Vegetable songs work best when they arrive before the vegetable does. Sing about carrots on Monday and the carrot sticks on Thursday’s snack tray are already something familiar. This page collects 9 vegetable songs for preschoolers, all set to tunes your class already knows, such as Twinkle, Twinkle and Old MacDonald, with full lyrics and the tune note for each one.
Every song has a one-line teaching tip on the best age, the motion to pair with it and where it fits in the day. There are also six vegetable song videos from The Kiboomers, Super Simple Songs, Jack Hartmann and others for the days you want a recorded track, a practical section on using songs at snack and mealtime without pressuring a child to eat, and answers to the questions teachers ask most about picky eaters and indoor garden themes. Use the jump links to go straight to a group of songs, or read the guidance first if you are planning a food, garden or healthy-eating unit.
- How to use vegetable songs at snack and mealtime
- Vegetable songs by theme
- Songs about eating vegetables
- Vegetable soup and cooking songs
- Garden and growing songs
- Vegetable songs FAQ
How to use vegetable songs at snack and mealtime
Most children who push a vegetable away are not being difficult. Wariness about new food is common at three and four, and it fades with familiarity rather than persuasion. Songs build that familiarity because a child can meet a vegetable in a song long before it turns up on a plate.
Sing before you serve. Introduce the vegetable at circle time first. Pass a real one around while you sing so children can hold it, smell it and say its name. By the time the same vegetable reaches the snack table it is already something they know.
Count exposures, not bites. Seeing, touching, smelling and helping to wash a vegetable all count as exposure. Tasting is only one step, and it comes last. Many children need to meet a new food ten or more times before they are willing to taste it, and that is normal. A child who sings about broccoli, waters the seedling and puts a floret on their plate without eating it has had a good week.
Never use a song to pressure or bribe. Do not aim Oh, Do You Eat Your Vegetables? at a child who is not eating, and do not tie a verse to a bite. Pressure and rewards tend to make a food less appealing over time, not more. Offer the food, name it, eat some yourself and move on. What goes in their mouth is their decision.
Let children handle the real thing. During Vegetables or The Vegetable Song, put a basket of raw vegetables in the middle of the circle. As each one is named, a child pulls it out, holds it up and passes it round. Wash them afterwards and put them out at snack with no comment. That low-stakes handling is the step most cautious children need.
Grow something in a cup. Bean seeds in a clear cup with a damp paper towel sprout within a week on a windowsill. Sing The Green Beans Grew All Around each morning while you check them. The daily check is another exposure, and children who grew a plant are usually far more curious about what it produces.
Use songs for colour and sorting. Vegetables names a colour for almost every vegetable in it: orange carrots, white onions, green or red cabbage. Sing it with a tray of real vegetables and have children sort them by colour, then by where they grow: under the ground, on a vine, on a stalk. Giving a vegetable a job other than being eaten takes the pressure off.
Keep the table calm. Serve one familiar food alongside the new vegetable so every child has something they will eat, and sit down and eat with them. Children copy adults far more than they obey them. For the transition to the table itself, our Snack Time Songs for Preschoolers collection has the hand-washing and waiting songs.
Vegetable songs by theme
If your unit is broader than vegetables, these related collections on the site carry the same format: lyrics, tune notes and teaching tips.
- 25 Songs About Gardens, Plants and Seeds for seed-to-plant songs and fingerplays
- 36 Best Farm Songs for Kids for tractors, barns and where food comes from
- 28 Apple Songs for Preschoolers for an autumn harvest week
- 7 Strawberry Songs for Preschoolers for a late-spring picking theme
Songs about eating vegetables
These four songs name specific vegetables and pair naturally with a real snack tray. Sing them at circle time in the morning and again as children wash hands for snack. They also fit a healthy-habits week alongside our The Best Health and Safety Songs.
The Vegetable Song
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”
Carrots, Peas, and Broccoli,
Vegetables are good for me.
For my snack and in my lunch,
Veggie sticks are great to munch.
Carrots, Peas, and Broccoli,
Vegetables are good for me.
Best for threes: hold up a real carrot, a pea pod and a broccoli floret as each one is named, and use it as your transition song to the snack table.
The Good Food Song
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “Old MacDonald Had A Farm”
Vegetables are good for me,
EE I EE I O
And so I eat them happily,
EE I EE I O
With a carrot, carrot here,
and a carrot, carrot there
Here a carrot, there a carrot
Everywhere a carrot, carrot.
Vegetables are good for me,
EE I EE I O.
*Use your own creativity to add other vegetables
Let each child pick the vegetable for the next verse and mime eating it; a good choice for fours who already know Old MacDonald cold.
I Like Veggies
Original Author Unknown
Sung to: “Are You Sleeping?”
I like veggies, I like veggies.
Do you too? Do you too?
I like corn and carrots, I like corn and carrots.
And peas too! And peas too!
A quick echo song for ages 3 to 5: split the room into two groups and swap in whatever vegetables are on today’s snack tray.
OH, Do You Eat Your Vegetables?
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “Muffin Man”
Oh do you eat your vegetables, vegetables, Vegetables?
Oh, do you eat your vegetables-each and every day?
Oh, yes we eat our vegetables, vegetables, vegetables:
Oh yes we eat our vegetables-each and every day!
To continue the song, ask each child in turn to name a vegetable. Substitute the child’s name and her vegetable choice, and have everyone sing the new words. For example:
Oh Janet eats green beans, green beans, green beans,
Oh Janet eats green beans-each and every day!
