5 Little Ducks Can Become…

Are you sometimes stuck for a song that you’d like to link to a book, a topic/theme or the children’s interests?

Well, number rhymes are a great starting point; you can change many of them to suit your needs.  As long as you know the song well you can change the words in a minute or two. 

5 Little Ducks Can Become…

A few minutes before I started writing this article I thought about how I could change the words for ‘5 little ducks’ to ‘5 little lambs’.  The words that I came up with are:

5 little lambs went leaping one day

Over the hills and far away

Mummy sheep said don't go far

But only 4 little lambs went baa

 Last verse - last line: And 5 little lambs went baa, baa, baa

You could easily do this with other farm animals.

A really easy rhyme to change

The easiest rhyme that I could think about changing is ‘1 potato, 2 potato’.    All you need to do  is change the object name. It could be used for food, transport, animals … for example

• 1 cake, 2 cake, 3 cake, 4, 5 cake, 6 cake, 7 cake more
• 1 bus, 2 bus, 3 bus, 4, 5 bus, 6 bus, 7 bus more
• 1 dog, 2 dog, 3 dog, 4, 5 dog, 6 dog, 7 dog more…

5 little monkeys an easy swap and a complete change

I quite frequently change  '5 little monkeys jumping on the bed' to different animal names.  For example you could change it to 5 little rabbits, kittens, chicks…

5 little rabbits jumping on the bed

1 fell out and bumped her head

Mummy called the doctor and the doctor said

No more rabbits jumping on the bed

I have also created a new version about pancakes. The tune and structure are similar but I have changed most of the words.

5 little pancakes tossing in a pan

1 fell out and landed on Gran/Nan! …. Dan…  (could do names that rhyme with pan)

Gran/Nan began to laugh then she sang

No more pancakes tossing in a pan!

An activity plan for the new song  5 little pancakes can be found in my Early Years Music Ideas Membership.  Click here for more information: https://www.musicintheearlyyears.com/early-years-music-ideas-2-to-5 

Happy music making!