Saturday, September 13, 2008

Down by the Bay

As I was preparing my Nursery lesson for tomorrow, "I can be kind to animals" I came across some silly animal rhymes that inspired the kids to come up with new verses for the song "Down by the Bay". The first time we heard this song we were in Connecticut visiting Grandma and Grandpa Lambarth. I believe it was in the fall of 2005, because Danielle wasn't quite one yet if I remember corrently. Anyway, Grandma had rented some kids songs CDs from the library to listen to in the car. For those of you who are not familiar with this song, I believe it is on one of the Raffi albums (who turned out to be huge a big favorite with my kids). So here's how it goes:

Down by the bay,

Where the watermelon grows
Back to my home I dare not go
For if I do my mother would say:
Have you ever seen a (fill in the blank)
Down by the bay.

So the fill-in-the-blank part is a silly animal rhyme. Some of the ones in the real song are:
Whale with a polka-dot tail?
Moose kissing a goose?
Fly wearing a tie?
Llama eating pajamas?

So here are some new ones that we've come up with (well, the ones that aren't too crazy to be repeated in print):
giraffe taking a bath

pig wearing a wig
sheep falling asleep
hen counting to ten
cat wearing a hat
mouse sewing a blouse
beetle threading a needle
bear without any hair
bunny eating some honey
fish making a wish
shark playing in the park
cow saying meow

OK, the possibilities really are endless - it doesn't have to be animals. It's really a fun song. I was thinking it would be fun to do with names, but my kid's don't really have easily rhymable names. And as I'm thinking about it I'm only coming up with rhymes for two of my nephews and they aren't so nice (puke and lice). So maybe that ways is not so go to go. But you get the idea.

Oh, and by the way - click on the Raffi link above and it will take you to Rhapsody's website where you can listen to his music for free. There's like 280+ of his songs there.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lis-
The boys really liked the creative verses! And we have PTA here still. So what is the difference between a PTA and the other big long name?
Also, do you have any thoughts or comments about school pics? What do YOU do? Lambarth family consensus is that school pics are unnecessary. What is your opinion?

Karen Lambarth said...

Singing in the car on the way to the beach is one of my fond memories! I enjoy Raffi songs now, they just lift the mood.
Fun 'new' verses!

Kerry said...

hey - a comment just for you Lis
check out http://littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com/search/label/baby
or just go there and click on baby-their link is on my blog..anyway it's got an idea for bibs/splat mats that I just thought was right up your ally! Since I'm guessing you've got carpet in your eating area.

Thanks for the link I didn't know you could listen to music for free besides youtube.

Teri said...

Lisa,
I tagged you! Check out our blog for the fun!

Lynne's Somewhat Invented Life said...

Lisa, these rhymes are darling. My fav is "Bear without any hair." it remind me of "Fuzzy wasn't fuzzy any more." For some reason I can't remember the rest of it.

Anyway, very fun to read,

How did the interview go?