Watermelon Songs and Activities Featuring the Watermelon Balloon Ball
Last fall I enjoyed presenting our products at our local tea shop, Maggie Mae’s Tea Room, and a customer gave me a great idea to make a watermelon balloon ball for the summer. I found this beautiful fabric and created this fun watermelon ball!
Music Activities and Listening Lessons
So now for fun some ideas to enjoy this unique balloon ball!
The Watermelon Patch Song (found here)
Sung to: “Are you Sleeping?”
Watermelon, (Make a circle with your arms.)
Watermelon,
On the vine, (Curve hands and arms beside body.)
On the vine,
Sweet and red and juicy, (Rub your tummy.)
Sweet and red and juicy,
Please be mine! (Palms together as though pleading.)
Please be mine!
Watermelon, (Make a circle with your arms.)
Watermelon,
Thump, thump, thump, (Make a thumping movement with thumb and middle finger.)
Thump, thump, thump,
I think you are ready- (Point, resting finger on your temple.)
I think you are ready-
Big and plump! (Make a circle with your arms.)
Bug and plump!
Catch the Watermelon
Gather children in a circle around the adult leader. Toss the watermelon ball in the air and call one child’s name. That child must catch the balloon before it touches the ground. If the child succeeds, she gets to toss the balloon and call the next name. Great for name recognition!
Musical Watermelon Fun
This watermelon song by Tom Rosenthal is too fun! How about playing musical watermelon? Pass the ball around while the music plays. In this version, the one holding the ball when the music stops – is out! Who will be left with it?
Literacy Fun with a Craft Option
Click for a Watermelon Paper Craft
Book Suggestions:
"Peter Spit a Seed at Sue"
"The Watermelon Seed"
Very creative – love this blog!
This might be the cutest prop ever! I have to have one these for my early childhood music classes! It is simply adorable!
Love love love the watermelon ball! I’ll use it with my music classes for a passing game – a great skill to teach! Even my young 2’s love to pass things! Using a variation on the song you posted:
Watermelon, Watermelon,
On the vine, On the vine,
Sweet and red and juicy,
Sweet and red and juicy,
Pass me mine! Pass me mine!
Miss Carole – Macaroni Soup!
I love this – so cute!!! My special needs students would love bouncing this on the parachute to Raffi’s “Down By the Bay.” Now my mind is taking off: how fun it would be to add a puppet of each character in the song (i.e., fly with a polka-dot tie) on each verse. If only I could sew! 🙂
Oh no…more sewing ideas on my list! So many versions can be done with that song – what are your favorite ones?
This is so cute! It would be fun to use at summer camp for some fun movement experiences.
Looks like great summer fun!
Love the new watermelon ball! I think it would be fun to use with students for vocal play/warm-ups. Either roll the ball across the floor or volley it back and forth and have students mimic the movements with their voices.
I’d use this with my kids that are blind/VI! Especially with the funny songs posted above.
If I had that watermelon ball I would use it at my summer camp for special needs kids. We would play keep the watermelon on the parachute or else it will go SPLAT! We would sing a watermelon song while we wiggle the parachute and when it falls off we will all yell “SPAT!”. And the next time we would try to keep it on the parachute longer. The goal: to keep it on the parachute during the whole song!
Out of the 17 entries, our 9 year old daughter picked #9 as the winner – that’s you!!! Sending an email your way.
I love these ideas and I know my Pre-K and Kindergarten students would too! For my 1st graders I think we would focus on the word ‘watermelon’ and make a game out of it by reviewing that watermelon is a compound word followed by looking at how it is spelled and what two words make it a compound word. Then we would stand in a circle and begin passing the watermelon ball around with each child stating the next letter in the word as they receive/pass it (“W” pass, “A” pass, etc). The student who gets the watermelon ball after “N” is out and it starts over again, continuing to pass it around and spelling it over and over until there is only one student left.
Woot! Watermelon Balloon Ball!!!
Love this! I think I need to get my hands on one of these balls to get my creative juices flowing. For now, I put the recommended books on hold at the library. Love your creativity!
HA! Fun stuff…I’d use this in my early childhood music therapy groups or at our day camp for children with special needs! Love it!
You guys are the best! Sold out of the first four, but have more fabric on the way 🙂
So cute! And so perfectly fun for older adult groups too!
I would use the watermelon ball with my preschoolers as a game to teach cooperation, taking turns, and listening! I would change the words of the Wonder Ball song/game and sing “The melon ball goes round and round, To catch it quickly you are bound, If you’re the one to hold it last, The game for you has quickly passed and you are out.” Since I don’t like the idea of a child being “out”, I would ask the child to sit in the middle for the next turn and then, return to the game. There would always be a replacement of children who would have a turn to be in the middle.
I like that idea of a child not being “out” – plus since they are still in the circle, they are still part of the activity! Adding to my memory bank.
This will be great fun for my elders group! I can’t wait to use it with them and thank you for the fun song ideas too!
Looks like a lot of fun – something new to try on the parachute!
I love all the ideas being generated here. I would love to have one for my music classroom also. This would be really fun with a parachute but my favorite idea is tossing it to students and repeating their names. May use this idea for kinder screening the first couple of days of school. Whew! That’s coming fast! Would love to pre-order one if possible. We start school EARLY this year.
Just a side note, your blog post above says the drawing will be on JULY 25th. Imagine my surprise to see that you had already done the drawing. Just letting you know.
Great feedback! You are right – it did say July (I just edited it). Life already goes too fast, I was trying to lose a month! I just got more fabric in the mail so will be sewing up some for next week. I’ll send you an email!