Preschool Number Songs and Poems

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🎵 Musical Intelligence — Active engagement with music — singing, moving, playing — develops the musical intelligence that shapes auditory processing, emotional expression, and the broad cognitive benefits that music education consistently produces.
• 🌍 Cultural Awareness — Songs from different cultures, languages, and historical periods connect children to the rich diversity of human musical expression — building cultural awareness and global perspective through the most joyful possible medium.
• 👂 Phonological Awareness — Songs with rhyme, rhythm, and repetition are the most enjoyable and effective way to develop phonological awareness — the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in language that is the top predictor of reading success.
• 🤸 Bilateral Coordination — Fingerplay songs and movement songs that involve both hands simultaneously develop bilateral coordination — the ability to use both sides of the body together — which underlies many fine and gross motor skills.

Preschool Number Songs and Poems is a place to find fun ways to help your preschooler with their counting and music skills. Music and math go hand in hand, and Preschool Number Songs and Poems will show you how to make this learning experience fun for preschoolers. You will revisit such songs as One Two Buckle My Shoe, with some suggestions of fun movements for you and your preschooler to enjoy. Some of these songs will be classic tunes with new lyrics, some will keep the ones they have, and all will be fun for the preschooler in your life!

Featured Number Songs and Poems

One, Two Number Poem and Game
The One-Two Number Poem is a great poem to help preschoolers learn their numbers and to practice their counting skills. With a fresh, alternative version of One-Two Buckle My Shoe, the One-Two Number Poem will become one of your preschooler's favorites. In a small or large group, you are sure to have a ton of fun!

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Helpful Tips for Parents

• Music reduces anxiety, transitions distress, and meltdown frequency in preschoolers. Transition songs — "five more minutes then we clean up" sung consistently — make stopping easier.
• Sing through daily activities: narrate getting dressed in a made-up song, count stairs in a chant, turn grocery shopping into a call-and-response. Music can permeate every part of the day.
• Nursery rhymes and folk songs deliver phonological awareness — the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in language — which is the strongest single predictor of reading success.
• Music and movement together (dancing, marching, clapping) develop bilateral coordination, rhythm internalization, and body awareness more effectively than either alone.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many songs should a preschooler know by age 5?

There's no developmental benchmark for number of songs known at age 5. What matters is that children have a rich musical memory — a repertoire of songs they can sing, chant, and reference. A child who knows 20–30 songs in multiple genres, can keep a basic beat, responds emotionally to music, and participates enthusiastically in musical activities is musically well-developed at age 5. The number of songs is less important than the depth of musical engagement they represent.

How do I help my child who "can't sing in tune"?

Pitch matching — singing a heard note accurately — is a learnable skill, not a fixed trait. Most children who sing "off-key" simply haven't had enough focused practice matching pitches. Daily activities that help: sing with the child, listen together and sing the same note, echo songs (you sing a phrase, they echo it back), and start with a narrow pitch range before expanding. True tone-deafness (amusia) affects only 4% of the population. The vast majority of "can't sing" children can learn to pitch-match with appropriate practice and encouragement.

Related reading: See also our fingerplay songs guide and our dance party activities for more ideas on this topic.