Book Club: Music

Book: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I'm sure we have all read, or at least heard of, this fantastic book (by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault; illustrated by Lois Ehlert) that teaches kids the alphabet. The rhymes are contagious, and I hear my kids walking around the house chanting them: "Skit skat skoodle doot. Flip flop flee. Everybody running to the coconut tree."
Activity: Get drums, maracas, or even just hands, and every time you say "Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM" make noise with the beat. This helps children understand rhythm. It's not necessary to sing a song in order to have rhythm. Chanting in rhythm is fantastic.

Book: Any book with Mother Goose rhymes. The favorite at our house is My Very First Mother Goose, edited by Iona Opie and illustrated by Rosemary Wells. My kids love looking at the pictures, and we have read it so many times that they have many of the rhymes memorized.
Activity: Many of the rhymes have also been written in song form. Some of the rhymes that you may know as a song: Baa, baa, black sheep; Little boy blue; Hickory Dickory Dock; The brave old duke of York; Polly put the kettle on. We even have a cd with Bananas in Pajamas singing some Mother Goose rhymes. Children could listen to the music on the cd while following the words. Or, of course, you can sing the songs together. Singing does so many things - it helps them memorize the words, it brings joy to the house, it teaches notes and rhythm, and it gives kids confidence. I love singing songs with my kids!

Do you recommend any books about music, or books that could somehow include music learning or fun?

Book Club: Music

http://laugh-learn-love.blogspot.com/2008/10/book-club-music.html

Music

We all agree that music is important in our children's lives. It teaches our children rhythm, rhyme, harmony, and all sorts of other good stuff (sounds professional coming from a piano teacher, eh?) What I am going to discuss today is ideas on how to introduce more music into your children's lives.

1. Make music part of the routine. Sing the clean up song when it's time to clean up (that's the one redeeming thing that comes from Barney). Play quiet music during quiet time. Play church music on Sundays. Sing bedtime songs with your children (what a great tradition!). Turn on the radio or cds instead of the tv randomly throughout the day.

2. Introduce them to all different types of music. My kids love classical music - mostly thanks to Baby Einstein, but I also play Chopin cds regularly. They also love Kelly Clarkson, and their current favorite song is "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles. And they love all of the songs on "Guitar Hero," because we have played it on family nights together. It's fun watching them "rock out" on air guitar when they hear "Iron Man" on the radio.

3. Introduce them to store bought or homemade instruments. We have a drum set, a harmonica, a recorder, and maracas that my boys adore. However, they are equally excited when I let them get the pots and pans out. Then they pull out my wooden spoons, my plastic spatulas and some serving silverware and they love listening to the different sounds each utensil creates. Or make a kazoo using a toilet paper roll, some wax paper and a rubber band. Deneal also suggested some ideas for instruments in this post. And I found some great ideas here.

4. Show them how reading music works. If you attend church and use hymnals, hold your child's index finger and help them follow along with the words. They will start to understand how to read music. My five year old can now follow every word, knows when to move to the next line, and when to start at the beginning of the song for the next verse. I didn't figure this out until I was 10 years old!

5. Read music books that interest them. Go to the library and borrow books about instruments or composers. Borrow children's books that have a singalong cd. We will go into more depth concerning books with our book club in two weeks.

6. Check out some or all of these websites.

• Click here to see what has been written in the past on this blog about music.
• This is a fun musical memory turtle game.
• Fisher Price has a fun instrument game where you choose a song to play, and there are four or five instruments that play the song. Then you can turn them on or off one at a time to hear what each one sounds like individually.
• Franktown Rocks is, according to their website, "the first-ever musical virtual world for kids."
• Building Blocks has a recording studio where you can learn a song or make your own on a virtual piano.
• Disney has some fun music games for kids.
  
• This is a fun Disney one too: Pluto's Musical Maze
  
• I found an awesome blog, called Munchkins and Music, that helps parents teach their kids all sorts of awesome music-related things, from learning about rhythm, meter, and note values, to Wordless Wednesdays "Which Instrument is This?" (including pictures of little-known instruments). I love this blog! Check it out.

