“The Drum Song”

The Drum Song

A few weeks ago, I was in a store when I overheard a wonderful mother-with-young-child conversation. The child was a girl who was perhaps five or six years old. She kept asking, “When are we going to go, Mom? I want to go.” And her mom said patiently, “Be patient.” The little girl replied, “Okay. I can be patient for one minute.”

This is a good activity for children who can be (or are working on being) patient for one minute.

I think of this activity as simply “The Drum Song.”  I adapted this from an activity I read about a long time ago. That song involved passing a hat around the circle for each child to wear on their head, but some schools asked me not to do it because they’d had lice incidents in the past! Now I don’t do any more activities where children share hats.

I wish I could give credit to whoever wrote that song, but I don’t remember!

Bring in a drum made from a coffee can, an oatmeal box, or other cylinder-shaped container. Start the song by patting the drum to the beat. The tune is “A-Hunting We Will Go.”

“The Drum Song”

        O-oh, Miss Abby has the drum,
It’s such a lot of fun!
But now I’ll stop (stop playing with a sudden “freeze”)
And pass it to Ayden, (pass drum to the child on your right)
        Now Ayden has the drum!

        O-oh, Ayden has the drum…

        (and so on, going around the circle.)

“The Drum Song” helps consolidate the children’s knowledge of each other’s names. It’s also great practice for taking turns, since the song goes so quickly that every child knows she’ll get a turn soon – no one gets too frustrated.

One thing I really like about this song is that the children get practice playing the drum, but without the chaos that sometimes arises if everyone gets a drum the first time you bring them out!

But obviously, this game helps with learning to wait. Some young children really want to grab that drum, or at least touch it, so it’s a good short-term practice in waiting and keeping their hands to themselves (for at least a minute).