[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!
- Children’s songs to sing on a rainy day / children’s songs with a rain theme
- Nursery rhymes and fingerplay songs to enjoy in May! Songs perfect for the fresh green season
- [Childcare] Summer songs: Full of fun! Summer nursery rhymes & finger-play songs
- 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)
Cute cook
June is a rainy season, so I bet many people are looking for songs they can enjoy indoors.
For you, I recommend “Kawaii Kokkusan” (The Cute Little Cook).
It’s a drawing song about an adorable cook, and it makes it easy for anyone to draw, making it perfect for children to enjoy.
Let’s all sing the drawing song together and have fun even on rainy days.
rainfallnursery rhyme
“Amefuri” (Rainfall), a song everyone has probably sung at least once, is a children’s song first published in the Taisho era.
Though rain is unpleasant, the beloved mother comes with an umbrella to pick up her child.
The bouncy rhythm of the piece conveys the child’s excited anticipation while waiting for their mother.
On the way home, the child sees another child getting wet in the rain and offers their own umbrella.
From the words spoken, it is likely a boy taking action toward a girl.
The mother must be very pleased to see her son growing up to be so kind.
[June Nursery Rhymes] Fun Finger-Play Songs and Traditional Children's Rhymes Perfect for the Rainy Season (31–40)
Rainy Aquarium
When raindrops stick to the window, doesn’t the view beyond it look like an aquarium tank overflowing with water? “Rainy Day Aquarium” is a song that enchantingly captures that rainy scenery.
The people holding colorful umbrellas and the various kinds of cars rushing past beyond the rain-soaked window resemble the sight of many fish swimming in an aquarium, don’t they? Even if you can’t go to an aquarium, why not enjoy a one-of-a-kind, mysterious aquarium from the window of your home or kindergarten? It’s also fun to use your imagination—pretend the cars are real fish and say, “That one’s called such-and-such a fish!”
Little spider-chan
During the damp, muggy rainy season, all sorts of insects start to increase, don’t they? Among them, you probably often spot spiders that spin webs with silk.
Here’s a song about a spider working hard to climb up a rain gutter.
Known overseas, including in the United States, as “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “Chibigumo-chan” is a song that’s often sung by young children.
The wording varies slightly from country to country, but the gist is the same.
You use both hands—your thumbs and index fingers—to show the spider climbing up the downspout.
When the lyrics mention rain or sunshine, you move your hands to match.
If you speed it up each time you sing it, it gets more and more exciting and fun!
A tadpole is a frog’s child.
Tadpoles are the children of frogs.
Even though every adult knows this, many children may wonder if these two creatures that look so different are really parent and child.
This song, “Otamajakushi wa Kaeru no Ko” (Tadpoles Are Frog Children), helps answer that question.
It explains that tadpoles aren’t baby catfish, which look more similar at first glance, but truly baby frogs—because as they grow, they properly develop arms and legs.
The melody of the song uses “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” an American tune that has been adapted into many parody songs, including well-known themes for Japanese electronics store commercials.
It rains.
This is a rainy-day song by Keropons that’s hugely popular with kids.
The music was composed by Hiroko Masuda, known as “Kero,” and the lyrics were written by Akiko Hirata, known as “Pon.” Children act out the song by pretending to be rain-themed items like snails and umbrellas.
By changing the order, you can turn it into a game—speeding up the song or repeating the same item several times will likely delight the children.
It’s an adorable, energizing play-song, so even on a gloomy outing, singing it together with your child can make things more fun.
Rainy moon
This song was unveiled in the New Year’s issue of the magazine Kodomo no Kuni published in 1925.
At the time, the lyrics did not yet have a second verse, but later, in order to lengthen the piece as a commercial product, another published song titled “Kumo no Kage” (“Shadow of the Clouds”) was repurposed.
It’s a lovely song that really evokes the bridal ceremonies of that era, isn’t it?