I play for my kids'classes at their school, and have been getting a bit better at it, would like to know if others do things for kids in the vein I'm doing. Any ideas, variations, threads, songs.

My bit, my latzi, is that I'm a bit of a goof and need help from the kids with songs they know. I do This Old Man and don't know the rhymes--he plays knick-knack on my what? Lose count and skip into hundreds, thousands--he plays knick-knack on a herd of cowsand with a etc. Then it becomes a story of my childhood quest for a rhyme with "orange".

I was thinking of doing something with Rock Around The Clock, although they don't know it, they could get the idea, call out times, and kids seem to like early rock and energetic simple guitar things. There's a fun song called Hey There Little Insect they all like, has a 'flight of the bumblebee' trill thing they want me to do over and over, like Pa's Pop goes the weasel fiddle trick in the Little House books. So, I do bouncy stuff a lot. I do the opening to Twist And Shout as an intro and refrain for If You're Happy and You Know it. They all sing Ah...ah...aah...AAHHH! and go crazy.

Any ideas along these lines? I also rewrite some songs that are fun but not for kids--Ricky Lee Jones's The Ghetto became "spagetti", and a few of the appropriated tunes on the last Dylan CD seemed possible for re-appropriation. One had some silly jokes as verses, could go that way.

One thing I've learned is do interactive stuff last, or it's all interactive--they get worked up. Another lesson was never introduce a story by asking if they were ever blamed for something they didn't do. They have to tell you everything--finally someone will listen! You'll never get to tell the story. Thanks for any ideas. Fred