I teach 1-3 year olds, and 4-6 year olds and just recently found a "treasure trove" of CDs and nursery rhyme/Mother Goose books in the attic of our school. I'm curious to know what songs people actually swear by at language schools- and which songs you use as background noise during quiet activities. I'm not a huge fan of teaching most nursery rhymes and Mother Goose poems to EFL learners because the grammar and vocabulary is often ridiculous or outdated.... (For instance, my boss loves "Where is Thumbkin?" but I hate it- they have to unlearn all of those finger names a couple of years later....)
I like singing B-I-N-G-O, The Wheels on the Bus, If You're Happy and You Know It (haven't found a good recording of this yet), Itsy Bitsy Spider (for babies) and I use the Days of the Week and Months of the Year chants pretty regularly, as well as Barbara Milne's phonics song, but other than that, I haven't really been happy with the choices that are out there.
I get a lot of "kimo waruuuuu" in Japan (which is like saying "eww!" in Japanese) to a lot of the Wee Sing albums and other nasally, adults-talking-like-kids songs, so I'm trying to find a good mix of proper songs.
