Collection of winter nursery rhymes, folk songs, and children's songs. Includes fun winter hand-play songs too.
Do you like winter?Although winter is very cold, there are many unique ways to enjoy it: you can see a beautiful silver world created by pure white snow, and you can feel a special kind of warmth you can only experience in winter, like hot pot dishes or sitting in a kamakura snow hut.There are also lots of fun events like Christmas and New Year’s!Children are probably looking forward to making snowmen, having snowball fights, and enjoying Christmas presents and cakes, aren’t they?In this article, we’ll introduce nursery rhymes, folk songs, traditional children’s songs, and hand-play songs themed around various aspects of “winter.”There are many songs that will turn a winter that’s “just cold” into wonderful memories, so please give them a listen!
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Collection of winter children's songs, folk songs, and nursery rhymes. Fun winter finger-play songs too (71–80)
Mr. Penguin’s Mountain Climb
It’s a perfect fingerplay song to enjoy the winter season with children.
Using hands and fingers to act out penguins and polar bears climbing up and sliding down icy hills makes it ideal for parent–child interaction.
Its rhythmic, cheerful melody is sure to capture children’s hearts.
It’s reportedly widely used in early childhood settings as well, so it might be considered a winter classic.
Choreography videos are available on platforms like YouTube, making it easy to enjoy at home, too.
To make the cold season more fun, why not sing and play together as a family?
Song of the Seven Herbs (Nanakusa Nazuna / Nanakusa Bayashi)
This is a children’s song sung when preparing the seven herbs of spring.
The seven herbs of spring are seri (Japanese parsley), nazuna (shepherd’s purse), gogyō (cudweed), hakobera (chickweed), hotokenoza (nipplewort), suzuna (turnip), and suzushiro (daikon radish).
The song describes the custom of finely chopping these seven herbs on the night of January 6 and cooking them in rice porridge the next morning to enjoy as nanakusa-gayu.
winter song
This song is a children’s tune that aired on NHK’s “Minna no Uta” from December 1971 to January 1972.
Even if the title doesn’t ring a bell, many people might think, “Oh, that one!” once they hear the melody.
It’s based on a Bulgarian children’s song composed by Hristo Nedyalkov with lyrics by Dimitar Spasov.
The Japanese lyrics were written by Tomoko Nakayama, a translator and children’s literature author.
The onomatopoeic lyrics make it a very fun song, and it seems that part is present in the original as well.
Has the plum blossomed?
In the cold of winter, we can’t help but long for plum blossoms that signal the arrival of warm spring, right? That sense of eager anticipation is captured in “Ume wa Saita ka.” This Edo-period hauta/kouta piece is based on the popular Meiji-era folk song “Shongaebushi.” In fact, it’s not literally about plum blossoms: the plum, along with other flowers and shells mentioned in the lyrics, refers to geisha.
The song weaves in various themes of romance—infidelity, jealousy, and unrequited love.
While the lyrics are a touch mature, the shamisen performance evokes spring festivals of plums and cherries.
That very melody makes you look forward to the coming of spring!
White Road
This song sets Japanese lyrics to the second movement of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in F minor, “Winter.” The lyrics were written by Yoji Umino, and the song was first broadcast in 1975 on NHK’s “Minna no Uta,” sung by Hi-Fi Set.
A remake sung by Mirei Kitahara was produced in 1983, and that version continued to air for many years.
It’s a piece whose familiar melody is paired with lyrics that leave an impression of gentle nostalgia and sadness.
Powdery snow, konko
With lyrics by Toshiko Iijima and music by Kishio Hirao, this is a Japanese children’s song.
It depicts powdery snow fluttering down with a “konko” sound.
When you think of snow falling “konko,” you might recall the children’s song “Yuki” (Snow), but “Konayuki Konko” has even simpler lyrics aimed at younger children.
In some areas, such as Saitama Prefecture, it is well known as the tune played by kerosene delivery trucks during the winter.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
This song is one of the Christmas tunes everyone knows, but first the story was created in 1938, and then, based on that story, the song was composed in 1948.
The composer was Johnny Marks.
The fact that the red-nosed reindeer has a name also makes sense if the story came first.
In Japan, Nobuo Nitta’s Japanese lyrics are well known, but his version doesn’t explicitly mention the reindeer’s name.
There are other Japanese lyric versions as well, so it could be fun to compare them.