My Favorite Kindergarten Welcome Song

There's no better way to start early childhood music class than with a song! I've tried a few different ones over the years with varying success, but today I want to share my favorite one that I've stuck with for the last several years- it still hasn't gotten old for me all these years later!

I have been using the same welcome song to start my Kindergarten music classes for the last few years, and I realized I have never shared a post specifically about the song despite singing it at the beginning of pretty much every single Kindergarten music lesson for at least 5 years.

The original song is by Angelique Felix. I came across this video from her channel and knew I wanted to try it with my classes, especially since my Kindergartners seemed to have a particularly difficult time with directional language (left/ right, up/ down):

I made a few changes from her original version to make it work for me. First I changed the speaking part to be sung, and I changed the words slightly in the second line to "stretch your hands up to the sky" (honestly it was just easier for me to remember for whatever reason). I also of course sing it in a higher key that's more in the students' singing range. After doing the song a few times with the kids I quickly realized it was wise to change "turn your body round and round" to "turn your body ONCE around" to avoid the inevitable never-ending spin. So with those small changes, this is now how I do the song with my classes:

I love this song and more importantly, so do my students! It's the perfect way to start class with singing and movement but also get them all sitting down in their spots to start the first lesson activity. The great thing is, throughout the year if we are doing something standing up and it's time to sit down, I just sing the last line of the song and the students all join in with me to sing and sit. So much better than just TELLING them to sit! 

I know there are lots of other great ones out there- I'd love to hear your favorite welcome songs for Kindergarten/ early childhood in the comments below!