I need some good recommendations for folk songs that I can teach my 5th and 6th grade music classes.

October 10, 2007 2:06 PM

I need some good recommendations for folk songs that I can teach my 5th and 6th grade music classes. Maybe american, african american or celtic

I am a 5th and 6th grade general music teacher. I need to get my students singing which is hard. Folk music is generally written well to be taught by rote rather then note. And in my opinion the melodies are hipper then choral music for this age. Does anyone have any recommendations for folk songs that would work well with this age? I have a pretty good selection for my 1st through 3rd graders but 4th 5th and 6th is harder. They can't be thought childish. Thanks

posted by doppler68 to media & arts (21 comments total)

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I always liked Low Bridge.
posted by sociolibrarian at 2:10 PM on October 10, 2007

Not for specific songs, but Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook is amazing and must have hundreds of folk songs in it.

Publisher desc:
*"Folk Revival" favorites popularized by Baez, Seeger, Collins, Peter, Paul and Mary, Dylan, Mitchell, Taylor, Donovan, and many others.
* The best-known material of contemporary folk songwriters including Near, Staines, Williamson, Rogers, Bok and many more.
* Broadway show tunes, Beatles songs, Motown hits
* Hymns, spirituals, and gospel standards
* Songs about peace, freedom, labor and the environment
* Ballads, cowboy songs, shanties and blues.
posted by cocoagirl at 2:15 PM on October 10, 2007

Get the Springsteen album with Pete Seeger songs. They will love them. (Especially his Old Dan Tucker, which is hipper than the one I knew when I was a kid.)

You would probably have to work out the tunes and lead-sheets, but how hard could that be. (Hint: use abc music format.)
posted by vilcxjo_BLANKA at 2:17 PM on October 10, 2007

Second for Rise Up Singing.
posted by vilcxjo_BLANKA at 2:17 PM on October 10, 2007

I have no idea who wrote these songs or if 5th or 6th graders would be into them but these are ones I know from childhood...

-Bye, Bye Blackbird
-I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle
-Old Dan Tucker

In 7th grade I remember singing songs from "Grease" and from "Fame" but this was the 80s! Beetles songs are also fun to sing.
posted by pluckysparrow at 2:18 PM on October 10, 2007

A lot of Peter, Paul and Mary songs are fun for kids.
posted by MiffyCLB at 2:19 PM on October 10, 2007

You want songs with more, and more interesting, lyrics...

Songs about heroes or outlaws: eg ballad of John Henry

Call and response! (those are just a few suggestions)

Camp songs! eg An Austrian went yodelling (has hand gestures and rhythm part beat on the desks)

Sea shanties! (mystic seaport puts out a great set of recordings which could get the kids excited)

Patriotic standards, if they don't already know them: Battle Hymn of the Republic; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; When the saints go marching in (teach them the words and then do an increasingly jazzy version); This Land is Your Land. The Marine's Hymn is catchy and has great lyrics.

Fun songs: Big Rock Candy Mountain; Erie Canal

Also, tales of dead sailors/lovers, and lots of other good songs for Halloween:
the cat came back
John Brown's body lies a-mouldrin' in the grave
Oh they built the ship Titanic
Clementine
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:49 PM on October 10, 2007

Thirding Rise Up Singing - it's indispensable.
posted by gnutron at 2:56 PM on October 10, 2007

How about some easy-to-learn Spanish at the same time, like my old favorite El Barquito de Nuez? videos here
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:06 PM on October 10, 2007

Teach them murder ballads! Many of them are gloriously bloodthirsty and sure to appeal.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 3:29 PM on October 10, 2007

Pete Seeger. Any and all - man's a genius.

Maybe Bring Them Home
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:02 PM on October 10, 2007

Simple Gifts is a song that everyone should know.
posted by Zach! at 4:07 PM on October 10, 2007

My 5th grade teacher was, I suspect, a hippie. She taught us folk songs and accompanied us on her guitar. We also still had regular chorus. The funny thing was in regular chorus no one sang, at all , ever. But in folk chorus everyone did. Also, she used the songs to talk about US history, social issues, etc. We all loved it.

