Hap Palmer
Children's musician
Harlan G. "Hap" Palmer III is an American children's musician and guitarist from Los Angeles, California. Palmer's songs specialize in topics aimed at young children, such as math, and reading, or developing motor skills. Palmer released his first recording in 1969, and has composed over 300 songs for children.
Educating and education
Palmer taught from 1972 at a school for mentally challenged children, and achieved a master's degree in dance education from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1983.
Career
His early albums include the Learning Basic Skills Through Music series, (in both English and Spanish language versions) Getting to Know Myself (which features his signature song "Sammy"), Sally the Swinging Snake, and Walter the Waltzing Worm. He released the Halloween song Witches' Brew in 1978, co-written by his then wife Martha Cheney. He also released a series of DVDs and videos called Baby Songs. His album Multiplication Mountain was released on January 15, 2009, and in 2012 Palmer released a DVD of musical picture books. In 2013 Palmer released the album Count, Add, Subtract! Fun with Math, Music, and Movement aimed at teaching mathematical concepts to pre-schoolers, which was reviewed as a "fun way to teach early math concepts".
The public source identifies “Hap Palmer” as children's musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Palmer, Children's and musician.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5651539. VIAF identifies the subject as 63019767. The Library of Congress control number is n86010478. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1972, 1983 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hap Palmer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.