We all have a family. They may not have all the same number of people or the same family members but family is something important to even the smallest children. We talk about families a lot in class and use a lot of EFL ESL Family Songs for children for this reason. It is important though when talking about family with the children in your class to make sure that they know that all their different families are important and special. They need to able to identify with the families they are seeing in class. It’s not always easy to find songs that represent all the different types of families to use in lessons but I’ve done my best. Here then are my 10 favorite EFL ESL Family songs for children to learn with your classes.
Family Song for Children by Dream English Kids
An introduction to 7 different family members that you could of course adapt to the families of the children in your class. It has a catchy tune that gets progressively faster which the kids will enjoy. How fast can they do it? This is a great way of drilling the names of family members and asking who people are while still being fun for little kids.
Finger Family by Twinkle Little Songs
There are lots of different versions of this song. I’ve chosen this one as a good, simple introduction to family members. If you want something a bit more different though, have a look on YouTube at all the different versions. You can have animal finger families, monster finger families and many more. You can adapt the song to any variety of family members that the kids in your class might have and swap out any that might not be relevant. It’s a very easy song to pick up even for the smallest children and they all seem to love it so it’s a very popular song in my class.
Baby Shark by Pinkfong
A modern classic by now, everyone knows Baby Shark and the actions to the song. It’s also a surprisingly good way to learn family members, mainly for the same reason. Adapt the song and the actions to all different sorts of families, both human and animal. If you have flashcards of the different sharks, play a who’s missing game or play a game of Duck duck goose and have Daddy Shark chase all the others.
Sesame Street Family Song by Sesame Street
What is a family? This song shows lots of different families and family members doing activities together. It uses both human and animal families to show how families work and is a good way of showing that there are lots of different types of families all over the world. Not all families are the same and not all families live close together and this is a great way of explaining this to the kids in your class.
My Family by Juny & Tony – Songs and Stories by KizCastle
This is another good song for showing different kinds of families all over the world. It shows that it is absolutely normal to have families of different colors, different religions, styles of dress and lots more. It also shows what these varied families have in common: that they all love each other and love to be together doing things. Although this obviously isn’t the case for all families, I think it’s a good, positive message to be showing to little kids.
The Family Tree Song by Welcome Vietnam
I’ve noticed when teaching that a lot of children have a hard time understanding how a family tree works. When I asked them to work out relations of one family member to another, it took them quite a while to get it. Hopefully this song will help. It shows how one person on the family tree can be a brother, an uncle, a father and more depending on who it is being related to. Use it to make a family tree in your class and ask the children what they are in their family: son, daughter, cousin, sister, brother, grandson etc. Then they can make their own family tree and label all the different family members.
We are a Family by Jack Hartmann
This is a lovely song to show that families don’t just need to be people who are related to you but that they can be much wider than that. There are lots of actions and sign language to learn to accompany the song. This would be a great song to do for a show for parents or an end of year party. If you do school assemblies, it would be excellent for a song for the whole school to sing together and build that community spirit.
Grandma’s House by Patty Shukla Kids TV
How much fun can you have when you go to Grandma’s house? Any of us who were lucky enough to go and stay with our grandmothers will have fond memories of being allowed to do different things and having lots of special fun with Grandma. This song celebrates that and would be an excellent starting point for a conversation about grandparents. What do your class enjoy doing with their grandparents? Do they see them often or do they live far away? You could also use this in a class about families around the world and their different traditions or about things to do during the school holidays.
Daddy is his Name O by The Kiboomers
If you’re looking for a Father’s Day song, this would be a good one to learn. It’s easy enough for small children and, if you’ve learned the Santa version at Christmas, they’ll already understand how it works. You can, of course, adapt it to be about Mummy, or any other family member than you want (if you can squeeze all the letters in…).
Mother’s Day Song | Mommy and Me by Patty Shukla Kids TV
I’ve used two songs by Patty Shukla because I really like this song for Mother’s Day. It would be such a nice song for your class to learn to sing to their Moms. You can talk about all the things that their Moms do for them and why she is special. Make a card or a gift for her too and ask them to write a list in it of everything you’ve talked about. You could of course do the same thing and adapt the song for Daddy too or any other member of the family.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this selection of EFL ESL Family songs for children. Do you have any to add? How do you teach about family in your classes? I’m always looking for new ideas so if you have any good ones, please let me know. If you’ve enjoyed this Top 10, you can find more of my favorite songs for lots of different themed lessons here. You can also follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page or sign up for email updates to keep up to date on all my new posts.