The free Deane Little Beans program for youngsters ages 3 to 12 is being held next Saturday, Sept. 19, from 12 p.m to 1 p.m. in the lobby at the Deane Center for the Performing Arts at 104 Main Street in Wellsboro. Free snacks will be provided. 

Featured will be a Sing-Along with fun songs led by Hamilton-Gibson’s Children’s Treble Choir with singers in grades 5-8 and Choir, Too with singers in grades 2-4. 

“Both choirs will assist youngsters attending the program in learning several popular, family-friendly action songs so they can sing them,” said Director Thomas Putnam. “Some of the songs they may already know and others may be new to them,” he said. “All of the tunes and words will be easy to teach and just as easy to learn. They are echo songs, meaning the same words are repeated.”

Putnam said that one of the songs they may be singing is “There Was a Great Big Moose,” a famous, fun call-and-response camp song for children where the leaders sing a line, and the crowd repeats it. 

Others may include “Boom Chicka Boom,” a silly echo song where the leaders sing a line, and the group repeats it back in different funny voices or speeds; “Down by the Bay,” a playful rhyming nursery rhyme where children echo phrases and make up silly animal scenarios; “Minnie the Moocher,” a call-and-response song featuring the famous “Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho audience echo; or “Day-O” with the iconic “Day-O! call with the group responding back.

Parents, other children, relatives, and friends are invited to attend, too. A parent or adult is asked to pre-register (RSVP) the number of children and adults planning to attend online at deanecenter.com. For more information, call 570-724-6220 or email director@deanecenter.com.

Deane Little Beans is sponsored by the UPMC Health Plan, C&N Bank, First Citizens Community Bank, the Horace B. Packer Foundation, Charles Knox and Margaret C. Etner Foundation and the Earle W. and Ina G. Tabor Foundation.