Hugill's Shanties of the Seven Seas is arguably the best resource that can be found on sea shanties and songs. It provides lyrics and melody notation for many, many shanties, as well as some history on several of them.

I love the fact that shanties and other folk music are finding their way back into the classroom. Back in my day in school (70's-80's) our music exposure was limited to learning to play "Waltzing Mathilda" on a recorder... and if you can find me anything that will turn you off of music faster than a room full of 10 year olds playing ANYTHING on a recorder, I don't want to know about it.

Keep the faith, fight the good fight, and keep the children learning...

M