Songs for primary history lessons

Music can help children form a link to the past, so why not use these practical ways to bring the many benefits of singing into your lessons

Singing is not only a fantastic tool for supporting learning across all areas of the curriculum; it is also proven to help improve children’s memory, confidence, health and social development. But don’t worry if you’re not sure of the best way to incorporate singing into your lessons, the Sing Up website (singup.org), has all the tools and resources you need. The following illustrates how you can utilise these resources to integrate singing into your history lessons.

1. Holidays

A great song from the Sing Up Song Bank to teach children what holidays were like in the past is I do like to be beside the seaside. Start by watching some contemporary film footage or explore photographs of people enjoying the seaside today and following that, talk with the children about their own seaside memories.

Find out if any of the children can spot any clues in the lyrics that suggest that the song is old (such as words like ‘glee’ and ‘tiddly om pom, pom’ and ‘prom’). Next, designate an area for role-play; decorate it with seaside objects and encourage the children to bring in items from home.

Invite one or more granny or granddad (or great-granny or great granddad) into school to talk to you about their memories of seaside holidays, covering topics such as: food, (e.g. picnics, fish and chips, candy floss, toffee, etc.); entertainment, (e.g. Punch and Judy or the end of the pier show); clothes and swimwear; beach games; travel to their seaside location; pocket money; fairgrounds; souvenirs; lack of sun cream; or where they stayed. Gather artefacts and seaside memorabilia from past decades to illustrate the talk. Talk with the children about the differences and similarities between seaside holidays then and seaside holidays now.

Play the song again, explaining that it was written over a hundred years ago. Encourage the children to join in with the words ‘prom, prom, prom’ and ‘tiddly om pom, pom’. Ask your visitor if they remember the song and invite them to join in.

There are also other fantastic songs available from the Song Bank which are great for learning about old-fashioned holidays. These include Row, row, row your boat, Going over the sea, A sailor went to sea, sea, sea, and My bonnie lies over the ocean.

Taken from a KS1, Y2 history lesson plan by Sue Nicholls

2. The Tudors

There are a number of songs in the Song Bank involving the Tudors, which are a great way to introduce children to the wild and wicked ways of Henry VIII. These include Henry’s happy hour and Greensleeves. Both songs can be easily incorporated into Tudor topic work.

Use Henry’s happy hour to help the class gauge what it was really like to be in King Henry’s court and ask them why it may have been unwise to disagree with him, as the song suggests. Next, introduce them to his six wives, bringing up images of them on your interactive whiteboard. Encourage the children to make their own rhyme around the fate of each wife (e.g. ‘divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived’).

Finally, end by singing Greensleeves so that the class can examine a different side to Henry. Ask the class about, and discuss with them, some of his more pleasant qualities. Following that, in light of what they have learned, debate with them whether or not they think Henry himself wrote the popular folk song.

Go online

Lyrics, audio tracks, sheet music, notes and activities for all the songs mentioned within this article can be found in the Songs & Teaching Resources area of the Sing Up website (singup.org). The lesson plans featured in this article can also be found on the Sing Up website, alongside plans for other curriculum subjects.