He Helps to Put a Little Song in Their Heads : Education: Children’s performer Jonathan Sprout visits four schools as part of Norris Theatre’s effort to bring live entertainment to classrooms.

Attention, Alaska Division of Tourism. Some third-graders at San Pedro’s Leland Street Elementary School may have the song you’re looking for.

It goes like this:

“Alaska! Our biggest state/Eskimos eat raw meat/The women chew the furs/They hardly have any heat.”

Who chews the furs?

Wait, there’s another verse, all about fun-loving baby seals and walruses that turn bright pink in the sun.

“We came up with the zaniest things,” said children’s entertainer Jonathan Sprout, who brought his guitar and easygoing charm to teacher Betty Nichols’ classroom last week. He soon had the enthusiastic youngsters spinning lyrics, and in 50 minutes or so, they wrote--and recorded--their song.

Some of the children said it was the funniest ditty they knew--and the only song they’d ever written. “We’ll keep singing it,” Eddie Felton said.

Sprout, a former nightclub performer, traded in his adult audiences eight years ago for a career entertaining children. He visited classes at four South Bay schools last week as part of a new program by the Norris Theatre for the Performing Arts to bring live theater to classrooms.

Every class wrote a song, and Sprout said “Alaska!” wasn’t the only stunner. Another was about alien pizza.

“Some kid just wanted to write about alien pizza, and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It was a rap song and I’m not sure what it’s about,” he said.

Sprout floated a few song ideas--wearing braces, learning new words, or going home for dinner when you’d rather play with friends--before Nichols’ students settled on the frozen state. It was a natural, because they had been studying Alaska.

After they decided on the idea, various children began calling out lyrics, shouting, giggling and sometimes drowning each other out.

Cries of “Ugh!” greeted the raw meat line, and the business about chewing furs left Sprout thoroughly perplexed. One youngster explained that chewing softens animal furs so they won’t be stiff when they’re worn.

Their completed song on the blackboard, the youngsters gathered around Sprout’s tape recorder and gave their creation to the world.

One version was a rap song with a few interpolations of “That’s right!” Then it got a country-Western interpretation. Of course, there were some “Yahoos!”

“I’m teaching them on one level how to do creative writing, not just songs, but poetry and stories,” said the veteran of many children’s workshops. “On a deeper level, I like to think I’m showing them the joys of creativity that they in turn can translate in their own way.”

He said that when writing a song with children, any subject is acceptable--even dirty socks--”so long as it’s a positive song, a song that will help, not hurt.”

The Norris Theatre’s school outreach program was started in conjunction with a new children’s entertainment series. Sprout, who combines pop, rock and rap and writes many of his own songs, launches the series with performances today at 1 and 4 p.m. at the Rolling Hills Estates theater.

Before the end of the season, 11 schools in Carson, San Pedro, Wilmington, Torrance and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula will have received classroom visits by singers, magicians, jugglers and other artists booked for children’s performances.

“This will give kids some form of exposure to theater, even if it’s a small workshop,” said Carol Jones, a member of the theater management board. She said the program is focused on schools where children may not have opportunities to attend live theater, adding, “We hope it stimulates some sort of interest for a time when they will be able to come to theater.”

As for Sprout’s exposure to youngsters at Leland, the reviews were raves. Said Eddie: “He was the greatest. He can come back any time.”