There are so many songs out there for your kids to learn on guitar but not a lot of them are easy and school appropriate. I have made a short list of songs that work for me that have only 2 or 3 chords that your learners could be successful with. The best part is they could play along with the recording without transposing and be able to learn many of these in one class! I always have my guitar groups play along to a song as they come into the class, sometimes it is the same one and other times we change it up. Even having it on as they come in makes a big difference because they get thinking about guitar right away and some begin playing along as soon as they sit down. Also, they get to hear the song multiple times in a week which helps them to develop the ability to play and sing!
Many of the 2 chord songs can be learned with the easy versions of the chords and therefore can be learned in 1 class. What a way to hook your learners on guitar!
For example, here is the regular way to play Em, and C respectively.
Here are the same two chords, the easy way! They sound the same because they have all the pitches they need to be that chord just without the deeper timbre of the regular ones.
D doesn’t have an easy version and it is for this reason that I sometimes start with a song that has D in it and use the easy versions for the rest of the chords in the song. It might take them another class to be able to do it but hey, then they know D!
Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles (C, Em)
Songbird by Oasis (G, Em)
Best Day of My Life by The American Authors (D, G)
Lean on Me by Bill Withers (C, F, G7)
Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd (D, C, G)
Down on the Corner by CCR (C, F, G)
Free Falling by Tom Petty (Capo on 3, D, Dsus4, Dsus2)
Bo Diddley by Bo Diddley (E, A)
A quick google search will yield you hundreds more 2 and 3 chord songs but these are just ones that I use or have used in the past.
Happy Musicking!