The Penguin Ball

A popular penguin song for young singers age 3-12

Teachers and Parents Love This Fun Penguin Song for Young Singers

The Penguin Ball describes the delightful scene of penguins ready to attend a yearly ball. Students love imagining the penguins in their fancy black and white “clothes”, the romantic waltzing and the sad goodbyes as the penguins waddle home at the end of the evening. In this penguin song, the lyrics are packed with expressive text and visual descriptions of the whirling, dipping, sliding and slipping penguins.

The waltz setting of The Penguin Ball provides the perfect vehicle for young singers to experience 3/4 time. They can sway to the 3/4 waltz feel and even do a few waddling steps in the instrumental verse to add a bit of “musical theatre” flair to their performance.

Rehearsal tracks are included for use in vocal studios or classrooms. Tracks include piano accompaniment with a melody guide track played to assist early singers to internalize the melody line. A track with only the piano accompaniment can be used once the student is confident and able to sing the melody line independently.

The song is written using two melodic ideas. The form of this song is ABAAA (as written) or can be ABAA by omitting the instrumental verse. Accompaniment tracks are included to support both options.

Music Performances by Students

For performances and presentations students will enjoy singing with the instrumental studio track. This accompaniment has been created using harp, cello, glockenspiel and French horn. In the B section the French horns give sustained support and create harmonic interest before being highlighted in the instrumental verse. A descant glockenspiel part is included in the studio version and the printed music is provided for those who wish to re-create this part of the arrangement when performing with live accompaniment. You can see some performance videos here.

The studio performance track can also be used as a listening activity to identify instruments and to explore the structure of the piece.  

Teaching Music to Young Students

Vocal studio teachers and classroom teachers can use The Penguin Ball for a variety of purposes including performance repertoire, expressive singing, musical theatre/dramatizing the text, 3/4 meter, waltz, note reading, solfa singing, instrument identification, form and MORE!  

Cross curricular activities are provided in the Activity Pack for extending  and connecting the musical experience to other subject areas. These activities are wonderful enrichment opportunities for classroom teachers and a great vehicle for home-schooling families to engage the whole family.

The Activity pack included with “The Penguin Ball” provides two activities to introduce the song and explore the lyrics.  There are a total of 12 activities across a variety of subject areas:  music, visual art, drama, language arts and math. This is an excellent opportunity to listen to the music and then incorporate related activities that arise from the lyrics.

Some of the activities listed here are also explained in more detail in the Activity Pack PDF download. See the sample below.

Teachers - Is Singing Restricted in Your Area (schools)? 

There are still many ways to engage with this piece of music in meaningful musical ways.

- Provide the lyrics and read through the lyrics together.

- Listen to the piece of music. This can be accomplished with just the audio tracks or use the video.

- Have the children listen to the music and create a meaningful piece of art.

- Add the children’s art to the performance track of “The Penguin Ball ” to create a video. Play the video as part of a

  school presentation.

- Add instruments to specific words or musical elements in the song.

- Use a glockenspiel or xylophone and play the descant (music provided).

Explore musical phrases.

- Discover how many phrases are in the opening chorus.

- Have the children move one hand in a rainbow shape to show the shape of each phrase as they listen to the song.