Putting on a musical together brings so much excitement and a wonderful sense of belonging as the children work towards the same goal, experiencing the joy of performing and a safe space during rehearsals to try and try again. With wonderful opportunities for short lines to learn, fabulous songs to sing all together and percussion ideas, here are some of our top-selling Key Stage 1 musicals, all of which have so much scope for including the Early Years children in your school and are fabulously fun to perform!
The Songs
Whether it’s songs about wonderful wildlife and how a seed grows, or just something really silly and fun like Don’t Mess With Mr Bull!, this musical has a little bit of everything – topic-based songs, but also just all-out fun, character-led songs for a truly memorable performance!
The Story
Daisy the cow dreams of having a garden, but her fellow cows and grumpy old Mr Bull are very set in their ways and ONLY want grass. On her way back from market, Daisy finds a very intriguing seed on the ground and decides to plant it. There is utter commotion when something starts to grow among the cows’ lovely grass. Mr Bull is convinced that it’s another beanstalk and gets ready to fight the giant, but soon a sunflower pops out and starts to attract new and exciting visitors to Grassy Hill: Bugs and bees and birds and butterflies, lots of wacky, wonderful wildlife coming to say ‘Hello!’
The Characters
Wonderfully entertaining characters pepper the script, including Mr Bull, who is grumpy and very definitely in charge! As well as Daisy and her cow friends, there is also Wise Old Owl, who is on hand with lots of gardening advice, and some squirrels, birds, bees, bugs and butterflies. Plenty of non-speaking plant and animal characters provide lots of scope for including very young children in your musical.
Find out more about There’s A Sunflower In My Supper
The Songs
Five cute, fun and very singable songs make up this musical – you’ll be singing along with the frog chorus (‘Croak! Croak! Ribbidy! Ribbidy! It’s the croaky chorus singing happily!’) and lamenting with Speedy the tadpole (‘I feel sad today, I just want to hide away’) before everyone comes together to celebrate with We Can Sing! Three instrumental tracks for simple dance and movement are included, perfect for including very young children.
The Story
Set in and around a garden pond, Speedy the tadpole is surrounded by lots of friends to encourage him through the ups and downs of becoming a fully grown, all-singing frog! Speedy has to undergo lots of transformation before he can get there, learning to appreciate what he’s good at during each stage of his development. Running throughout the musical is the very important theme of ‘We can all do something if we try’.
The Characters
From frogs and goldfish to ladybirds, crickets and bumblebees, the summer garden is teeming with wildlife characters just perfect for this age group to play!
The Songs
Fabulously versatile songs that can be used well after you’ve finished performing your musical – songs about walking to school, trees, recycling and many more! The songs are easy to learn and full of important messages: ‘If your journey’s short you could walk to school, Walking can be really cool.’
The Story
Eddie the penguin is on a mission to discover why the ice that he lives on in Antarctica is melting away, so he and his family set off to the North Pole, the UK, America, Brazil and Australia to work out why the world is getting hotter and what everyone can do about it. The important message is wrapped up in a beautifully simple story, full of practical ideas of how to help our planet that even the youngest children can join in with.
The Characters
You’ll come across lots of fun characters as you journey around the world with Eddie the penguin, including Peggy Polar Bear, Mr Boot and Sam, Mrs Motor and Pam and DJ Donnie. There’s also a brief appearance from the Australian Prime Minister!
Find out more about Eddie The Penguin Saves The World
The Songs
A fabulously fun opener (‘Moo, moo, oink, oink, oink, neigh, neigh, baa, baa, quack, quack, cluck!’) and a finale song all the about the four seasons sandwich four songs about winter, spring, summer and autumn. Children will have so much fun with Bouncy, Bouncy, Bounce! and It’s H, H, H, H, H, Hot!, and will enjoy exploring the sounds of autumn and wrapping up for Snuggle Up, Cuddle Up – songs that can also be used as standalone seasonal songs in the classroom or assemblies.
The Story
Apple the pony is very pleased to have found a hat on Great Oak Farm, but wearing it is proving to be a problem. As each season comes round, it just doesn’t seem to be the right weather for it, but help is on hand from her farm friends to help her find the right season for her new hat.
The Characters
From Buster the excitable puppy to the hilarious party pigs and from Cuddles the grumpy sheep to Einstein the clever cow, this musical is jam-packed with SMALL speaking parts with BIG character!
The Songs
A great set of 7 fun songs that children will love to sing, including Munch, Munch, Munch and What A Load Of Rubbish!
The Story
Children love to see others joining in and it’s so much fun! Be brave and give it a go! Why not have a few extra props hidden strategically around the seating area to be found/held up/worn at a particular time in the performance by someone in the audience? You could even prime certain people beforehand. Get the audience joining in with hand signs or actions. Go through them before the performance starts so they are all ready to join in at the appropriate time. Reprise a favourite song at the end and get the audience to sing along to all or part of it (Sparkyard’s Share Link feature would come in handy again here) – add to the atmosphere by getting some children to stand among or around the audience as they sing!
The Characters
Lots of moaning villagers and a bossy mayor join The Litter Muncher, with lots of short lines for all the characters and a large narrator part.
