[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!
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[June Nursery Rhymes] Fun Finger-Play Songs and Traditional Children's Rhymes Perfect for the Rainy Season (31–40)
Whale ClockSakushi: Seki Kazuo / Sakkyoku: Shibuya Takeshi
A fantastical song that fills children with excitement.
Its soft, warm, and beautiful melody blends perfectly with lyrics rich in storytelling.
First broadcast on NHK’s “Minna no Uta” in 1983, it has remained popular, with reruns and inclusion on related albums.
The piece is also used in school music materials as a song that teaches the importance of time.
Listening to it during the rainy tsuyu season or on June 10th, Time Day, will surely put you in a gentle mood.
Singing it with choreography will further spark children’s imaginations.
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.
Frog Chorus
The familiar melody is a hallmark of “The Frog Chorus.” The tune is said to originate from a German folk song.
The singing continues with a rhythm that invites a round from the very beginning, building more and more as it goes.
It really gives the impression of frogs increasing in number and bursting into a grand chorus.
If you focus on the idea of everyone singing together while you play, it seems like you’ll have a lot of fun singing it.
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?
Kappa’s dish
When we think of the rainy season, we picture rain—and raincoats! From there, here’s a hand-play song themed around the mythical creature, the kappa.
Place a towel on your head as the kappa’s dish, and play rock-paper-scissors to the song.
If you win, you can try to snatch your opponent’s dish to win the game; if you lose, protect your dish so it isn’t taken! The rules are simple, so even small children can enjoy it.
[June Nursery Rhymes] Fun Hand-Play Songs and Traditional Children’s Songs Perfect for the Rainy Season (41–50)
Opened, opened
This is a children’s song about lotus flowers opening.
Holding hands, everyone spins around, making a large circle or gathering tightly in the center in time with the lyrics.
The lotus blooms in summer and is a beautiful flower of Indian origin, in shades of white and pink.
Elephant and the Spiderweb
The comical hand-play song “The Elephants and the Spiderweb” features, amazingly, five elephants coming to a spiderweb made of thin threads.
At first, you show the number of elephants with one hand while spreading the other hand to represent the spiderweb, acting out how the elephants get caught on it.
After that, you make a motion to call other elephants and continue singing while doing actions that match the lyrics.
When the elephants reach five, the spiderweb can’t hold them anymore, so you clap your hands to show the web snapping.
This song isn’t just for hand-play—children can also take on the role of elephants and use their whole bodies to play along with the music! It’s perfect for indoor play during the rainy, early-summer monsoon season.