Now it's your turn! Either use the Mr. Linky to connect to your own blog with ideas, or leave a comment with your ideas, and you will be entered into the giveaway! These are the cds I'm giving away:












The Baby Einstein cd has some classical music and some hand-movement songs. Disney's Greatest has 20 of the most famous songs from Disney movies...basically all of the songs you start singing, and then can't get out of your head because they are so catchy. Next Monday I will announce the winners. The first person I choose gets their first cd choice, and the second person I choose gets the other one (hopefully it's their first choice!). For rules of the giveaway, click here.

Next week is your lucky week, because I will be saving you anywhere from $5.00 to $20.00, based on where you live! Check back next Monday for details.

Music

http://laugh-learn-love.blogspot.com/2008/10/music.html

Music Time!

I am leaving in a couple of hours for my 16 hour drive. Thanks again to all of you who gave me great ideas for the drive. My kids will be thanking you too...

But before I leave, I had to write just a few things about music. Having taught piano for 10 years, I know the benefits and joys of having music in the home. Unfortunately, teaching my 5 year old piano on a regular basis has been next to impossible (mostly because of slacking on my part). But there are a couple of things that he has learned that would benefit all young children.

1. soft (piano) versus loud (forte). When he plays the piano softly, we get down on the floor and creep around like mice. And when he plays a loud song, we pretend we are elephants and stomp around. Then, when we hear things in real life, like a train roar by or a bird chirping, I ask him if it is piano or forte. So he is learning basic music definitions.


2. beat versus rhythm. Did you know there is a difference? The beat is the one, two, three, four that is even and constant. The rhythm is the actual notes that are played/sung. So we will play a song like the eensy weensy spider and clap it two times, once clapping the beat and once following the rhythm. (With rhythm, he claps each syllable of each word. With beat, it is once every beat: eensy weensy spi der.)

Besides this, we just sing. All day, every day. We make up songs. We do action songs. We find songs on iTunes to download. E has his own folder on iTunes with his own music. He gets on the computer and plays his music to his heart's content.

Every night before bed, each person in the family chooses a song to sing. Sometimes it is church music, sometimes it is action songs, sometimes it is something they heard somewhere along the way (a recent favorite is: Transformers - more than meets the eye). Then we have two songs my husband and I sing to them right before we leave the room: Rock a Bye Baby and Lullabye, which we made up words for specifically for our boys. They think this is really how the song goes.

I know I have more ideas, but I have more last minute packing to do! We may revisit this theme or some version of it at a later time...I feel very strongly about the importance of music in children's lives.

Music Time!

http://laugh-learn-love.blogspot.com/2008/05/music-time.html

More on Music

Here in my family we LOVE music, not that any of us are musically gifted (or anything close to that) But we all seem to love what music offers us. My oldest can dance like no tomorrow! He has always boogied to the right tune, while my other son and daughter are more like me, just not coordinated! We do dance, to enjoy life. We may not be good at it, but it makes us happy. Try it out. Dance the blues away~

Whenever we need a good pick-me-up, we turn on music (kids choice) and have a dance party. Giggles and screams replace the mood.

Whenever someone is grumpy we sing songs, kids are so creative and can make the best songs up, with real tunes and all :) It is so sweet to listen from afar as your child sweetly sings to his toys about God.

No matter what time of year CHRISTMAS music can be found blasting through the halls in our home, I notice a cheerful, calming effect on everyone (even my husband who claims to think it is silly to listen to it in July) This is my vice. This is my drug :)

Music has helped us incorporate a bed time routine at home. When that cd of lullabys gets turned on, they know it's lights out and when one of them isn't feeling well they request we listen to the lullaby cd.

I believe music is an essential part of motherhood and childhood...........LIFE.

I WOULD LOVE TO GET SOME FEEDBACK ON FAVORITE MUSIC ALBUMS YOU HAVE FOUND TO DANCE, SING, AND CALM.

More on Music

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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.

Theme of the Week Challenge

http://laugh-learn-love.blogspot.com/2008/05/theme-of-week-challenge_26.html