folk songs, kids’ songs, pop songs, Christmas carols, Broadway, and Hollywood tunes. So much fun!!
The Kids Make Music Glockenspiel is part of a series of percussion instruments designed by Lynn Kleiner with world renowned percussion brand Remo especially for kids. It produces a sweet, bright tone that is accurately pitched with a one octave diatonic range from C to C. Because of this the sound of your children practicing will be bright and cheery! Kids love the cheerful color patterns and letter names featured on each individual key. Parents love the safe, kid-friendly, rounded edges and removable bars.
This fun drum is the perfect instrument for young children – it’s part of the series of percussion instruments designed by Lynn Kleiner with world renowned percussion brand Remo. The mallets are easy to use and the tone is pleasant to your ear. This instrument will help your child with coordination, timing, and fine motor skills. Its compact design makes it easy to use as a mini gathering drum for friends to join in.
Our adorable puppets make wonderful holiday gifts! Full size and finger puppets from butterflies to chipmunks we are sure you will find a puppet your child will love! For little fingers and hands, we recommend our finger puppets! Kids will have hours o fun If you love the puppets too be sure to check out the full size which fits an adult hand!
If you are interested in signing your child, niece, nephew, grandchild, or friend up for music classes – get them a gift certificate! Let them choose which instrument will work best for their family and which classes work best as well. We offer classes remotely, in person, and privately.
This sweet activity will have your kids coming back for more fun with Sally over and over again. Be sure to read all the way to the bottom for some adorable printable color sheets to help this song come to life!
“Sally Go Round the Sun” Is A Great Song For All Ages
Below is an example of how you can use this song to help your child develop speech, timing, and coordination. Giving space at the end of a phrase for your child to complete the lyrics/melody is one of the first ways a child will participate in singing starting from infancy.
For the A section – Have your child complete the phrase “Sally go round the….” With “Sun” and continue with “Sally go round the…” “Moon.” Then sing “Sally go round the chimney top every afternoon, Boom!” together.
For the B section – Tap the beat on a drum and sing words of the B section: “cows in the meadow…”
Here is another example of how you can implement this song into play time with instruments. The foundation is the steady beat. Tap on your child and move with your child so they feel the beat. Movement to the beat improves timing and coordination needed for music, dance, and sports.
For the A section– hands move in a circular motion on the drum.
For the B section – keep the steady beat, parents tap on their child’s back.
When we say “Up,” our movement and voice will be a demonstration of the language. Raise child’s arms on “Up” and lower when saying “Boom!.”
The foundation is the steady beat. Tap on your child, move with your child so they feel the beat. Movement to the beat improves timing and coordination needed for music, dance and sports.
As the weather begins to change and holidays get closer and closer it is time to pull from our rich musical history and share our favorite turkey songs! Here at Music Rhapsody we have had almost 40 years of holidays to find our favorite turkey songs. Below are three of our favorites that you can sing and dance to with your children for years to come.
Shoo Turkey (Kitchen Music Video)
This turkey classic is filled with fun! It will get you and your family up and running around the house singing ‘Shoo turkey shoo shoo’. Many times, this song has ended with families in a heap on the floor laughing and giggling with kids screaming to do it again! Below is a fun video with Teacher Ann showing how you can find instruments all over your home and sing and dance with them to Shoo Turkey. You can practice the rhythms for “yes ma’am” and “so-so” with your homemade kitchen instruments.
The Turkey Song (Animation Video)
This folky turkey song is a recent favorite, from Lynn Kleiner’s Award Winning book and CD – Holiday Winter Songs & Adventures. This silly song gets most children laughing because of the turkey’s stinky feet. Be sure to check out this cute animation your children will want to watch over and over again!
Turkey Feathers (Thankful Turkey Activity)
This song is one we use in our classrooms during the month of November. Colorful feathers are passed out to each child then we sing ‘Turkey, turkey, where’s your hair?’ then as the teacher sings the color for their feather, (“What color is this one? This one is the orange one”) they hold it up and put in on the felt turkey so it has feathers. By the time every student has had a chance to put a feather on the turkey, the turkey has a beautiful body filled with colorful feathers! Here are the felt board and turkey felts we use.
Bonus – The Thankful Turkey Activity
Every November we sing the turkey feather song and put a bare turkey on a bulletin board in our classroom! This turkey is known as the Thankful Turkey. Every student can pick a colorful feather as they walk into the classroom, write what they are thankful for that day, and fill the bare turkey with beautiful feathers! This is a simple activity that you can do at home with your children during the month of November. By the end of the month our board is filled with colorful feathers!
The Eensy Weensy Spider is a classic finger play sung with children throughout the world. The song has many benefits to your child. The rhythmic repetition helps with their brain and speech development. Additionally, the hand motions help teach fine and gross motor skills.
Most children start by mimicking their parents – raising their hands and lowering them as the spider walks up the spout and the rain washes them down. Eventually, each child learns the fine hand motions that cause the spider to walk up the spout, pointer to thumb. As a parent, your direct involvement in this simple interaction will help them for years to come, even if it is the 100th time you have sang this song today!
Try These Fun Learning Activities With Your Child!
SINGING AND PLAYING
These 4 simple musical phrases can be a wonderful vehicle for much more learning!
You’ll need a simple one octave glockenspiel (8 pitches, C D E F G A B C). Young children love the challenge of playing after they sing each line with the hand motions. The vocabulary, concepts, timing, coordination, counting and visuals are also a fantastic precursor to reading and music notation.
The eensy weensy spider went up the water spout (Ascending: Play from the lowest to the highest, longest to the shortest bars)
Down came the rain and washed the spider out (Ascending Glissando: Play a gliding motion from high to low, 4 times)
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain(Ascending, Descending Glissando: Play a gliding motion up and down)
And the eensy weensy spider went up the spout again (Play from the lowest to the highest, longest to the shortest bars)
Books with musical additions also add to a child’s enjoyment! Stimulate the imagination by singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider. You and your child can also add musical aspects by adding sound effects. Use wind and movement for the spinning and have each animal can sing its line to the The Very Busy Spider.
Here at Music Rhapsody, we love to help parents help their children develop through our music classes. These Orff-based classesset your child up for success by developing their love for music and helping them with their motor skills, brain development and speech development. Learn more about our programs below!
