Bucket Filling
Bucket Filling brings increased happiness, love and thoughtfulness in our schools, homes and communities. "Circle of Light: Songs for Bucket Fillers" adds the power of music to the building of Bucket Filling culture musically.. This collaborative effort between Red Grammer and Carol McCloud, author of the best-selling book, "Have You Filled A Bucket Today?", has resulted in ten irresistible songs that children instantly connect to and integrate into their lives. Check out the songs below and see how they can amplify the Bucket Filling culture in your class, school community or home.
Circle of Light:Songs For Bucket Fillers
Great bucket filling songs from Red's other albums:
Schools use Red Grammer's music as a powerful addition to their character education programs because it playfully and thoughtfully brings to life the elements of character in tangible ways for their students and staff. It is one thing to talk about character... it is another to joyfully sing about it.
The songs on Red's Grammy-nominated CD "Bebop Your Best" like "Fairness", "Respect", and "Gratitude" artfully label and define the behaviors that make up specific character traits. Check them out below. (A special gem that can become a powerful theme song for your intermediate grades is "Listen To Your Heart".)
For songs that evoke these traits more indirectly like "See Me Beautiful" or "Two Hands, Four Hands" give a listen to the many wonderful songs listed below from Red's other albums.
Bebop Your Best: Songs To Build Character By
Songs from Red's other Award-Winning CDs
Respect
Gratitude/Thankfulness
Thank You For Friends
Excellence
Responsibility
Cooperation
Kindness
Caring and Compassion
Appreciation/Love
Inclusiveness/Community
Unity
Peacefulness
Consideration
Openness
Self-Awareness
Hopefulness
It's Another Beautiful Morning
For Positive Behaviors
Red's music has been written to playfully connect with the best in every child and to encourage positive interactions with the world around them. Let the following songs help you set classroom expectations and make it easy and fun for your children to embrace and internalize them:
Friendliness/Kindness
Respect
Responsibility
Cooperation
Appreciation of Others
Excellence
Honesty/Trustworthiness
Caring and Compassion
Conflict Resolution
Courtesy
Appreciating Diversity
We're Rich
Self Knowledge
Building Community
Empowerment/Hope
Fun and Silly Songs
Every classroom needs joy and laughter in the daily mix to keep children present in the moment and alive to the exciting process of learning new things. Here are some great Red Grammer songs to use when you need a “brain break” with your students...
Down By The Sea - comes with fun motions! (video)
Hello World - learn the sign language! (video)
Barnyard Boogie - do the clucking! (video)
Hooray For The World - (video)
Can You Sound Just Like Me? - (video)
Tickle Song -(video)
Language Arts
You can use Red Grammer's music to jump start brain connections, fire up imaginations, and give emotional context to ideas. The beautiful musical textures and rich imagery of the songs listed below make great launching points for creative writing sessions. Here's an example of how to use Red's song, "Down The Do Re Mi" to naturally draw children into a writing mode:
1. Play the song to set a mood.
2. Question: "How did it make you feel?"
3. "Web" brainstorm- the lyric "a sunny day"
4. Then have them jot down thoughts about "your perfect day"
5. Have them listen to the song again (important)
6. Now write a rough draft on the subject of "Your Perfect Day"
Other great songs to stimulate creative writing:
Land of the Silver Birch- Describe your favorite place in nature...
Me and the Morning- Have you ever been the first one awake in your house? How did the stillness make you feel?
Down By The Sea- Write about your favorite day at the beach or the lake or the pool
Dreamtime Rendezvous- Falling asleep with your family by the light of the moon... how would that make you feel?
Hooray For The World- What is your favorite thing in the world?
Big Rock Candy Mountain- If you could have any animal in the world for a pet, what would it be?
Music
Music teachers love Red’s songs because they are of the highest melodic and lyrical quality and it doesn't hurt that they are performed by “the best voice in childrens’ music” (Parents’ Magazine). For tie-ins to curriculum and social skills/character education programs please see the Teacher Page. You will be happy to know that Red has mix-minus performance tracks for many of his songs and as well as a Teaching Peace songbook with guitar and piano accompaniment.
