Our 30th Anniversary CD, promoting literacy, learning, and FUN for young children!

Teddy Bear Band: Sing, Play & Move 2 The Prequel
Recorded live, 1987

Providing Young Children with Learning & Language Opportunities through Music

Song activity suggestions: Annette Gagliardi, M.Ed. (See Note*)
Additional notes: Ron Gustafson B.A.

Note to parents and teachers:
We encourage you to do these songs and actions with your young children. It will make a difference in their enjoyment and level of participation, plus it’s fun!

Songs on this album support emergent literacy for young children

Indicates More Fun & Learning Opportunities!

1. Hello Everybody/ Teddy Bear Band Boogie (Richard Erickson)
A feel-good greeting song, encouraging kids to ‘get down’ and participate with the music. Invite children to “flap your ears; clap your knees.” This contributes to the silliness making it fun for kids!

Try creating a silly/unusual way to greet each other.

2. Clap and Stop (Traditional)
“We are going to play a game.” This helps kids know they can follow directions and play a game with someone else leading. It’s a physical challenge to kick, clap and wiggle at the same time. This involves cognitive as well as physical gymnastics. This song is great practice for “stopping”.

Parents might play a variation of this game at a restaurant when they want their children to stay seated. (wiggle, wink, smile, etc.)

3. This Old Man (intro) 4. This Old Man (Traditional)
Some kids know this song! – It’s fun for kids to sing a song they already know. It builds fluency when they sing along with the band using counting skills up to ten. Memory is enhanced as they remember the next verse while singing along. The lyrics provide lots of rhyming. When kids do “rolling” with their arms, a physical element is added.

Think of other songs you sang as a child and sing them with your children.

5. This Old Bear (intro) 6. This Old Bear (Music Trad./Lyrics Ron Gustafson)
New words to a familiar song stretches cognitive thinking towards flexible thinking. Kids follow directions and fly their bears in the air. Children have to think about if they are girls or boys as the band directs “all the girl bears” to fly their ” bear in the air”. Again, lots of rhyming words and fun as kids send their bear in the air!

Parents can sing this on car rides and perhaps go on to eleven, twelve, and higher.

7. Finger Bees (Traditional)
This is a familiar rhyme that Ron speaks instead of singing. The bee sound provides background information. It’s fun to follow directions and build fine motor skills. The kinesthetic movement of fingers helps children remember the words.

Parents can help children think of other insects and the sounds they make.

8. Old McDonald (intro) 9. Old McDonald (Traditional)
Ron sings La, la, la, la. and kids guess the tune. It’s a fun guessing game that pulls answers from the kids and invites them to make animal sounds. This exercise helps children practice thinking skills and develops their auditory discrimination. It builds:
• Cultural literacy: This is a famous song that over 80% of Americans know. (Every child needs to know this song to increase their cultural literacy.)
• Vocabulary: Animals and the sounds they make
• Background knowledge: Who lives on a farm?

Read a book about a farm or farm animals or visit a farm to see what these animals look like. Play a guessing game where you hum or play just the melody of a favorite song and ask your child to name it.

10. Hickory Dickory Dock (Traditional)
Ron gives directions so children know what to do. Children can keep moving (stamina) and listen to the song. The band provides some extra noises (auditory discrimination). The song has a strong beat that provides children with opportunities to learn rhythm through music and language. Encourage kids to stand with their arms down on either side and rock back and forth for a pendulum beat.

Extend: Have children look at clocks they have around the house; analog or digital? A grandfather clock? Count how many places you can find clocks; stove, phone, microwave, bedside table, etc.

11. Five Little Monkeys (intro) 12. Five Little Monkeys (Traditional/ Music Ron Gustafson)
The band gives us the spring sound and mentions a disclaimer – “Don’t jump on the bed”. Kids love this song. They love to jump around, which increases oxygen they take in. It grows their brains! Good counting as the song counts backwards from five. Band varies the doctor voice, which is silly and fun for kids, and changes beat of the song which offers flexibility of thinking and dancing. Band encourages kids to join in the singing to build fluency.

If you do this with ASL signing or other actions, it provides kinesthetic memory for this song. What else can you count using just your fingers?

13. Twinkle, Twinkle (Traditional)
Another song children will probably know. It builds cultural literacy and fluency. It offers some background knowledge (stars are in the sky). TBB sings softly so children’s voices can be heard. Listeners might want to sing along.

Read the book “Twinkle, Twinkle little Star ” by Ira Trapani.

