Happy Birthday, Mississippi!

by Teresa Jennings

There are a couple of reasons we decided to publish this very specific song. For one thing, Mississippi is celebrating a milestone birthday in 2017 – 200 years! For another, it really is a pretty great state. Realizing that other great states may also wish to have a song for their respective birthdays, we kept the tune mostly generic enough that you could plug in your own info. You will need to adjust rhythms for the name and its spelling, as well as the year of its "birth," and its nickname. This could be a neat class project, in fact, because you will want to agree on the rhythms you are going to use, especially for the spellings. It will also get kids involved in researching their state to update the lyrics accordingly.

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.