Winter Songs and Classroom Songs

Dear Families,

It was a delight for me to start the session again on Thursday and Friday and share the joy of life and play and work with you and your children.

Here are lyrics and words to songs or verses I speak or sing throughout the morning.

Here are the words for my rhymes and songs about snow and polar bears.

New and returning parents might notice that a lot of my circle material comes from Wilma Ellersiek.  She was a German university professor of drama and music and movement who, when she became alarmed at how academic German kindergartens were becoming in the 1950s, created a host of reverent or lively songs and gesture games for children--and children and parents together.  These songs and verses were intended as an antidote to too much academic information too early.  Even though the government realized that academic kindergartens interfered with long term school success and allowed kindergartens to follow the play model of Froebel again, Ellersiek had become passionate about here work and continued writing and composing for decades.  The story goes that she met Waldorf kindergarten teacher Klara Hatterman in the black forest on vacation, the two realized they had a lot in common, and Hatterman brought Ellersiek's songs and rhymes into her kindergarten and then into the greater Waldorf community.  Over the years I have observed that children adore Ellersiek's rhymes, and especially since one is unlikely to encounter them in other venues, I tend to use mostly Ellersiek games and rhymes and songs in class.  Kundry Willwerth, translator of the German games into English, writes about Ellersiek here.

Traditional nursery rhymes and songs are wonderful, too, and my predilection for Ellersiek songs in class is in no meant to steer you away from familiar songs like Twinkle, Twinkle or rhymes like "This Little Piggy." 

I look forward to seeing you next week.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde