Hi all!

This may be a bit of a niche topic.  I like to use the ukulele in my afterschool classes and I figured I may not be the only one since it's so well suited for classes with young kids.  The problem is finding songs to play that are both easy for me to play and easy for students to sing.

For the past year I have used The Lion Sleeps Tonight with much success.  The students learn to sing along with me and then we have made music videos.  One music video was in the form of a dramatic skit and the other just used pictures that the students drew for each verse of the song.  I'll post the pages with the lyrics that I used.  I think I got them from waygook originally but I'm sorry I don't remember from who.

I'd be so happy if others could post some other song ideas that they have used or would like to use as The Lion Sleeps Tonight is getting a bit old now.  I was thinking about doing "I Wanna Be Like You" from the Jungle Book movie but I'm afraid it might be too challenging for 3rd graders.

Thanks fellow ukulelers!

Thanks!  Great suggestion!  This opened up a bunch of options for easy songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.  Albeit not something that can be stretched over a number of classes, these songs could certainly satisfy the kids for an hour.

I play uke for my elementary 1st graders and no matter what song i have planned they demand Old MacDonald. I let them take turns choosing what animal is on the farm (there's always at least one dinosaur) and they LOVE it.

Hey all,

Just made a really neat discovery!

I think, in my humble opinion, that Ukulele Hunt.com is by far THE best place to learn how to play the ukulele because it features strumming patterns, chords (which you can filter by genre or difficulty level) and it also has a list of songs you can play. There are also pages that show you where to go to enhance your learning. This is not a paid endorsement. I'm just a normal guy taking time out of his day to write this post.

When selecting from the list of songs, you might want to stay away from the Amanda Palmer stuff, but there's still a lot of great material here!

Happy playing!

Great discovery!  Although I have to say I was worried about the possibility of you being a troll posting an NSFW link since ukuleles are commonly referred to as 'uke's.  Try saying uke hunt.com very quickly and you'll see what I mean.

I don't know where you are from - so apologies if you are British and I am telling granny to look for eggs to suck but check out George Formby and Lonnie Donegan. Loads of great Ukulele friendly songs to play away to.