Investigators of Lithuanian folklore basically agree that children's songs should be regarded as a separate group, as far as their genre and theme are concerned; and yet, it is fairly difficult to draw a clear-cut line between the folklore of adults and the folklore intended exceptionally for children. The reason is, that the majority of children's songs, which have been preserved till nowadays, contain a number of features that obviously can be identified with the ones typical of adults' folklore, e.g. images and motifs reflecting ancient religions or certain elements intrinsic to the compositions which once accompanied ancient rituals.
In Lithuanian folklore, children's songs have always occupied a very special place, and have been performed and created both by adults and by children.
As compared to other genres of Lithuanian folklore, children's songs seem not to be outstandingly numerous, which evidently might be explained by the attitude the collectors and performers used to demonstrate towards them, as an inferior kind of folklore compositions; consequently, relatively small numbers of samples were collected and published for quite a long time. Hence, children's folklore was only scarcely represented in such classical collections of Lithuanian folk songs as the ones by L.I. Rhesa, G.H.F. Nesselmann, Ch. Bartsch, O. Kolberg, etc. In this respect, the collections by A. Juðka, A. R. Niemi and A. Sabaliauskas seem to be more numerous: A. Juðka in his Lietuviðkos dainos ("Lithuanian Songs") included 23 songs for children; A.R. Niemi and A. Sabaliauskas in Lietuviø dainos ir giesmës ðiaurës rytø Lietuvoje ("Lithuanian Songs and Hymns in North-Eastern Lithuania") included the verse of 92 children's songs, and A Sabaliauskas in his Lietuviø dainø ir giesmiø gaidos ("Notes of Lithuanian Songs and Hymns") included 23 samples of verse and 11 samples of tune. During the post-war period, a number of collections of popular songs for children, either with notes or without them, were published. The most outstanding of them was Lietuviø liaudies dainos vaikams ("Lithuanian Folk Songs for Children") by J. Èiurlionytë published in 1948, where the verse as well as the tune of songs representing different genres were included.
The largest and most comprehensive source of children's songs ever released in this country is the collection Lietuviø liaudies dainynas. I t. Vaikø dainos ("The Book of Lithuanian Folk Songs. Vol. 1. Children's Songs") published by the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1980. The volume contains about 1 000 samples of verse and about 340 samples of tune, as well as a comprehensive introductory article on the verse of children's songs by Pranë Jokimaitienë. The author has suggested the folowing criteria for the classification of children's songs: the function of the song, its theme, its origin, who is the composer, who is the performer, and its structure. As far as these criteria are concerned, children's songs seem to be heterogenous in most cases. Childern's songs include the songs, which had been composed for adult performers, but later appeared in children's repertoire (some of calendar cycle, entertainment, work songs), the songs originally designed for children and the songs created by children themselves. In the classification suggested by P. Jokimaitienë, the following genre groups are distinguished: lullabies, amusement songs, animal descriptions, formula songs, teasing chants. The songs representing the first two groups (lullabies and amusement songs) originally were created by adults and were performed for the smallest children. Animal descriptions and formula songs were designed for the elder ones, and were performed both by children and adults. Teasing rhymes - short compositions of a very specific kind - usually were created by children. 
Further, we are going to deal with each of these genre groups separately.