Today I enjoyed teaching nature themed songs at Wildrock nature center in Crozet. This is a great place way out beyond the town where there is not even reception on your cell phone. Good to feel off the grid for awhile and play outside. This place has lots of play areas indoors too for kids to explore. They have educational areas to teach about animal life in the wilderness and a botanical area, camping gear to on display, magical forests. Outside you can hike to the stream or walk the labyrinth or play and dance on the stage or go fishing. There are lots of animals around too. Sheep, horses, cows, frogs, fox, deer and probably bears out there too.
There were groups of 1st and 2nd graders that came on a field trip there and I taught them some of my favorite Native America songs. How about:
"The Earth is our mother, we must take care of her 2x
Hey yanna, ho yanna, hey yon yon..."
Or from the Lakota tribe:
"I am one with the infinite sun
forever and ever and ever
keyo teh leno leno maho teh
heino heino heino."
We talked about caring for the environment and things we could do to help. Things like reusing things instead of throwing away and recycling.
I sang them some songs about recycling:
"We've been working on recycling (to the tune of "I've Been Workin on the Railroad"
all the trash we can
we've been working on recycling
it's a very simple plan..." etc.
We then talked about camping out and being out in nature and singing campfire songs. The children taught me some new ones and I taught them some of our old ones we sang as a child. Songs like, "Old MacDonald," and "Bingo."
It was a fun time!
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