Happy New Year everyone!
Now that we are firmly in 2017, it’s time for us to put down the jingle bells and take off the Santa hats……just for a little while at least!
It’s a really short term this Spring, so we were straight back out on the road again this week. To pass the time on our endless loops round the M25 and to deal with the tedium of traffic jams, we like nothing better than putting together the Makaton signs for an eclectic range of songs.
Most of you know that we love singing Early Years’ songs, but we also love singing songs for young people/adults too. This week it seemed appropriate to sing/sign along to Louis Armstrong’s “Wonderful World” to celebrate all the positives surrounding us especially at the start of a new year. It’s a beautiful song to sign for both children and adults as it’s got great vocabulary and a lovely pace for Makaton signing.
Safety note: Please observe that we did pull over when we got back as it’s best for us to sign when parked up (even if it does mean we get funny looks from people in the street)! As with our “Summer Holiday” clip from our YouTube channel, we just lip synched to this song on our iPod. We don’t usually lip sync as we prefer to sing original content and/or cover material for our resources/performances, but we hope you enjoy learning the Makaton signs with us nonetheless.
For those of you that like an explanation of the signs and/or the lyrics – here is our translation of this song:
WONDERFUL WORLD, BY LOUIS ARMSTRONG
I see trees of green (SEE, TREE, GREEN)
Red roses too (RED, FLOWER, ALSO)
I see them bloom (SEE, GROW)
For me and you (ME, YOU)
And I think to myself (THINK, ME)
What a wonderful world (WONDERFUL, WORLD)
I see skies of blue (SEE, SKY, BLUE)
And clouds of white (CLOUD, WHITE)
The bright blessed day (DAY)
The dark sacred night (NIGHT)
And I think to myself (THINK, ME)
What a wonderful world (WONDERFUL, WORLD)
The colours of the rainbow (COLOUR, RAINBOW)
So pretty in the sky (BEAUTIFUL, SKY)
Are also on the faces (ALSO/SAME, FACE)
Of people going by (PEOPLE, GO)
I see friends shaking hands (SEE, FRIENDS [rpt friend])
Saying “How do you do?” (SAY, HOW ARE YOU?)
They’re really saying (TRUE/REAL, SAY)
“I love you” (I, LOVE, YOU)
I hear babies cry (HEAR, BABY, CRY)
I watch them grow (LOOK, GROW)
They’ll learn much more (LEARN, MORE)
Than I’ll ever know (I, KNOW)
And I think to myself (THINK, ME)
What a wonderful world (WONDERFUL, WORLD)
Yes! I think to myself (YES, THINK, ME)
What a wonderful world (WONDERFUL, WORLD)
Oh yeah! (YES)
As you can see, we’ve mostly stuck to key word signing – you can add in ‘I’ more often (e.g I see) if you prefer to do more signs. We chose to just do day / night in that section, rather than bright + blessed + day as we felt it kept the signing pace the same and also makes the song more accessible to copy. Finally – you might wonder why we didn’t sign “What” at the start of each line. Good question! Having worked with the Makaton Charity with our other resources, we know that it is preferred that you only sign “What” (and other question words), when the phrase is actually asking a question. In this song, ‘What a wonderful world’ is a statement rather than a question, so hence we left the sign out. If you want to put it back in, then please do as you want!
Finally – please don’t forget to download or stream this song yourselves and sign along – here’s the link to iTunes if needed:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/what-a-wonderful-world/id14175589?i=14175749
Happy Signing!
S&T x
By: SMI
Happy new year Tracy , Suzanne and all family and friends at singing hands! My daughter who has undiagnosed syndrome is non verbal but absolutely loves you! She can hum every song you do and is also learning the signs! She is 3 in April and you have helped her so much! She adores you! Now today you have done wonderful world which is my favourite song !!!! Thankyou you are doing a fantastic job xx
Hello Lindsay – thank you for your gorgeous message. So happy to hear how much your daughter is benefitting from our resources. Glad you love this song too – so do we! It’s just perfect in terms of the content, the message, the melody, the pace and the signing – enjoy! Hope you can come along and see us live somewhere soon. xxx
Thankyou for your reply! I was wondering if you could tell me where you will be live! Phoebe would be so happy to come and see you! She’s got your official singing hands to shirt to wear and she looks adorable in it. Xx
Hi Lindsay – all our events where we are performing are listing in our “What We Do” section (under forthcoming events). If you subscribe to our monthly Newsletter on our Blog page you will also be notified monthly of forthcoming gigs. We also have an events page on our Facebook page too, if you prefer to join us there! We look forward to meeting you soon 🙂
Lovely really enjoyed a wonderful world. Gave me a break from Christmas cracker 1 and 2 lol
Hello Lucie – thank you for your lovely message. So glad you enjoyed this song – we love singing and signing this too! Hope you have parked the Christmas songs for a while. We might stop jingling for a month or two…..haha! xx