Songs to learn in the FL class

Songs are an extremely good tool to acquire language. There are many good songs to learn Spanish on YouTube; I enjoy Basho & Friends (my first graders love the Alphabet song), Mindymarissa, Cántame un cuento, Pequetiempo, CantaJuegoVEVO, Los Pimpollos, and Guía Infantil, among others. When I am inspired, I make my own songs. At the beginning of my teaching career, I struggled with how to teach songs beyond singing them. I have learned to just sing them when the occasion is right for that language chunk (although sometimes students look at me like I am crazy), and to pair them up with meaningful activities. For example, Myndimarissa has a song about months  that I like. When we sing it, I have students stand up on their birthday month. On the video below I am singing with first grade a song I made up (based on a They Might Be Giants song) to practice the language needed to describe fruit colors. Previously I have passed out plastic fruits to students, who are listening for when their fruit comes up on the song.