Well, we are done “test piloting” my newest CD, Sing and Spell Vol. 5: Number Words and More Sight Words. (These number songs are of course different from the other number songs, since these songs actually teach the kids to spell the number words, rather than teach them to recognize the numbers as in Jumpin Numbers Volumes One and Two.) This CD has lots of songs on it with a rock and roll or a hip-hop type of feel to them. The kids, especially the boys, just LOVE the songs with a lot of electric guitar! One of them started to lay down on the carpet to play his “air guitar,” and that was it! Now they are always down on the floor whenever they certain songs come on, such as the songs for “Four” and “Find.” It’s a bit amusing, because the girls are so tired of watching the boys lay down on the floor to play their guitars that they just stand there with their hands on their hips and watch the boys with thinly veiled disgust! What is even more amusing is that I doubt that most of those boys have the slightest idea what it is they are imitating! We finally had to make a rule that they could only do this on the intro to the Four song, and after that, had to stand up and do the song the regular way. This did help, thankfully!
When I first wrote the number songs, I forgot to include a song for the number zero. When I did finally remember it, all I could think of was, “I don’t WANT to make up another song! And I can’t think of anything anyway!” But one of my brighter students said one day, “Hey! We don’t have a zero song!” Ugh! I knew that I would have to come up with one. Then I had the idea of making the zero spelling song into a song that also was about Zero the Hero! My boys this year are obsessed with super heroes, and always are writing their little stories about how they turn into super heroes and catch all of the bad guys, and they fly away. I knew that this type of song would be a huge hit with my class this year, and probably many others, too! So, after much thought, and turning some lyrics around and around in my head in the shower and in the middle of the night, I came up with the words that I wanted. It goes like this:
Zero might sound like nothing to you,
But he’s our hero, brave and true!
Looking for the numbers with a zero at the end,
Counting them all over and beginning again!
Z-E-R-O! Zero the Hero!
Z-E-R-O! Zero the Hero!
Z-E-R-O! Zero the Hero!
Z-E-R-O! Zero the Hero!
Then, all I needed was a melody. Now whenever I get stuck with lyrics that seem to fit together well, but no melody to put them with, I ask my arranger, Mike Cravens, to see if he can come up with one for me, and I suggested a “Mighty Mouse” type of feel. But then he came up with the idea of making it sound something along the lines of the “Greatest American Hero” song. The tune he came up with is just great! He emailed the song to me, and I asked him to make a few adjustments based on what I thought the kids would like and learn best from, and then he emailed the song back to me. I absolutely LOVE what we came up with! I’ve got the kids pretending to fly around the room looking for zeros, just like Zero the Hero. Then they all jump and punch the air, shouting, Z-E-R-O! Zero the Hero!” I think that this is going to be one of our “signature” songs! Even if your kids don’t need to learn to spell any of the words on this CD, you may want to get it just for the Zero the Hero song. It’s THAT much fun!
Some other really fun ones, the class favorites this year, are:
Four (Has a “Stray Cats” style to it!)
Six (This one is a spy thriller)
Eight (This one takes the Eency Weency Spider, gives it a spooky sound and a rock and roll twist)
But (A way cool hip hop song that is SO much fun to dance to!)
Under (Has a hip hop feel to it, and is almost a rap. Helps kids learn the position word as well as the spelling of it, too)
Say (Has a Caribbean marimba in it that makes it really fun to dance to!)
Says (This is a really fun hip hop rock song that the kids just go CRAZY for!)
So (This song has them doing things like, “wiggle, wiggle, just like so!” and “move it, move it, just like so!)
The “Eat” song is so much fun to sing too, and it addresses the problem of kids not wanting to eat their food at mealtime. It gets faster and faster as it goes along. It has a soul/gospel feel to it. Here are the words:
Eat
(I’m Gonna Sing, Sing, Sing)
I”m gonna E-A-T,
I”m gonna E-A-T,
I’m gonna eat, I’m gonna eat,
All my food!
When it’s time to eat my lunch,
I’m gonna sit and munch, munch, munch!
I’m gonna E-A-T all my food!
The “Fight” song is a GREAT song for conflict resolution, and the kids love to sing it, too! I have been able to use it to help kids memorize the steps to solve problems when they come up with their classmates. This one is just a rap; there is no melody at all. Here are the words to it:
Fight
(By Heidi Butkus)
F-I-G-H-T! We don’t fight!
F-I-G-H-T! We don’t fight!
Talk it over.
Walk away.
Find another game to play!
Talk it over.
Walk away.
Find another game to play!
F-I-G-H-T! We don’t fight!
F-I-G-H-T! We don’t fight!
The “Please” song is another good one to sing to the kids when they are forgetting to use the “magic word.” Here are the words to it:
Please
(Loopy Loo)
P-L-E-A-S-E!
P-L-E-A-S-E!
Oh, please, say please!
Remember it please!
P-L-E-A-S-E!
I need a paper, please!
I need a pencil, please!
I need a puppy, please!
Pretty /p/, pretty /p/, please!
I took a video of my class singing to lots of these songs right before Open House, and I played it for the parents when they came using my projector and a large screen I borrowed. The parents just loved it! What a great thing to do to take the pressure off of me, as the “hostess” of Open House! They were all so happy to see their little cuties on my large screen that almost no one peppered me with questions on how their child was doing. Hooray! 
