Old MacDonald Had a Farm

An oldie, but goodie! This is a great one to start with when a group of kids is just getting comfortable with you. They all know the song, and want to participate with the familiar. But let's face it...this song gets a little boring, right?  Here are a few ideas to make the song more interesting for all:

1. Bring a bag full of Little People farm animals. The kids can take turns pulling animals out of the bag. If kids are too shy to come up to take an animal out I usually bring it around to them. It gets them warmed up to the idea of interacting with me.

2. Change the wording a little to say "Old MacDonald had a band. E-I-E-I-O! And in that band he had a horse. E-I-E-I-O! With a clop-clop here..." Pull out the musical instruments and let the kids accompany the song. Here are ideas for farm animal noises:
Horse...with a clop, clop (Use a wooden block with a stick, or two sticks together)
Cow...with a cling, clang (Use a cow bell or a triangle)
Cat...with a scritch, scratch (Use wooden blocks covered with sand paper)
Snake...with a shake, shake (Use an egg shaker or maraca)
Bird...with a tweet, tweet (Use a recorder or other high pitched instrument)
End with "and in that band EVERYONE played, E-I-E-I-O" and then go through all the noises you've played thus far (with a clop, clop here and a clop, clop there; a cling, clang here and a cling, clang there, a scritch, scratch here...)

3. Gather as many farm animal hand puppets as you can and let the kids BE the animals.

There are lots of fun things you can do with this song. It lends itself well to after-song-time crafts, too.  Be creative and let me know what YOU do with this song!

Animal Week (Again!): I Went to Visit a Farm One Day

The number of verses to this song is limited only to the number of farm animals the kids can think of! I love two things about this song: Kids are eager to suggest animals and to tell you what the animals say, which gets them creating their own verses, and the kids sing the animal noises back to you, which gets them started on solo singing. I usually have them sing the proper pitches for the animal sounds (they're MUSICAL animals!), and the kids then begin to learn pitch memory. Here are the lyrics for the first verse:

I went to visit a farm one day,
I saw a cow along the way.
And what do you think that cow did say?
MOO, MOO, MOO. MOO, MOO, MOO!

There are many YouTube videos where you can hear the melody of this song, and see verses that others have come up with. This is the one I see most referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeO3WxV35GE.

Often I will bring in pictures of farm animals, and if the kids get stumped but really want to be involved, I have them pick a picture. You could also bring in animal puppets and have them pick one out of a bag to sing along. There are a lot of fun things you can do with this song!