Good Morning Dear Earth
Good Morning Dear Sun,
Good Morning Dear Stones
and the Flowers every one
Good Morning Dear Beasties
and the Birds in the Trees
Good Morning to You
and Good Morning to Me
Each morning at Chickadees and Woolly Bears your children participate in circle time, a time to come together around song and movement. Many of you have likely heard your children singing these songs at home!
Why are songs so important in early childhood? Why should we add songs to our ‘Mary Poppins’ bag of tricks?
Songs have many super powers:
- Songs bring us joy.
- Songs encourage us to use our voice and be heard which leads to self confidence and language development.
- Songs teach us about the world around us while being fun and interactive.
- Songs can encapsulate the seasons, teaching us about what is going on in the natural world.
- Songs bring us into unity, creating a unit or culture.
- Songs bring our breath and heartbeats into unity as well: as we inhale and exhale together and sing at the same pace our heartbeats can align; creating a deep sense of oneness
- Songs help with transitions, being a clue to what will happen next, or when an activity is over.
- Songs are powerful memory tools, many studies show that when we sing information it remains in our memory better than if it is spoken.
- Songs with movements encourage fine and gross motor development while being a powerful assessment tool.
- Songs accelerate brain development around language and reading
Close your eyes and notice if you can hear any birds singing. If you are somewhere that you can not hear birds singing right now, think back to a time when you woke up and got to witness the dawn chorus of birds singing to greet the new day. How did it make you feel? I presume it brought you joy, maybe a sense of calm. Let us be like the dawn chorus within our homes and bring music into our daily rhythms.
Click here to listen to our Chickadee Spring Circle songs. We encourage you to sing with your children. We sing each song 3 times as we are getting to know them, as repetition is important for the young child. Each song has its own movements which you can have your child teach to you. When singing with your child and doing the motions, put beauty and intentionality into them. Children mimic us and if we are only half in they may be as well. These motions are also, oh so fun when you fully give them life. I have also attached a video of each of the Chickadee songs, to teach you the motions. I encourage you to watch and then learn the motions as a family, rather than just watching the video.
These songs have been passed through other teachers and through the passage I do not know the origin of many of them. ‘I am and Bird’ and ‘Wild Greens’ were both created by Maya Shoemaker, who is currently in Grad School, but worked with WYP for many years. The songs have changed and adapted within our groups, some songs that both Woolly Bears and Chickadees sing have different words or a slightly different tune. Follow your child’s lead if they ‘correct’ the songs. An example is, both the Woolly Bears and Chickadees sing Spring is Here but the Woolly Bears sing it as Spring is Coming.