Row Your Boat

During several consecutive storytimes you would choose a song to sing every time. For example, I chose Row Your Boat.In each storytime we sing the song correctly: Row, row, row your boat; gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily; life is but a dream. Then we sing the song again in a silly way, changing the first sound of each word: Bow, bow, bow, bour boat, bently, bown be bream Berrily, berrily, berrily, berrily; bife bis but ba bream. Then we sing it again correctly. Early Literacy Aside--Example: Singing nonsense songs like this help children hear the smaller sounds in words, in a fun way! Try it with different songs. Being able to change the first sound in a word is part of phonological awareness.

The next week when we sing Row Your Boat changing the first sound of each word to a different sound. For example: Low, low, low lour loat; lently lown le leam Lerrily, lerrily, lerrily, lerrily; life lis lut la leam. Sometimes the children like to make their own changes and sing to the group.