One of my favorite music therapy consultation jobs was pushing into a Science class where a student with autism was being integrated. I would gather information from the teacher about different topics and then create an experience for the whole class to do. One class centered around the classification of animals into the 5 different classes of vertebrates in the Animal Kingdom.Usually I compose my own music, but since I was working with a whole class of students, I decided to use the tune from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. I shared the song with my student in their individual session to prepare them for the group experience. For the classroom experience, I brought in several copies of an Animal Kingdom board and animal pictures. I divided the classroom into small groups and they worked together to sort the animal pictures and place them under the correct category on the board. Below are the simple lyrics I added to the improvisational part of the song to learn the names of the 5 kingdoms:
The Animal Kingdom
lyrics by Wade Richards
Wee dee dee dee, oh wee dee dee dee, the Animal Kingdom.
Wee dee dee dee, oh wee dee dee dee, the Animal Kingdom.
Birds, amphibians, and reptiles.
Fish and mammals they are vertebrates.
They have a backbone.
They have a backbone.
They have a backbone.
Although I kept the song very basic and simple to outline the 5 classes of vertebrates, you could easily add more to the verses of the song. “On our earth, our might earth, the animals live and play”. After the experience was over in the classroom, we recited together the 5 classes of the animal kingdom, and then each student named an animal and class it belonged to. The teacher kept the materials and used them for review throughout the week and sang with the kids!
Free download: Animal Kingdom board
Free download: Animal Kingdom pictures
Wade is a board-certified music therapist and one of the directors at Spectrum Creative Arts. He completed additional training programs in Orff-Schulwerk, Neurologic Music Therapy, and Performance Wellness. As a songwriter and creative writer, Wade has authored several music resource books for music therapy and music education.