Old MacDonald Had a Farm : First Nursery Songs

Old MacDonald Had A farm has to be the best known children’s farmyard song. It’s easy tune and repetitive chorus is often one of the first songs a toddler will sing along to. The EE-I-EE-I-O is such an appealing refrain that toddlers will join in singing it often before they can manage the other words.

The beauty of this song is that it provides an excellent opportunity to learn and practise all the animal names and their sounds. It is very versatile and can be sung with pictures or toy animals, and is great when sung with a selection of glove puppets that the children can interact with. For slightly older children, it can be a challenging memory game. You can repeat the list of animal sounds at the end of each verse, which becomes more and more difficult with each additional animal. When you have exhausted your repetoire of farmyard noises, don’t forget the other sounds, such as the tractors, diggers and combine harvesters!

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee-I-Ee-I-O,

And on that farm he had a Cow, Ee-I-Ee I-O,

With a MOO MOO here, and a MOO MOO there,

Here a MOO, there a MOO, everywhere a MOO MOO!

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee-I-Ee-I-O! 

(Repeat with all the different animals and the sound they make, it can be a long song!)

To print off the teacher accompaniment for Old MacDonald Had a Farm, click on the image below. You can find more farm songs to sing with kids here!

Check out our Farms Lesson Plan for 35 minutes of structured musical activities with plenty of noisy animal impersonations !