Our Collection of Children's Songs

Learn with Music

Playing with Music at Home: Tips to explore music and connect it to children's learning

10 Ways Babies Learn When We Sing to Them: Listening skills, new words, and so much more

 

Featured Artists and Songs

This selection of music features many different musical instruments. Come back each month to hear a new selection of children's music—and don't miss the growing archive of children's songs.

The Ladybug Without Spots

Randy Kaplan

 
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About your music: My music is informed by all of the genres I love: Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, Folk, Opera, Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, American Songbook, Experimental, Country, Rock, Classical. The music I make for kids and families is also inspired by comedians and storytellers I love: Steve Martin, The Marx Brothers, Harry Chapin, and Ogden Nash, to name a few. When I perform live, it's usually just me and my acoustic steel-string guitar and harmonica. I play a mostly fingerpicking style called Piedmont or East Coast Blues. I also use Ragtime and other Country and Blues styles. 

About this song: My original songs tend to be narrative story songs, though I do covers and adaptations too. “The Ladybug Without Spots” is a bluesy story song I wrote about a spotless ladybug who asks for help acquiring spots so she can be more like her family and friends. I play guitar and sing. Other instruments featured in the song include standup bass, two trombones, and drums.

What I hope children, teachers and families get from this song: Well, I hope they all enjoy the story and wonder about the spotless, dotless ladybug. And I hope they all agree with me that after the ladybug has returned to her original and unique state, it is for the best. That's the way she was meant to be, after all. And, of course, just in case there are folks out there who don't yet love the trombone, I hope this song changes their minds!

www.randykaplan.com

Syncopated Washboard Rhythm Song

Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer

 
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About your music: Cathy and Marcy have performed children’s and family music for over 30 years.  They play dozens of instruments from banjo and mandolin to rockin’ electric guitar, steel drum, and ukulele.

About this song: The featured instrument in this song is the musical WASHBOARD. It’s the same tool that has been used for years to do laundry by hand. The corrugated metal rub-board makes a lovely percussion sound when played with spoons or thimbles. We’ve added a woodblock, bell, and cowbell, and we also play on the sides of the washboard for more sounds. Musician Christylez Bacon joins us on this song.

Teachers and parents can make simple “washboards” with corrugated cardboard (much quieter that metal!). Children can decorate the cardboard and use plastic spoons to play along. You can tie a string around the washboard to hang it from a child’s neck.

Lead children in these washboard activities follow the leader style: Up, Down, Right, Left, Tap Once, Tap 2X (etc), Play along to a song.

What I hope children, teachers and families get from this song: 1. Fun!  2. Inspiration  3. Learning movement skills

www.cathymarcy.com

I Was Born a Horn

Jim Gill

 
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About your music: Twenty years ago I began calling my songs “music play” because I recognized that I was interested in more than just performing songs for children.  My studies in child development led me to approach music as an invitation for children and adults to actively play together.

I create each of my songs in a way in which word play and rhymes are combined with opportunities for active movement and play.

About this song: This is a playful and poetic introduction to the four sections of the orchestra – brass, percussion, strings, and woodwinds. Children can listen for the various instruments and pretend to play each.  If teachers or parents demonstrate the difference between pretending to play a violin, for example, (with its higher pitch) and a cello or bass (lower pitch), children will begin to hear differences between the instruments and enjoy the play even more!  

This recording features, in order, the following:  trumpet, trombone, French horn, various percussion instruments, violin, viola, cello, double bass, oboe, and bassoon. 

In the final movement, all four sections of the orchestra play together.  Everyone can pretend together to create an orchestra in the classroom or family room! 

What I hope children, teachers and families get from this song: I hope that everyone enjoys the opportunity, in this piece, for a pretend play experience with symphonic accompaniment.

www.jimgill.com

High Low

Oran Etkin

 
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About your music: Timbalooloo is a method I developed to teach music to children ages 6 months to 8 years, fostering fluency in the language of music in the same way that they're able to learn other languages so intuitively at this age. In our classes, albums, and live concerts, various instruments from around the world come to life as characters and "talk" through their music, inspiring kids to not only "play the right notes" but to become magicians that breathe life into an instrument!

About this song: This is a song I wrote that uses two notes – E and C (or Mi and Do, as the song says).  In the classes, we explore high and low sounds a lot, using bird and cow sounds. This is often the first song that the kids learn to play. It's also a joyful song about walking through the snow.

What I hope children, teachers and families get from this song: First of all, I hope they have fun listening, singing, and dancing to this song! You can incorporate fun activities to get children playing this song with the two notes and to teach how music is built.  I also hope the children start seeing the instruments as characters that are talking and interacting with each other and with the vocalists.

www.timbalooloo.com

Aviary (The Carnival of Animals)

Ana Gerhard, Camille Saint-Saëns, Süddeutsche Philharmonic, and Hanspeter Gmür

 
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About your music: The tenth piece in The Carnival of the Animals is not about a particular bird, but about an aviary — a large cage where birds are kept. Generally found in gardens, parks, and zoos, aviaries allow us to see and hear a wide variety of birds of different sizes, colors, and shapes.

About this song: The flute will be the first to capture your attention, showing extraordinary virtuosity that mimics the song of an unidentified bird. Listen closely to hear the background sound that conjures wind and the flapping of wings: violins and violas are playing the same note, while the cello and bass perform a pizzicato — playing the instruments by plucking the strings instead of bowing them — between two notes. Later on, pianos join the celebration of sound and movement.

What I hope children, teachers and families get from this song: Many people think classical music is for grownups or out of reach for common people. However, children enjoy classical music when they are in contact with it. Additionally, listening to classical music offers many benefits: it develops many mental abilities such as concentration, abstraction, and imagination; brings peace of mind; and can be a great source of pleasure for everybody. 

http://www.thesecretmountain.com/node/1524

Playin' Possum

Uncle Rock

 
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About your music: Uncle Rock is performer, actor, teacher, writer Robert Burke Warren. His “Rock Of All Ages” songs draw inspiration from Maurice Sendak, Woody Guthrie and Shel Silverstein – with a bit of classic rock thrown in. 

About this song: I wrote this song about pretending to be asleep. Possums – or Opossums – are best at it, so much so that predators often think they are dead and leave them alone. But if you’re a human, it’s much cooler to wait until someone is next to your snoring body and say, “BOO!” Trust me on that. 

Playing Possum was recorded in the mountains of upstate New York. He brought in lots of acoustic instruments to give it a bouncy, folky feel. The dogs barking in the background are real. The second vocal is my son Jack, who was seven at the time.

What I hope children, teachers and families get from this song: I hope listeners of all ages get a sense of how much fun it is when grown-ups and kids do things together, whether it’s singing, playing games, or learning how to spell possum. 

www.unclerock.com