HOMES

by John Riggio

This song is by request! HOMES is a mnemonic song designed to help your students learn the names of the Great Lakes. It stands for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Pretty spiffy, huh?

In the full version of the song, it is sung the first and third times at measure 5, with the second time being reserved for spoken lines, which are just factoids about the Great Lakes. Some of you may wish to make the song more simple without having to recite the factoids, or perhaps you'd like the song to be a little shorter, and to that end we also created a short version of HOMES that only repeats twice, and eliminates the spoken bits. (Tracks 32 and 33 on the recording.)

This is a cross curricular tune, so even though it might be taught by our wonderful music teachers, it certainly applies to geography and the earth sciences, so be sure to share it with whomever you think might benefit.

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.