March nursery rhymes & hand play songs! Spring songs you can enjoy with your kids

Rice Cake Pounding on March 3warabeuta

Nursery Rhyme: The Third Day of March (Hatsune Miku & Kasane Teto)

This is a traditional Japanese children’s hand-play song (warabe-uta) themed around Hinamatsuri, the Girl’s Day festival held annually.

Speaking of the mochi eaten on March 3 for Hinamatsuri, the classic is hishimochi—diamond-shaped Japanese confectionery in three colors: red, white, and green.

It is said that hishimochi’s colors carry meanings: red honors ancestors and wards off misfortune; white signifies purity and lingering snow; and green, the color of young grass and new buds, expresses a wish for healthy growth.

Horsetail shoots are poking up.

Nursery rhyme: Tsukushi wa tsun-tsun

A masterpiece of children’s song that lets you feel the breath of nature.

Within its simple wordplay, it deftly weaves in the moment when plants sprout, offering the delight of a stroll through spring fields and hills.

More than lofty musical artistry, it’s the easy singability that has kept it beloved for many years.

It’s also enjoyed with hand motions and is widely used in early childhood education settings.

This work beautifully expresses the Japanese sense of the seasons and a heartfelt reverence for nature, making it enjoyable across generations, from children to adults.

Why not sing it together with family and friends, feeling the arrival of a nature-rich spring?

Words of FarewellKaientai

Farewell Words / Kaientai (cover)

It’s a hit song by the folk group Kaientai, released in 1979.

March is graduation season in Japan, and this song is well-known as one of the standard tunes for graduation ceremonies.

As the theme song for the first season of the TV drama “Mr.

Kinpachi in Class 3B,” starring Tetsuya Takeda of Kaientai, it sold over one million copies.

Opened, openedwarabe uta

♪Opened, opened – Hiraita Hiraita | ♪Opened, opened, what flower has opened? [Japanese song / children’s song]

Long beloved as a traditional Japanese children’s song, this piece enchants with lyrics that evoke the arrival of spring.

Children enjoy joining hands to form a circle and act out flowers opening and closing.

Despite its simple words and melody, it embodies Japanese views of nature and impermanence, giving it profound appeal.

It is often sung in kindergartens and nursery schools, contributing to children’s emotional development.

Passed down since the Edo period, this song is recommended for those who want to feel the spring season or experience traditional Japanese culture.

Why not sing it with your child and enjoy the coming of spring together?

Mukkuri Kuma-sanSakushi/sakkyoku: Suwēden min’yō

[Hand Play Song] Mukkuri Kuma-san [Ko Aru Biyori]

Bears that hibernate through the winter wake up and become active when warm spring arrives.

The children’s song “Mukkuri Kuma-san,” which lets you feel a bear’s springtime, can be enjoyed as a hand-play song or a game.

In the hand-play, you use your hands to act out the bear sleeping and then waking up in time with the lyrics.

For the game, you choose someone to be the bear and others to be the ones who run away from the bear.

In the song, when the bear wakes up, it’s hungry and eats whatever is around.

Following those lyrics, when the song ends and the person playing the bear “wakes up,” they chase the runners like a game of tag.

Give it a try outdoors in the warm spring!

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