Sorry, venturing into the teachers forum... Hope you don't mind!

I've been asked to find some simple, nice, happy songs for a primary one class (4/5 years old) to sing. Their teacher has apparently looked on a few well-known sites but to no avail, so I was wondering if any of you might have some ideas? They would need to be rhythmically quite straight forward, and with a piano accompaniment for someone of say, grade 5ish standard.

Any ideas welcomed!

Have you considered some folk songs? Excellent material, and excellent heritage there.

Appleby and Fowler's Sing Together would be a good start. There must be some good collections of Scottish folk songs too but I know of only one and that is ancient!

My tinies like Donkey Riding and Five Naughty Monkeys. (So do I. )

I still use Sing Together with older children. The OUP Voiceworks series is good, and I think there is one still aimed at primary school children. I also use a volume called 'The world is full of smeely feet', which has some fun stuff in it. Not sure if it is still in print from Mayhews.

The latest absolutely brilliant and free resource is www.singup.org check it out, it's brilliant.

I've got a spare copy of 'Oki Toki Unga' you're welcome to have next time you see MWL. In fact I've got a load of books I got on Freecycle, most of which are surplus to requirements. I'll try and remember to passs them on.

Agreed. Singup is amazing and the children love it. They even try out the songs at home

I think that most of the resources mentioned so far are for a slightly older age group than the one that Miss Ross was asking about (4-5 year-olds).

I've PM'd you, Floss.

With this age group, I would be doing more in the way of singing games with movement - you could have a look at the NYCOS books, for example. ( Oh, and Cyrilla's book as well, of course, which perhaps she's mentioned in her PM.) I would do mainly unaccompanied repertoire - I spend at least half the lesson without touching the piano, even up to Yr 4 or 5.

The rainbow song...the one where they sing the colour of the rainbow.
The hokey cokey
Heads shoulders knees and toes
Twinkle twinkle little star
Mary had a little lamb
etc
Maybe a bit too basic but oh well

I still like Five Naughty Monkeys!

I think the best bet for Prilmary school songs is anything published by "Out of the Ark". They have a website and will send you a catalogue. The books come with piano accompaniment, and CD with childrens' choir or just the backing track.

I actually use them for my French children learning English - at the moment we are working on "Songs For Every Occasion" with the older children and "Happy Sun High" with a younger group.

The songs are simple, memorable and very popular with the children.