Text types: Texts for fun & leisure

Songs

Old Macdonald had a farm 

Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O,
And on his farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O,
With a 'moo-moo' here and a 'moo-moo' there,
Here a 'moo' there a 'moo',
Everywhere a 'moo-moo',
Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O,
And on his farm he had a pig, E-I-E-I-O,
With an 'oink-oink' here and an 'oink-oink' there,
Here a 'oink' there an 'oink',
Everywhere an 'oink-oink',
With a 'moo-moo' here and a 'moo-moo' there,
Here a 'moo' there a 'moo',
Everywhere a 'moo-moo',
Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O,
And on his farm he had a horse, E-I-E-I-O,
With a 'neigh, neigh' here and a 'neigh, neigh' there,
Here a 'neigh' there a 'neigh',
Everywhere a 'neigh-neigh',
With an 'oink-oink' here and an 'oink-oink' there,
Here a 'oink' there an 'oink',
Everywhere an 'oink-oink',
With a 'moo-moo' here and a 'moo-moo' there,
Here a 'moo' there a 'moo',
Everywhere a 'moo-moo',
Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

Click here if you would like to hear an excerpt from this song.

Teaching suggestions

You might like to visit the following website if you want ideas for further activities with this song:

http://www.ualr.edu/~teachered/farm/book3.html

One simple idea is to continue adding to the song using other animal noises: 

dog = ruff-ruff
cat = meow
donkey = hee-haw
rooster = cock-a-doodle do
chicken = cheep-cheep. 

You can use this song as an opportunity to introduce students to the idea of 'sound words' ie, words which attempt to convey the actual sound, in this case, the sounds that animals make. Click here if you would like to hear a recording of someone saying the following sound words: woof, bow-wow, ruff-ruff, meow, moo, neigh, whinny, oink, hee-haw, chirrup, cock-a-doodle do, cheep-cheep, growl

For more information about 'sound words', click on the menu on the left: Poems & rhymes: Helping students to read and recite poems.

If you build up a large bank of animal words (names and noises), you might like to make a Wordsearch to help recycle the new vocabulary. As an alternative, get the students to each make up their own Wordsearch which they then exchange with each other. Remind them to prepare a key as well.