Monday, May 26, 2008

Theme of the Week Challenge

You moms don't know how happy you have made Erin and me this week!! Hooray for some readers who are alive. At my last count we had 16 different moms contributing at least 40 brilliant ideas for last week's theme (it was hard to get an accurate count since some ideas overlapped or were repeated). Wasn't that nice to get a few more ideas than just the meager two or three Erin and I come up with? That was the idea we had when coming up with this blog, to create a large parenting resource by pooling everyone's ideas. I bet every reader went away with at least one new and useful activity to add into their parenting arsenal. And I bet every mom that contributed only spent a few minutes brainstorming and then typing them up. Think of the return on that investment: 5 minutes for 40 ideas! Now I'm not doing a giveaway this week (next month I will), but I hope you still want to participate after seeing the fantastic wealth of knowledge that accumulates when everyone adds their thoughts on a subject.

Now for this week's theme: Music. Confession time again. I love hearing music, but have no natural ability in this area beyond keeping a beat. And unfortunately my home is not the highly musical environment that it could and should be. I know there is a lengthy list of healthy side-effects of music: creativity, emotional expression, improved academics, increased memorization, etc., and of course I want all that for my kids. So, my new goal is to bring music into our daily (or weekly) routine. I know I can sing and dance to silly kids songs, but I have a hard time keeping that interesting for very long. Please tell me, how do you successfully bring music and music appreciation into the lives of your children? Do you make musical instruments, play rhythm games, sing favorite songs? Give me all your best ideas.

Here are a few sites I found that might interest you:
freekidsmusic.com You can download tons of free kids music here.
kidsmusicplanet.com This site gives info on kids radio programs and podcasts.
creatingmusic.com An interactive site designed to get kids involved in creative musical play.

3 comments:

Robert & Heather Stephenson said...

i don't know how many of you are LDS but I have gotten into the habit of playing the primary songs while my kids are doing crafts or coloring at the kitchen table. They already have their favorites that they ask for. Music is a big deal in our house. I sing to my kids at bed time and my husband is always tinkering at the piano.

Unknown said...

My son loves to sing songs and then change the words. For example: "twinkle twinkle little cat" or "and then my poor meatball rolled into the car". We can sing for quite awhile this way.

Paige said...

Hi, I just came across your site and I love it! Keep it up! I am the proud mama to almost 4 year old twin girls and one very busy little guy almost 20 months. My girls LOVE music! Our favorite thing to do is have a dance party. I will usually put on 50's music seeing as it is pretty safe with language and all and the songs are short so it keeps them intrested. We each take turns coming up with a different dance move and than the whole family has to try it out. They just love it. We do this at least once a week. Even my son will get involved. Out other favorite thing is to listen to their disny princess cd and dress up and sing like the princesses. Music is a huge part of our lives and I can't wait to get them involved in acutally playing it!