Playing to Kids - What Book to Use?

[Steely Glen]

Once a week throughout the summer, I will have the opportunity to play guitar and sing to a group of elementary school students (ages 5-10) who are in summer school. My wife and I don't have any kids, so I'm not too savvy on nursery rhymes, kids songs, etc.

What books would you recommend for a setting like this? They'd need have at least chords and lyrics. An accompanying CD would be nice, but not necessary.

Thanks!

[Mr Fixit eh]

Reader's Digest used to have a big yellow book of kids songs. It has chords, lyrics, and sheet music. Only problem I had with it was that the chords were often in a piano-friendly key, so I had to do alot of transposing or capoing.

STeve

[stanron]

Look up Pete Seeger stuff. When he got blacklisted, singing for kids was one of the things he was able to do. You could also start a thread on Mudcat cafe. You can post there as a guest. Good luck.

[enalnitram]

get with the times, yall. the kids at my son's elementary school are heavily into pop music. i forget the names of the tunes. i sort of turn off my brain when he starts to talk about it.

one such tune is "dynamite". it's not a bad song, really, as far as pop goes. i just hate the drum machines and the autotune so much! playing stuff like this in a folky way would probably get a good reaction, if you feel like selling out!

if you shook your butt and played this song they'll lose it. i guarantee they know and like this one. for optimum impact change the lyrics and make it about something educational, ala Yankovic.

24 million views
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpGgBYeOgi0

[Comfyfoot]

I found this website some time ago:
http://www.baby-patch.com/guitar.html

I have a 4 year old, who keeps asking me to play some of these songs. I did learn "If you are happy and you know it", which can be a great jammin tune.

Since I have the 4 year old, I end up sitting by the playground with a guitar, the kids need the music, to see how it is made. I have played at her preschool a few times, again like a vitamin or a fertilizer for these kids.

Most kids never really see music being made in person, it is a tremendous community service to act as a role model, a happy, creative, social time sans video is hard to come by.

Ages 5-10 all in one group, could be a bit tough, the little kids will still be into the nursery rhymes, the bigger kids would like something like Martin suggests.

If you are hoping to keep their attention, getting them to do stuff is important, like the itsy spider stuff with the hands, or Hokey Pokey. They also would probably like to make up their own words to some of the songs and then get a turn to sing a solo verse, since you are weekly, they will come up with stuff.

Enjoy
Rob

[jeastman]

A little bit older, but I used to listen to Raffi as a kid and now my kids love him as well. He's got a lot of good, acoustic-based songs.

[hooners]

Kids loved Raffi when they were younger, but we love Ralph Covert - Ralph's World, definitely worth checking him out. We've seen him like 15 times here in Chicago. Great to listen to because his music isn't parent-annoying
http://www.ralphsworld.com/

[JohnnyDes]

As has been said, this could be very tough. I have a 6 and 8 yr old, and once they hit 5, time for the nursery songs had passed. You're better off finding some non-racy songs that they'll enjoy. One example I've used with my kids is "If I had a million dollars", which is a lot of fun. Or, you go with innocuous classics like Blackbird and Sweet Baby James, that they might recognize.

JD

[Steely Glen]

Originally Posted by Comfyfoot

I found this website some time ago:
http://www.baby-patch.com/guitar.html

This website looks great. I copied and pasted the chords into a Word file and will use them/edit them for some of the nursery rhymes. This will work well for the younger kids.

Originally Posted by enalnitram

get with the times, yall. the kids at my son's elementary school are heavily into pop music. i forget the names of the tunes. i sort of turn off my brain when he starts to talk about it.

I've visited the school once or twice and this seems to be the case, for sure. I may try to do an acoustic version of a Hannah Montana, Justin Bieber (gasp!), or Bruno Mars song. I can also take requests the first week or so and build a setlist based on that.

Thanks for all the great input everyone!

[sumokids]

I can't recommend the music of Justin Roberts highly enough. It's all my kids (9, 6, and 3) will let me play, and he has chords and lyrics to his first several albums on his website. No better writer of pop songs working today, in any genre, in my opinion.

www.justinroberts.org

[enalnitram]

Originally Posted by Steely Glen

Justin Bieber (gasp!)

if you did something like this, I'd bet the kids would go crazy!

[donh]

"Rise Up Singing" !!

http://www.singout.org/rus.html