Our kids spend a huge amount of time at school. It is a very important part of their lives. So they are going to need to be able to talk about school and what they do there in English too. From their favorite subjects, to school rules and lunch time, these are some of my favorite EFL ESL school songs for children. There’s a real mixture here. You should be able to find something for all your classes, whether they’re big or little, kindergarten or high school. I haven’t included many songs that talk about daily routines or getting ready for school here but you can find them all in my Top 10 Daily Routine songs. Get your school bags ready, we’re off to learn everything about school with my Top 10 EFL ESL School songs for children.
Get Ready Song | Time for School by Cbeebies
A catchy song to wake everybody up and get ready for a new school day and kick off this list of EFL ESL school songs for children. What do you need to do to get ready for school? The one daily routine song I’ve included here specifically talks about getting ready for and going to school. You can use it if you’re doing a lesson on daily routine or about what kids need to do before school. You can also introduce school uniform vocabulary. It would be fun to bring in lots of props and realia and make the kids get ready for school in the classroom while you’re singing. You could have a race to see who will be ready first or ask the kids to stick labels on their classmates with the different names of clothing or school equipment.
Back to School Song for Children by WOW English TV
What’s in your school bag? This is a simple and easy song for small children to sing and find out all about school supplies. You could turn this into a kind of mystery bag activity to introduce the school supplies vocabulary. Do this by getting the kids to pull each object out of a real school bag to see what it is. You could also change the equipment you include in the bag to introduce different vocabulary and adapt the song to this.
School Supplies Song by Fun Kids English
This is another song about school supplies but this time, it’s a fun game. The kids have to look for and touch each piece of classroom equipment before you say “Time’s up!”. You could use different school supplies to make this as easy or as complicated as you want. You could also sing it when you want the class to get put a particular object of their school supplies. Use lots of TPR to associate actions to each piece of school supplies and the kids will learn their names easily.
I can Follow the Rules Song by HeidiSongs
What different rules do you have in your classroom? This is a song that would be great to learn at the beginning of the year when the kids are new and learning about your classroom rules. You can introduce different rules and actions to go with them. You could also use it in a lesson about rules and what kids can and can’t or must and must not do. Ask them to make up their own rules (as crazy as they want) and then adapt the song to these.
Line Up Song by Rocking Dan Teacher Man
An extremely useful song for teachers who need to move their class around the school, either in the morning from the playground when they arrive at school or during the day. This song is a fun way to give clear directions about how the kids should be behaving and what they need to do. If you can get your class singing this every time you need to make a line, it’s a great habit to have. You should have no problems getting them wherever they need to go. It’s a good way to start the day too, to calm down and get into school mood. Do lots of actions so they understand what they need to do and start doing this on the very first day of the year.
School Subjects Song | What’s your Favorite Class? by English Tree TV
If you’re talking about school subjects, your class are going to need to talk about which subjects are their favorites and what they like most and least. This is a great song to introduce the different names of school subjects. You could also use this if you’re talking about school timetables and what kids do at different times of the day. Get the to make their own timetable with their favorite subjects or ask them to create a new timetable with their own invented subjects and adapt the song accordingly. This would be a great exercise if you were doing lessons with a Harry Potter theme.
Lunch Blazer Fresh by Go Noodle | Get Learning
Finally it’s lunch time! What are they serving today in the school canteen? This is such a fun song to learn about different school lunch foods and older kids will love singing along with the chorus.. Ask them to make up their own version with the foods they like to eat at lunch and create a menu for their school. Will it be a healthy menu? Or do they prefer junk food?
Lunch Song | Time for School by CBeebies
A lunch time song for smaller children to talk about different lunch routines with your class. Do they have school dinner or a packed lunch? What do they like to do at lunch time. This is a great song to use if you are talking about food likes and dislikes too. You could do a very simple role play where the children have to pretend to be in the canteen and ask for their lunch.
Graduation Song Lyrics to Thank You by Patty Shukla Kids TV
At the end of the school year, maybe you will have a graduation ceremony for your class. This is a lovely song to sing with your children if you do this. It talks about the important people at school and at home who help them during the school year. I could probably write a whole top 10 list of songs for graduation ceremonies but, for the moment, this is my favorite one.
Goodbye Song by The Singing Walrus
School is finished and it’s time to go home. This is such a sweet song to sing at the end of the school day. Everyone is tired but they’ve had fun, learned a lot and now it’s time to go. Ask the kids in your class to remind you what they have learned about and add this to the song, so that they go home with it fresh in their minds. You can find lots of other ideas for goodbye songs and routines for the end of the school day here but I think this is one of my favorites.
So that was my favorite EFL ESL school songs for children that I like to use in my classes. What are your favorites? Tell me if I’ve missed anything really good in the comments or send me a message. If you’ve enjoyed this Top 10, you can find other lists of my favorite songs here. To stay up to date with new posts and collections of songs, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page. Alternatively sign up below to receive updates by email about new articles from GoogooEnglish.