[Children’s Songs for June] Fun finger-play songs and traditional nursery rhymes perfect for the rainy season
The rainy season makes you long for summer.
When it rains day after day, many children make teru-teru bozu and wish, “Please be sunny!”
Precisely because it’s a time when it’s hard to play outside as much as you’d like, why not have fun by singing children’s songs and hand-play songs together?
In this article, we’ll introduce children’s songs and hand-play songs that are perfect for June, the month of the rainy season.
We’ve selected a wide range, from famous songs like “Katatatsumuri” (Snail) to hand-play favorites popular with children in nursery schools and kindergartens.
Let’s change our perspective and turn a rainy day into a fun one!
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- Children’s Songs You Can Sing in August: Summer-Friendly Kids’ Songs and Fingerplay Rhymes
- Songs of the Rainy Season: Classic Tracks and Rain Songs That Evoke Tsuyu Through Their Lyrics
- [Rain Songs] Songs to listen to on a rainy day. A special feature on rain-themed tracks.
- Children’s songs, folk songs, and nursery rhymes about insects
- [Sea Nursery Rhymes] Fun children's songs themed around the sea
- Snake Song: Children's song, nursery rhyme, and hand-play song
- A collection of classic nursery rhymes and hand-play songs for September! Enjoy autumn with your child through songs.
- Children’s songs, folk songs, and nursery rhymes for March: fun spring hand-play songs.
- [February Songs] Introducing children's songs, folk songs, nursery rhymes, and hand-play songs about Setsubun and winter!
- [Childcare] Recommended songs and nursery rhymes for November: Fun autumn fingerplay songs
[June Nursery Rhymes] Fun hand-play songs and traditional children's songs perfect for the rainy season (21–30)
Thunder God has arrived.
When it rains, we often hear more rumbles of thunder, don’t we? At times like that, let’s sing “Kaminari-don ga Yattekita” and make sure to protect the important parts of our bodies.
Imitate Kaminari-don coming in with drums by making drum-beating motions to match the lyrics and forming horns with your hands.
After that, you’ll be told which parts you need to hide, so use your hands to cover and protect the places mentioned! There may be more than one spot to cover.
Feel free to mix it up by naming different places and have fun with it!
Night Patrol of the Frogs
The damp, muggy season is the season of frogs.
This is a nursery rhyme about frogs.
It cheerfully portrays frogs roaming around all night long through their croaks and movement sounds.
Since onomatopoeic phrases like croaks take up far more of the lyrics than ordinary words, it’s easy to memorize and makes for a fun song.
Do-Re-Mi Song
From children to adults, everyone knows the “Do-Re-Mi” song! Did you know it actually has a special connection to June? It’s said that June 24 marks the commemorative day when, in the early 11th century, the Italian music teacher Guido d’Arezzo created the prototype of the musical scale and the notation used to record it.
It could be even more fun to try arranging each Do-Re-Mi as a parody version.
teru teru bozu (a traditional Japanese handmade doll hung to wish for good weather)
In Japan, it has long been customary to make teru-teru bōzu when it looks like rain, in hopes of clear skies the next day.
This is a hand-play song inspired by those teru-teru bōzu.
Some of the weather-wishing lines can be sung as a round, so adding gestures and movements can make it even more fun!
plip-plop (raindrops falling)
“Pottsun Potsu-Potsu” is a traditional hand-play song that mimics the way rain falls.
The melody is steady and spoken in tone, making it easy to sing even for those who aren’t confident singers.
It’s a hand game where you make raindrops with your fingers on the other person’s palm.
For the light rain part, lightly tap with your fingertips; for the heavy rain part, raise your vocal tone a bit and exaggerate the tickling motion.
Since it can be done one-on-one, face to face, it’s perfect for indoor play and helps deepen physical bonding with children.
A frog
When you hear the croaking “geko-geko” outside during the rainy season with all its showers, you naturally think of frogs, right? Here’s a fingerplay song featuring those frogs: “One Little Frog.” You sing while using the fingers on both hands to show how many frogs appear.
Although the title is “One Little Frog,” five frogs end up appearing in total.
Keep your fingers showing the current number of frogs, and sing while moving your hands in ways that match the lyrics.
This song can be arranged in many ways beyond fingerplay! For example, you can sing with a frog puppet, or make frogs out of origami or a milk carton and move them as you sing.
Enjoy the rainy season indoors with these fun ideas!
Come, firefly
Fireflies are a quintessential sign of early summer.
Their softly glowing figures, seen along rivers with clear, flowing water, create a dreamy scene that makes you want to show them to children.
The children’s song “Hotaru Koi,” which features fireflies, is one of the most famous nursery rhymes—something that dads and moms, as well as grandpas and grandmas, can all sing together.
Its lyrics, which evoke children calling the fireflies to come to where they are, make it a song you’ll want to sing when you go to see fireflies.