Under-water Christmas Song

Ok ...so the challenge was this, write a song with twenty seven to eight year olds, learn it and then perform it as the grand finale to celebrate six weeks of the Wriggle-room Writers project coming into a school to stimulate the children’s creative writing. Did I mention that this was to be done in a forty-five minute session??

I was the token ‘Songwriter’ in the mix...and yes I knew this was going to be a tall order, but luckily the children didn’t think so at all.

When I brought out my guitar I said to them,

‘ I am so excited to be here and I can’t wait to write a song with you!’

They squealed and clapped with delight.

Since it was only a couple of weeks till Christmas I asked them if they’d like to write a Christmas Song and it was unanimously agreed that was the way to go.

‘So should it be lively or quiet?’ I asked them. You can guess the answer ‘lively’...was the reply.

So far so good, next question, what should it be about? There was silence for about a two seconds then a little boy shouted out,

‘Its an underwater - Christmas song’, He was grinning wildly

‘Underwater Christmas...right??’

‘Yes, they’re having a party’, someone else ventured

‘And everyone is in fancy dress!’ shouted another.

I shot a glance at Lynda Waterhouse (a children’s book writer) who was acting as scribe with marker on a white board writing down the suggestions...as they popped up. She was laughing.

The ideas were flowing fast and furious. It was to be an underwater Christmas disco (somewhere warm) with a whale wearing a Christmas hat and big black boots, a dolphin in a fancy dress, and an octopus wearing a vest.....yikes....it was hard to keep up with their ‘out of the box’ ideas. But we were on a roll!

This was a co-write like no other...no writers block, no time for that just sheer enthusiasm and drive...and at the end of forty-five minutes twenty delighted children sang the song that they wrote to an incredulous audience.

If you are curious...here’s the recording I did on my phone....

https://soundcloud.com/wriggleroomwriters/class-3h-burdett-coutts

Merry Christmas Everyone!