Classroom teachers love Red’s songs because they help build a cooperative classroom culture and energize and enhance everything they are brought to. Research unequivocally shows that music is good for the brain. Use it in your classroom to wake up, stimulate and enliven your students’ focus and presence of mind. Don’t worry about having to be musically proficient to use music in your classroom. Children are much more excited and engaged by your enthusiasm than by your talent.
Simple call and response songs
Pile Up Songs
Songs That Kids Can't Wait To Learn
Irresistible Melodies
Game Songs
Beautiful Songs
PBIS
Red Grammer's music provides a treasure trove of musical support for each school's chosen PBIS behavioral expectations. These songs were created to naturally draw out and support the best in every child so they are a perfect resource to draw from to offer fresh, new ways to connect students and staff to behavioral goals. Try using some of the following songs to forward the positive behaviors listed.
Respect
Responsibility
Cooperation
Excellence
Honesty/Trustworthiness
Caring and Compassion
Appreciation of Others
Conflict Resolution
Building Community
Appreciating Diversity
Self Knowledge
Science
Often adding a musical connection to science makes the content less daunting and more accessible. Bringing songs into your science unit will surprise students and give them another way to be engaged while providing an opportunity for added context that will give them another way to relate to the subject matter.
Here are some of Red's songs, by topic, that can be used in this way. Have fun!
Habitat
The Human Body
The Scientific Method
Flora/Fauna/Genus
Hooray For The World (first verse)
Cotton Fields (cotton, boll weevil)
Sign Language/Motions
I love sign language and how it adds another layer of context to the words of a song. And kids love it too!
And then there are regular old motions! Besides all the research about the brain-building power of cross-body motions and how some children are kinesthetic learners, anyone who works with kids knows that getting them up and moving is a really good idea!
So, ready, set, go with these songs of Red's...
Sign Language
Power To Change The World (video)
Hello World (video)
Teaching Peace (video)
I Think You're Wonderful (video)
See Me Beautiful (video)
On The Day You Were Born (video)
Thank You For Friends (video)
Motions
Down By The Sea (video)
Everybody Here Has A Bucket (video)
Hooray For The World (video)
Social Studies/Geography
Music can help students powerfully absorb information by giving it context and connecting it to them emotionally. It's one thing to be studying how the development of canal systems affected the development of the United States. It's another thing to put everyone in the time (mid 1800's) and place (upstate New York) and action (guiding a mule that is pulling a barge on the tow path along the Erie Canal) by singing along to Red's recording of the song "Erie Canal". It's fun, engaging and full of visual imagery that brings the time and place and action to life for them.
Here's a list of Red's songs, by topic, that can be used to help kids make a deeper connection to subject matter. Have fun!
US Map Studies
Cotton Fields (Louisiana, Texarkana)
World Map Studies
Farm Life and Agriculture
Transportation
Work
US History
Simple Gifts (1840's, Shakers)
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1910's)
Rattlin' Bog (How European immigrants brought their music with them)
Patriotism and Citizenship
Diversity and Oneness
Languages
Citizenship
Songs To Relax To
We all need a break from the intensity and relentless pressure of our lives. It’s good for the kids and it’s good for you. Here are some of Red’s songs that have a way of slowing us down and getting us to breathe a little more deeply...
To Celebrate The World
Children today have more intuitive understanding of the oneness of the human family than at any other time in human history. Still, we all need to be reminded and reassured amidst all the frustrations and fear of our turbulent times that we are indeed moving inexorably towards our unity as the mutual custodians of this wonderful planet and the co-inheritors of the amazing accomplishments and creativity, past and present, of our brothers and sisters all over the globe.
Red’s music joyfully celebrates our unity, diversity and world citizenship in the following songs:
Teaching Peace - (sign language video)
Rapp Song - (video)
Hooray For The World - (hand motions video)
Listen - (video)