
Lyrics
(Folk song)
Don’t want your weevily* wheat,
Don’t want your barley.
Take some flour in half an hour
To bake a cake for Charlie.
Five times five is twenty-five,
Five times six is thirty,
Five times seven is thirty five,
Five times eight is forty.
*A weevil is a beetle-like insect that can be harmful to crops.
Motions / Play Party
Formation: Students stand in circle groups of 4. Before starting, each student gets a number 1,2,3 or 4.
Section A
Measures 1-2 – All circle left
Measures 3-4 – All circle right
Section B
All face center.
Measure 5 – On each beat, each person adds right hand to the middle, stacking hands on top of each other. (1,2,3,4)
Measure 6 – On each beat, each person adds left hand to the stack. (1,2,3,4)
Measure 7 – On each beat, each person takes off left hand (top hand first). (4,3,2,1)
Measure 8 – On each beat, each person takes off right hand. (4,3,2,1)
See also
- Subjects: counting / insects
- Activities: dances
- Form: AB
- Harmony: Orff arrangements / chords I IV V
- Melody: tonic triad / low so & low la
- Meter: 4
- Rhythm:
/ syncopation
- Scale: pentatonic
- Tones: drmsl
- Sources: Handy Play Party Book, Lynn Rohrbough, Co-operative Recreational Service, 1940 / The American Songbag, Carl Sandburg, Harcout Brace and Company, 1927
- Similar song: Over the River Charlie
YouTube
or purchase here (printables only)
- PDF of song with chords + Lesson ideas + Orff arrangement
- MIDI file
- Listen to the melody