I remember some of the songs:

Super Skier [More of a funny song] [Lyrics]
Kids/Parents [from Bye Bye Birdie, with the words changed to be about parents]
Which side are you on? [an old-fashioned union song]
The Ruben James [also helped me get extra credit on a few History exams over the years]
Little Boxes [on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky]
59th street bridge song
Tom Dooley
Tenting Tonight [civil war song]
Kalinka [a Russian song that no one understood but we liked the tune, they play it at sporting events a lot]
Where have all the flowers gone
If I had a hammer
Puff, the Magic Dragon
We are marching to Pretoria
We are the world [everyone loved pretending to be the famous singers]
It's a Small World [remixed as a canon, which makes it much less annoying]
Blowin' in the wind
I shall not be moved
100 miles [?] [I can hear the whistle blow...100 miles]
Country Roads [we loved singing this one]
This land is your land
posted by Mozzie at 4:25 PM on October 10, 2007

I have always been a fan of Johnny Rebeck because it is so grim.

Of course, those aren't the lyrics I learned, but I learned it from my parents on car trips, so who knows.

Also, Henry My Son - it's a Call and Answer but also grim. I was, apparently, obsessed with songs about dumb people dying as punishment for turning pets into sausages and eating green and yeller forest eels. I think we can all agree there are valuable lessons to be learned there.
posted by mckenney at 4:41 PM on October 10, 2007

Lydia the Tattooed Lady? Or would that bring down the authorities? Your Feet's Too Big?

Not folky, perhaps, but for a jaded ten year old, they might work. I know I liked them at that age. Still do.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:33 PM on October 10, 2007

Raggle Taggle Gypsies
Johnny Cope
Loch Lomand

If the boys role their eyes on the last one, point out the the low road was death.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:54 PM on October 10, 2007

Blowing in the Wind
Lemon Tree
If I Had a Hammer
posted by workinggringa at 7:41 PM on October 10, 2007

Pete Seeger definitely. And the group he was in, the Weavers.
And have you ever heard of Burl Ives? He not only was an actor, he sang dozens of folk tunes -- some of them really corny. Among my faves as a kid were "Blue Tail Fly," "Goober Peas" and "I Know an Old Lady."
If you want to go cowboy/western, get CDs of Don Edwards ("Songs of the Trail," "A Cowboy Songbag," etc.) or Sons of the San Joaquin ("A Cowboy Has to Sing," "Sing One for the Cowboy," etc.)
Then there's the Kingston Trio, Joan Baez (early recordings) and, as a couple mentioned already, Peter, Paul and Mary. Oh, and it's just one song, but what about Harry Belafonte's "The Banana Boat Song" (day-o, dayyyyy-o...) OK. I'llgoawaynow.
posted by Smalltown Girl at 8:03 PM on October 10, 2007

My folksy bf, who has had experience singing with ages 5-12, endorses everything upthread - especially "Rise Up Singing" and Pete Seeger. He'd add:

Charlie on the MTA
The Titanic Song
Waltzing Matilda
Leaving on a Jet Plane
One Tin Soldier - though this clip is a bit silly, the song itself is ridiculously sad. The kids, for some reason, really love it though. It's his most requested.

He'd also like to suggest Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan as sources.

(Also, great question!)
posted by sarahmelah at 9:29 PM on October 10, 2007

There's a great song called Swinging the Alphabet which was on a three stooges short once. My older son, who is now 15, learned it when he was in kindergarten. As a middle-teenaged person he is much too sophisticated for the three stooges, but I, as a middle-fifties-aged person, think it's really cool. There's supposed to be a video clip on youtube someplace, but I'm unable to check it right now.
posted by vilcxjo_BLANKA at 9:33 AM on October 11, 2007

It's probably not appropriate, but they would love to learn A Chat With Your Mother. I'll bet if you acquire Lou and Peter Berryman's CDs you'll find others which you could actually teach.
posted by vilcxjo_BLANKA at 9:37 AM on October 11, 2007