Old King Cole Eats Healthy!

By Deborah Rowley

Here is a fun variation of Old King Cole that you can use to teach preschool-age children and nursery kids about healthy eating. Here is the original version as it is sung on Barney. (I won't blame you if you can't bear to watch it! Just make up your own tune!)

Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
A merry old soul was he
He called for his pipe

He called for his bowl

He called for his fiddlers three.

Dance with the fiddlers
Dance with the fiddlers
Dance with the Fiddlers Three!

I had the children hold up the pictures at the right time in the song. We talked about how unhealthy it is to smoke with the pipe. When we held up the bowl, we talked about how unhealthy it would be to just eat sweets and sugary cereal all the time. Then when we come to the fiddlers and the dancing, we would start to dance and then fall on the ground in the middle of our dancing because we were so sick and unhealthy! The kids loved that part.

Here is our original version about making healthy food choices. When it came to the dancing part, we would dance and skip around energetically, since we were feeling so healthy and strong, of course!

Old King Cole
Was a healthy old soul
A healthy old soul was he.

He called for his fruit.

He called for his grains.

He called for his vegetables three.
Dance and be healthy.
Dance and be healthy.
Dance and be healthy like me!

If you enjoy this Nursery Rhyme, check out our other nursery rhymes at the links below.

Humpty Dumpty

Hey Diddle Diddle