A nerdy mom’s top 5 for Solar System songs
So my 3-year old has developed an obsession with the planets and the Solar System. Which is cool. It all started with a children’s program that’s called Planeetta (Planet) Kosmo here in Finland. Kosmo is a child who lives in space with his/her family because their mother is a space scientist. Due to various reasons they travel to different planets and now my child keeps repeating sentences like “Mars, that stony red planet”, “Venus is so extremely hot” and “Jupiter is a gas giant and the red spot is actually a raging storm”. Then it was no longer enough, and she wanted to see pictures of different planets so we would write “planets” to google and look the pictures. Then we found some cool videos from YouTube, her favorite was “Jupiter rotating”. I personally enjoyed NASA’s live broadcast from the International space station, but it was not enough action for the 3yo.
And then we found the planet songs. I mean videos where cartoon planets have eyes and mouths and they sing and tell about themselves. Apparently this is a thing in the English speaking world, since I found no planet song in Finnish but dozens of them in English. This is also the reason I decided to write this one in English, for I am going to review which songs are the best ones. So, here’s my top 5 Solar System songs for children (and parents):
This is slightly different from others, because the planets don’t have faces. I had to add it to my list because the rhythm reminds me of school discos back in the 90’s. I keep waiting for them to fly near the Sun and star singing Mc Hammer’s “Can’t touch this”.
4. “Dr. Sheldon Cooper’s fun with planets” by Kid’s learning Tube
This 40 minute long song has Dr. Sheldon Cooper written all over it. Many songs will tell your kid the colors of the planets and whether they are made of gas or stone etc, but this one will educate them about the amount of days in a year and hours in a day in each planet, the variations of gravity and the exact chemical composition for the elements they are made of. So if this far I’ve been proud when my kid knows that Jupiter is made of gas I can now expect her to tell which gases. This one also tells about the dwarf planets, not only Pluto, but also the quite recently found ones like MakeMake. It also mentions the asteroid belt with dwarf planet Ceres in it. Good thing that much of the information appears also as a text, so it will help you to digest the information flood a bit.
3. The Solar System Song by KidsTV123
This one has a touch of Simon & Garfunkel in it and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I think it’s my husband’s favorite but the 3yo seems to prefer the ones with less-melancholic rhythm. Good thing she’s not into an existential crisis yet. I keep feeling sorry for Mercury when it sings “I have no moon” and seems slightly depressed. Fun detail is that in this one all the planets have also hands and they wave goodbye when they stop singing.
2. Planet Song for Kids/Solar System Song by Kids Learning Tube
There’s nothing here that would stand out so much as in the previous ones. Why this scores so high is that the song is really catchy: “There are eight planets in the solar system, we revolve around the sun. Join us to learn about different planets, sing along and have some fun”. Now you won’t be able to get rid of it for ages. You’re welcome. I also think that this is a quite compact one, it’s not too long but has enough information for a 3yo (and her mother).
This is my absolute favorite. It has more humor and some planets are total bad asses. As I have a somewhat stupid sense of humor it always makes me laugh when Uranus sings “I’m Ur-anus and I say that with pride…” I’m lucky my child doesn’t actually speak English so I don’t have to explain this. But she loves the little Storybots in the beginning so I dare to say this might be at least one of her favorites as well. Only bad thing is that it’s quite short.