Fours and fives love hearing their own name in a verse; keep it a celebration of what each child likes, never a check on who ate what.
Vegetable soup and cooking songs
Cooking songs let children add vegetables to an imaginary pot, which is a comfortable way to name a food they are not ready to taste. Both songs below work as a lead-in to a classroom soup day, and they sit well with the routines in our Lunch and Meal Time Songs collection.
Vegetable Soup Song
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “Farmer in the Dell”
The soup is boiling up
The soup is boiling up
Stir slow-around we go
The soup is boiling up.
First we add the broth
First we add the broth
Stir slow-around we go
The soup is boiling up.
Now we add some carrots
Now we add some carrots
Stir slow-around we go
The soup is boiling up.
Continue with whichever vegetables you children want. Have the children stand around a large imaginary pot pretending to stir the soup.
Stand in a circle around an imaginary pot and stir with both arms; it pairs well with a real soup-making day for ages 3 to 5.
Soups On
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “Sound Off”
Carrots, beans, and potatoes
Corn and peas and tomatoes
Mix and stir up in a pot.
Smells so good as it gets hot.
Soup’s on-1, 2.
Soup’s on-3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4-Let’s eat a good treat!
A marching chant for fours and fives: stamp on the counts and clap on the last line.
Garden and growing songs
Growing songs answer the question every three-year-old asks: where does it come from? Use them with the windowsill bean cups, with a trip to see a vegetable patch, or with a tray of vegetables sorted by where they grow. The videos below are good for the days you want children to sing along to a recorded track.
Vegetables
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
We are pumpkins, big and round
Big and round, big and round
We are pumpkins, big and round
Seated on the ground.
We are string beans, green and fine…..
Growing on a vine.
We are onions, round and white….
We make soup taste right.
We are carrots, orange and long…
Help us sing our song.
We are cabbage, green or red….
See our funny head.
We are corn stalks, tall and straight….
Don’t we just taste great.
Act it out: crouch low for pumpkins, stretch tall for corn stalks and wobble your head for cabbage; good for threes who need to move at circle time.
I’m A Big Red Tomato
Original Author: Unknown
I’m a big red tomato
Growing on a vine,
A big re tomato
Looking oh, so fine.
Now you can make good things with me-
Soup, juice, pizza, to name just three.
I’m a big red tomato
Growing on a vine.
Grow, grow, grow.
Chant it or fit it to any tune you like; start curled up as a seed and grow a little taller on each ‘grow’.
The Green Beans Grew All Around
Original Author: Unknown
Sung to: “The Green Grass Grew All Around”
There was a hole (repeat)
In the middle of the ground. (repeat)
The prettiest hole (repeat)
That you ever did see. (repeat)
Well, a holes in the ground
And the green beans grew all around and around
And the green beans grew all around!
Well, in this hole (repeat)
There was a seed. (repeat)
The prettiest seed (repeat)
That you ever did see.
Well, a seed in the hole
And a hole in the ground
And the green beans grew all around and around
And the green beans grew all around!
Well, from this seed
There came a plant.
The prettiest plant
You ever did see.
Well, a plant from the seed
And a seed in the hole
And a hole in the ground
And the green beans grew all around and around
And the green beans grew all around!
Best with fours and fives who can hold the cumulative verses; sing it each morning while you check the bean cups on the windowsill.
Vegetable songs FAQ
How do songs help a child try new vegetables?
A song is a safe first meeting with a food. The child hears the name, sees the colour and often holds the real thing, all without anyone expecting a bite. That familiarity is what most cautious children need before they will taste something, so the song does its work days before the vegetable is served.
What age are vegetable songs best for?
Three to five. Threes do best with short, repetitive songs on familiar tunes, such as The Vegetable Song and I Like Veggies, with a simple motion for each verse. Fours and fives can manage cumulative songs like The Green Beans Grew All Around and enjoy naming their own vegetable in Oh, Do You Eat Your Vegetables?
What activities pair with vegetable songs?
A basket of raw vegetables to pass around, a colour-sorting tray, vegetable printing with cut potatoes and celery, and a class soup day where children wash and add the vegetables themselves. Bean seeds in a clear cup give you a growing plant to sing to each morning. Keep every activity about handling and naming, and let tasting happen on its own.
How do I run a garden theme in a classroom with no outdoor space?
Use a sunny windowsill and containers. Bean seeds, pea shoots, cress on a wet paper towel and a sprouting potato in a jar all grow indoors within days, and a bag of compost with a few radish seeds in a tub will give you a real harvest in about four weeks. Add a sensory bin of soil and plastic vegetables, and sing the growing songs above during your daily plant check.
How many times does a child need to see a new food before trying it?
Often ten or more. The number varies a lot from child to child, and a very cautious eater may need many more. Every look, touch, smell and song counts as one of those meetings, so a vegetable that appears in a song, on the sorting tray and on the snack table in the same week is being introduced three ways at once.
What vegetables are easiest to grow with preschoolers?
Beans and peas, because the seeds are big enough for small fingers and they sprout fast. Radishes are the quickest to harvest, lettuce and cress can be cut and eaten within weeks, and cherry tomatoes in a pot give you a summer crop to sing I’m A Big Red Tomato to. Avoid anything that takes months or needs deep soil.
Start with one song this week, put the real vegetable in the circle, and let the snack table take care of itself. When you are ready to widen the theme to seeds, soil and watering cans, our Garden Songs for Preschoolers collection is the next stop.