Sheet music (piano and chord suggestions for other instrumental accompaniment)/children's folksongs (with ideas for incorporating in a classroom/storytime setting). Over 90 songs in here, so you're bound to find a few that you like. ( )

Ruth Crawford Seeger was a serious scholar of American folk music, who listened obsessively to field recordings of American folk song, and made hundreds of transcriptions, including for the definitive Lomax collections. She was also a brilliant composer in her own right. Finally, she was a mother and a volunteer preschool teacher who had great insight into young children.

She brings all these talents and abilities to her work on this brilliant book. Her choice of songs is superb, and will keep children singing while also keeping adults engaged. She combines her deep understanding of the folk process with her knowledge of preschool education to give you hints and tips for adapting the songs to the children you're working with. The piano accompaniments are simple enough to be playable even by ham-handed people like me -- but the simplicity is deceptive, for in many places she manages to suggest harmonic and rhythmic possibilities that will stretch your musical imagination (and the children's musical imaginations, too!).

My well-worn copy of the book belonged to my mother, and she used it while she was a kindergarten and preschool teacher. Half a century later, I can still use these timeless songs with children with great success. Quite simply, one of the best children's music books you can get.

This is not a book/CD selection to listen to passively. The point is to listen to and learn the songs so you and your children can sing them throughout the day, on your own, naturally and as freely as breathing.
There's nothing exceptionally 'professional' or polished about it, so children won't be programmed to think they can only sing the songs one right way.
I knew it was a success and exactly what we'd wanted when our children began including snatches of songs in the family language- leaping off the porch to check the mail while singing, "I got a letter this morning...;" spotting a sister finally arriving home and larking about with, "Here she comes so fresh and fair...;" dancing around with a doll (or a real baby) and singing, 'What'll we do with the baby? What'll we do with the baby..."
For us, folk music is participatory, not passive entertainment, and this book encourages participation. ( )