Old MacDonald ABCs

Today I'm sharing a fun adaptation of Rob Reid's "Old MacDonald ABCs" which can be found in his new book What's Black and White and Reid All Over?  (starts on page 27 in "Now I Know My ABCs" chapter). I won't post all the words because of copyright considerations, but the first verse goes like this: 

Old MacDonald had a farm,

E-I-E-I-O

And on her farm she had an alligator,

E-I-E-I-O
With a Snap-Snap here

and a Snap-Snap there.

Here a Snap, there a Snap,

Everywhere a Snap-Snap,

Old MacDonald had a farm

E-I-E-I-O.

 After going through animals from our friend the alligator to the inimitable yak, the song ends like so: 

Wait! Old MacDonald didn't have a farm! She had a ZOO! (slap forehead)

I don't know about other people, but I absolutely would never remember all the words and noises and need something to follow along with. Rather than just make a cheat sheet, I decided to turn this into a PowerPoint for storytimes with big crowds. I also printed a copy off to use as a book with smaller crowds or when I don't have a computer/projector/screen handy. To illustrate it, I used clip art from OpenClipArt.org, one of my all-time favorite resources.

It took me about 90 minutes of on-desk time to put this all together, so it's very doable. It may have only taken 30-45 minutes of off-desk time. 


If you'd like to check out more of Rob's work, he has a blog of his own: Heart of a Child.