Thursday, March 26, 2015

10 Alphabet Songs You May Not Know


Do you ever get tired of singing the ABCs? Breathe new life into your efforts to teach your children the alphabet with these lesser-known ABC songs.
  • "Alphabet Medley" by Sharon Lois and Bram
    This song appears on the Sing A to Z album. The track begins with the traditional alphabet song, but the second part of the medley is a totally different -  and very catchy! - tune. Because Sharon, Lois, and Bram are Canadian, they sing "zed" instead of "zee" for  the final letter, which might confuse some US listeners, but you could always learn the tune and sing the song your own way.
  • "Nursery Rhyme Rap" from The Bilingual Book of Rhymes, Songs, Stories, and Fingerplays by Pam Schiller, Rafael Lara-Alecio, and Beverly J. Irby
    The chorus of this song is the letters of the alphabet, and the verses are different nursery rhymes. Everything is sung to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.
  • "ABCD Medley" by the Laurie Berkner Band
    In this song, Laurie Berkner gives the traditional alphabet song a bouncy new rhythm and intersperses it with other favorite children's songs, including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
  • "African Alphabet"
    This beautiful song from Sesame Street teaches the names of the letters and their corresponding sounds by describing a simple scene from an African jungle. It is sung by Kermit the Frog and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
  • "ABC-DEF-GHI"Also from Sesame Street, this song plays with letter sounds as Big Bird attempts to pronounce ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ as one word.
  • "A You’re Adorable
    This is an old song from the 1940's, a hit version of which was recorded by Perry Como. It has also been heard on Sesame Street and recorded by Sharon, Lois, and Bram and John Lithgow. Martha Alexander also did a really sweet board book version, published in 1994.
  • "Marching Around the Alphabet" by Hap Palmer
    Hap Palmer turns the alphabet into a physical game, where kids march around a set of letters lying on the floor, and stop periodically to identify the nearest letter. See this song in action on YouTube.
  • "ABC Chant" by Barbara Milne
    This song is a list of the letters just like the original song, but it has a slightly different, gentler tune, which can easily be learned on a guitar or ukulele.
  • "El Abecedario" by Jose Luis Orozco
    Jose Luis Orozco is well-known for his Spanish language children's songs. This is his alphabet song, focusing on the letters of the Spanish alphabet. (It is followed by the traditional English alphabet song.)
  • "Swinging the Alphabet" by The Three Stooges
    This silly song was featured in a 1938 Three Stooges film called  Violent Is the Word for Curly. According to Wikipedia, it was written even earlier, in 1875, under the title "The Spelling Bee." In the 1980s, it was recorded by Joanie Bartels on Sillytime Magic as simply "The Alphabet Song."
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