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Old Man Noah Built an Ark Songleader Guide
Old Man Noah Built an Ark is a Noah’s Ark song for kids, sung to the tune of Old MacDonald.
I’m a nerd and I love debunking misinformation, I created this song partially to correct something that the song “Rise and Shine” delivered to us as children. I wrote this Noah song to leverage a familiar melody while correcting a widespread oversimplification of the narrative. Many popular versions default to “two by two,” but the Torah’s account is more specific. I remember clearly realizing that my understanding was inaccurate, I think it was in college- and feeling humiliated, I identified as a person who knew Torah, but this moment showed my scholarship was lacking.
Song Purpose
To teach the Noah story with textual fidelity by creating a clear opportunity to learn that not all animals entered in pairs of two while engaging young learners in a familiar melody.
Listen to Old Man Noah Built an Ark
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Download the Noah Lead Sheets
Melody, chords, and lyrics for Calling All Animals and Old Man Noah Built an Ark.
Song Structure
Old MacDonald is a zipper song: most of the words stay the same but a few are interchangeable, within a category. The recording holds six verses: hammered wood, fourteen cows, two pigs, the rain, the dove, and the rainbow. Feel free to add and adjust as you see fit- I try to stay responsive to the group. Leaders can decide to choose the verses or to ask for input.
If the group adds animals, the count follows the Torah: seven pairs of each clean animal (fourteen sheep, fourteen goats, etc.) and one pair of the others (kangaroos, pigs, etc.).
Old Man Noah Built an Ark Lyrics and Chords
Chords: G C D. TTTO (to the tune of) Old MacDonald Had a Farm.
G C G D G Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O G C G D G And on that ark, he brought fourteen cows, E I E I O G With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo G C G D G Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
And on that ark, hammered wood, E I E I O
With a bang-bang here and a bang-bang there
Here a bang, there a bang, everywhere a bang-bang
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
And on that ark, he brought fourteen cows, E I E I O
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there
Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
And on that ark, he brought two pigs, E I E I O
With an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there
Here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink-oink
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
And on that ark, it rained and rained, E I E I O
With a splish-splash here and a splish-splash there
Here a splish, there a splash, everywhere a splish-splash
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
And from that ark, he sent a dove, E I E I O
With a coo-coo here and a coo-coo there
Here a coo, there a coo, everywhere a coo-coo
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
And in the sky, God made a rainbow, E I E I O
Whoa, thanks, God!
Old Man Noah built an ark, E I E I O
Rationale
I have a vivid memory of learning in college that the “two by two” version I’d absorbed wasn’t textually accurate, and feeling upset that I’d been taught a simplified claim as though it were the source. Rabbi Cherie Koller-Fox taught a principle I return to: never teach something you have to un-teach. This song is my attempt to honor that principle.
Benefits
- Familiar tune reduces the musical learning load so the group can focus on content.
- Helps prevent later un-teaching by naming the detail early.
- Grown-ups often have an “I didn’t know that” moment, which increases engagement.
How to Use This Song
I love blowing the minds of some of the grown ups in the room when I explain that some animals came in pairs, and some came in seven pairs. I use the moment to model that learning sometimes means updating a familiar shorthand. I sometimes share that when I learned that as a young adult, I felt ashamed of myself- super relatable, turns out.
That kind of nuance helps adults re-engage their own curiosity about Torah, even as the children are immersed in sound, story, and play.
Jewish Context
While the text in Bereishit 6:20 does say, “two of every sort,” a few verses later (7:2-3) the text specifies that Noah brought seven pairs of clean animals. So the popular line “they came by twosies twosies” isn’t technically accurate (but it’s delightfully catchy).
The Hebrew for the larger count is shivah shivah (שִׁבְעָה שִׁבְעָה / shivah shivah / “seven seven”), which the JPS translation gives as “seven pairs.”
The whole text, verse by verse: Two by Two or Seven Pairs?
A Companion Song: Calling All Animals
Old Man Noah Built an Ark and Calling All Animals work together to tell our story. Calling All Animals is a zipper movement song that gets everyone to the boat: the kiddos name an animal and how it moves, and the whole room moves that way.
Calling All Animals Songleader Guide
Building Your Parshat Noach Repertoire
Continue learning with Songleading for Kiddos
These two songs are a sliver of what is inside Songleading for Kiddos: 21 thematic units that cover Jewish content year round for kiddos 0-10 and their grown-ups.
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