I only recently learned about all of the wonderful children’s music by Hap Palmer.
Hap Palmer and his huge collection of music is truly a gift to music educators!
There are so many great songs of his I could share with you, but the one I wanted to make sure you know about is Scamper.
It’s a really cute song about a cat and mouse chase. It’s great for contrasting fast and slow music and the lyrics lend themselves to tons of great movements that kids love.
I include this song in my Mouse Paint lesson plan and it really goes along perfectly with that story.
This song could be used in some many different applications: for dancing, playing along with a rhythm instrument, creative movement, etc.
My favorite way to teach this songs is with scarves.
There are several times where they lyrics say “ya, ya, ya!” I like to let the kids hold their scarves and wave them back and forth through the air on those 3 notes.
Then, as the music speeds up and the scampering begins, I have the kids run fast in place and bounce their scarf up down quickly.
As the music changes from slow to faster, kids can practice listening skills to change their movements.
Scamper is a pretty short song at just over a minute, so this is one that we repeat many times in a preschool music class.