Hard to believe, but in a couple of weeks it’ll be Memorial Day, the unofficial kickoff to summer. Many young children will be seeing parades, and getting very excited about it.

I sometimes do rhythm instrument parades with my students, marching around the room, but if you teach pre-K you know that there’s rarely enough space in a classroom for a satisfying parade. In fact, there’s barely enough room for marching in a circle without children bumping into each other. (They haven’t really gotten the hang of marching in a regular step – one side of the room will have large gap between marchers, while on the other side a massive pileup is resulting in dropped instruments and accidental kicks in the shins.)

Several years ago I discovered the fingerplay song “Finger Band” by Peter and Ellen Allard. It’s very simple and fun – easy enough for two-year-olds, but pre-K and even kindergarten groups enjoy it. You can download it, along with the lyrics, from the Songs for Teaching site.

It’s all the fun of pretending to be in a marching band, but everyone can stay sitting criss-cross applesauce – no traffic jams!