14. Roll Your Bear (tunes of Row Your Boat & Merrily We Roll Along) (Music trad./Lyrics Ron Gustafson)
This song is an opportunity for kids to roll their bears on the floor. It’s good exercise and provides practice in coordination of large motor skills. This song provides practice in following directions, to the rhythm the band provides TBB puts two familiar songs together coordinating rhythms & beats which extends the music and activity.
Do this song using a ball to roll back and forth. Sing the song and roll the ball. This will provide practice in eye-hand coordination along with having fun.

15. Me and My Teddy Bear (Traditional)
“Does your bear come alive?” This opens up imaginative thinking. The song offers opportunity for movement through dancing. It’s a social-emotional, feel-good song because the actions/words of song mirror what kids experience.

Parents talk with your child about which animal is their favorite and why. Share with your kids what you had as a favorite toy as a child.

16. Teddy Bears Balancing (Traditional/Arr. Ron Gustafson)
Good physical participation song. Movement, balance, bouncing, climbing, walking, following directions, joining in a community game. Counting song (five to one)
• Cultural / background information about walking on a tightrope “string” in a circus.
• Counting practice up to five
• Rhyming: dare/bear, balancing/ string,
• Great imagery: being in a circus, walking on the string, then the string breaks so kids ‘fall’, tie the string, then go across again.
• Great practice in walking in a straight line- large motor balance, stamina, and coordination.
• At end of song there are ten bears.

Do this song at home, using a strip of masking tape to represent the string. Invite your child to step on the tape with one foot in front of the other with their arms stretched out on either side.

17. Blue Jays, Bees and Dinosaur (Traditional/Arr. Ron Gustafson)
The bird song is spoken instead of sung. The Baby Dinosaur is silly and fun. Kids love this song. It has imagination, back ground knowledge and new vocabulary.

Talk with your child about real birds, real bees and dinosaurs. Where do they live? What do they eat? When you do these actions with your children, you provide a wonderful role model and provide the idea that this is important.

18. Get up and Get Down (Richard Erickson)
Small (and big) children love to move their bodies. Exercise is so important for providing oxygen to the brain, not to mention how good it makes us feel. The group participates and follows directions reinforcing the concepts of up and down. The band sets up the song as a game to see if kids can do it . It’s a challenge to see if they can do the movements. This moves the audience from watching to participating. It provides a deepening level of difficulty as the song progresses the band claps for kids & expresses their amazement at how well the kids are doing.

Play “Simon says” to music. Let children take a turn at being “Simon”.

19. Bear In The Air (intro) 20. Bear In The Air (Ron Gustafson)
Get the teddy bears into this song! Ask everyone to stand up.
• Audience participation: Invite participation in this bear toss game.
• Large motor fun: Tossing and catching the bear
• Body coordination: Balance and eye-hand coordination is needed to throw and catch the bear, put bear on your hip, in your hair,
• Rhyming words: Bear/hair, hip/slip, bear/air, knee/ three, hair/there,
• Follow directions: Give your bear a hug, toss bear, put bear on body parts, catch bear.
Help your child think of other body parts or places around the house to put their bear. Try to make a rhyme like bear/air and knee/ three. (Note: This is the first original song written and performed by TBB. It was a hit when Ron wrote it in 1985 and it’s just as popular 30 years later! The reason? Fun & participation for young children!)

21. Goodbye Everybody (Traditional/Arr. Ron Gustafson)
• Building community: Say and wave good-bye, have your bear wave.
• Social – emotional: This is a feel good song because TBB is thanking the kids for helping and being in the show.
• Cultural literacy: Say good-bye and thank you at end of the performance.

Parents may share a variety of ways to say ‘good-bye’ with their children & help them practice saying good-bye when
appropriate.

All Songs ASCAP
Thanks for playing our Teddy Bear Band games!

*Note: Annette Gagliardi has written two children’s books. The first is The Three Betty Goats Griff. Many of you have read The Three Billy Goats Gruff, but have you heard of their dancing cousins, the Three Betty Goats Griff? Annette’s book provides a wonderful new take on this old favorite. The website offers activity pages, teacher and parent ideas and the book in a variety of languages.

Visit: www.threeBettyGoatsGriff.com

Annette’s second book: Resourceful Erica is a paper folding story about a girl who helps save a burning building, then runs into deep water. The surprise ending proves just how resourceful she is. Find Annette’s books in book stores and on the internet.