Draw Me a Bucket of Water
Here are Deborah Jeter's directions:
This is a rope-pulling song.
The pairs of children are scattered in shared space. Number the children 1 - 4 so they will know the order they are to "go under".
For the phrases 1-3:
1.Partners join hands, moving alternate arms forward and back. Each partner always has one arm extended and one elbow which is bent and close to the body. This is called oppositional are movement.
2.Two pairs make a set of four. One pair stands in place while another pair joins hands above them. All four do the oppositional arm movement with their partners.
For the fourth phrase:
3. On the words, "You go under, sister Sally," Child 1 (who is the partner of child 3) ducks under the arms of children 2 and 4.
Eventually the children will all be "under" another's arms in this woven position.
On the chorus:
"Frog in the bucket and I can't get him out", the child wriggle in place, which causes much giggling because the movement of one is matched against the movement of another and there is a loss of control of sorts in their own jiggling movement.
I hope this makes sense. The pictures in the book are helpful but these directions were taken from the book and I have tried to explain in a few places in greater detail how the singing game is performed.
And here's my own desciption of the Frog in the Bucket part: With hands locked together with their neighbor's on either side behind their backs (final position for Draw Me a Bucket) the children have a pretty good shot at remaining erect for a spell, but for the fact that the teacher (and any odd students left over from groups of four) then have the option of banging a tambourine or clapping faster and faster at each subsequent repetition until the children in groups of four can't stand up any longer from laughing and getting out of sync with each other. I often make it a contest to see which group can remain on their feet the longest.
Frog in the Bucket:
4/4 Cut/Time
ta ti ti ti ti ti ti ta ti ti ta
d d d d d d d d d d d
Frog in the bucket and you can't get him out
ta ti ti ti ti ti ti ta ti ti ta
m m m m m m m m m m m
Frog in the bucket and you can't get him out
ta ti ti ti ti ti ti ta ti ti ta
s s s s s s s s s s s
Frog in the bucket and you can't get him out
ta ti ti ti ti ti ti ta ti ti ta
l s s m r d r m r r d
Frog in the bucket and you can't get him out
Yours truly,
David Saphra
gamba@concentric.net