Children’s Music and Games for Valentines Day

Valentine’s Pencils are an excellent alternative gift for this special holiday.  If your child got some, perhaps, instead of sharpening them, you might want to be creative, and make them into instruments.  Last year, my students enjoyed this challenge, and I posted a slide show of their creative works of art and music:  Homemade Instruments Made from Pencils.

I’ve posted a fun Animal Valentine video, as well as two other fun videos on my other blog:  Kids Love Animals.  Share the love and the learning.

It doesn’t take long online to find some excellent Valentine’s Game and Activities for children, but my daughter’s favorite is on The Kidzpage .  It has puzzles, and coloring pages to print, and fun online games.

SONGS FOR TEACHING is an excellent site that has the lyrics to wonderful songs for children, and it has a page full of Valentines Songs.  You can even listen to someone singing it, and if you like it, you can download it for a small fee.

Kindermusik families may remember some of their favorite songs from their Home CDs that are perfect for this day of family love.  Many of these are folk songs, so you may know them as well.  I am trying to include enough of the songs to help you remember how to sing it.

Skinnamarink a-dink-a-dink, Skinnamarink a-do, I LOVE YOU!   – Village: Dream Pillow

Love Somebody – Yes, I do… (3 times while pretending to look around for someone to love, then)… I Love Somebody and it’s YOU, YOU, YOU!

You are My Sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are grey.  You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.  Please don’t take my sunshine away.

Mama loves, and Daddy Loves, and Everybody Loves a little Baby.    – Village: Dream Pillow

I love my Family, my family, my family, my family, take a look and you will see…  They’re OK with me.   on Family Time:  Our Kind of Day

Tell Me Why the stars do shine,  Tell me why the ivy twines,  Tell Me Why the skies are blue, And I will tell you just why I love you.      on Village:  Do-Si-Do

Shady Grove, my little love, Shady Grove I know, Shady Grove, my little love, bound for the Shady Grove.     on Village:  Cock-a-Doodle Moo

Cuddle Up A Little Closer Baby Mine, Cuddle up and be my little Valentine

Let Me Call You Sweet Heart, I’m in love with you.

Wiggle (4 x), Giggle (4 x)… Little Sack of Sugar, gonna eat you up   on Family Time: Our Kind of Day

Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland   - on Village: Dream Pillow

Find out more about Kindermusik at www.kindermusik.com !

Enjoy singing and playing with your family this Valentine’s Day !!!  LOVE, Ms. Debbie

St. Patricks Day Music for Children

• Knock, Knock
• Who’s There?
• Irish
• Irish Who?
• IRISH you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

Lots of Irish jokes for children, as well as crafts, history, games, printable art, recipies, etc. can be found at http://holidays.kaboose.com/saint-patricks-day/ .  Look around on this website,  www.kaboose.com , it is HUGE and chock full of cool information for moms and fun things for children. 

If you want to check out some fun Irish songs FOR CHILDREN, check out Mama Lisa’s World for both the words and melodies to the following:

Cockles and Mussels  (which is, by the way on the Creatures at the Ocean CD) Me Mother is Gone to Church

Michael Finnigan, (featured, even in book form, in the Imagine That!  Hello Weather semester in the Fall.)

Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra   (Featured in the Village Dew Drops semester, This was James’ favorite lullaby song)

You might also have some fun with Limericks, reading a few (clean ones), and making up some of your own.  It can be FUN!  Read about them on Mama Lisa’s blog posting:  A Little about Limericks .  Here’s my attempt:

There once was a lady of song,

She sang and played all the day long,

With children, with families,

with Kindermusik-ologies,                         (yes, I make up the word!)

Pure love of music, just can’t go wrong.

Tune In to this cool e-newletter from Kindermusik International

   Tune In is BACK ! 

This fun, fact filled little e-newsletter does just what I think it should.  Each newsletter typically covers one developmental / musical topic, then gives parents Great ideas on how to play with your children, in each specific age group, to bring this issue to a fun-filled fruition.  They are now offering a lot more – specials sales on clearance items they have overstocked, music, instruments, etc., as well as a few free music downloads if you do that sort of thing.  

 It’s just the kind of newsletter I would put together if I had a creative team of child and music education professionals working with me.  Oh, I do – I work with Kindermusik.  I love it!  It is similar to the Sharing Sheet inserts that come with my regular newsletter that I mail out to my customers, only better pictures and in color.  Just check it out and see for yourself!

 

You can just get onto the Kindermusik website under Parents and find Tune IN, or just click on this link to get you right there:  http://www.kindermusik.com/TuneIn/pastIssues.asp . You can see the current issue right there, OR, On the right side of the site, you can subscribe (no charge), and it is just one email a month.  And your email information is SAFE – it goes nowhere else.

Free, Fun, and packed with research based ideas for playful parenting with a purpose.  Enjoy!

Musical Thanksgiving FUN

Over The River & Through The Woods

Over the river and through the woods,To Grandmother’s house we go.

The horse knows the wayto carry the sleigh,through the white and drifting snow.

Over the river and through the woods, Oh, how the wind does blow !

It stings the toes and bites the nose, As over the ground we go. 

Over the river and through the woods, Trot fast, my dapple gray ! Spring over the ground like ahunting hound, For this is Thanksgiving day.

Over the river and through the woods, Now Grandfather’s face I spy !

Hurrah for the fun !   Is the turkey done ?  Hurrah for pumpkin pie ! 

Book  Over The River        -   Illustrated by John Steven Gurney- Scholastic, Inc.

Over The River    – Activities 1)     Trot fingers and act out words.      2)     Use scarf for reigns on child as horse.

3)     Go for a sleigh ride on a towel.     4)     Trot while pulling a “sleigh” of “stuffed friends”.

5)     Make up your own words about what Thanksgiving is like for you.

6)     Make some homemade instruments and have a Thanksgiving Parade. 

Thanksgiving Time    (sung to: “The Farmer In The Dell”) 

Thanksgiving time is here.  Let’s give a great big cheer For food and friends and family.Thanksgiving time is here.

   We Are Thankful   (Sung to: Frere Jacques) 

We are thankful, we are thankful,For so much, for so much.

On Thanksgiving Day,  You can hear us say,

Thank you, Thank you.

*** Change the words in the second line to things for which you are thankful, ie.-         For good food, for good food-         For mom & dad, For mom & dad

Have a magical, musical Thanksgiving with your family!  – Debbie

Halloween Musical Fun !

Do you like to celebrate all of the icons of Halloween, but NOT in a scary way – esp. with very young children, they you will love the following resources.  If you have a recommendation, PLEASE add it in with a comment. 

Wee Sing for Halloween!

We found a great set of YOUNG child friendly Halloween Songs at Walmart, from the Wee Sing Series.  You can see, and hear so much on their own website:  http://www.weesing.com/homepage.htm  

Wee Sing for Halloween is a fun CD about an hour in length, and has 35 spooky, silly songs both classic and original (several of them are “piggy back” songs, which means new words to familiar tunes). 

It also has 15 poems and fingerplays, which are Cora’s favorites at this point, she loves to make her hands fly like a bat, or count with the ghosts.  The fun booklet has all the words to the songs and poems, as well as fun activities to go along with them,  AND fun recipies and fun illustrations with everything.  

It does deal with Halloween icons such as pumpkins, cats, witches, ghosts, monsters, skeletons, and spiders, but all in a very fun way that helps children develop non-scary attitudes about such things. 

 

2008 update:  Cora is really enjoying memorizing several of the songs, like “Five Little Pumpkins”, and “The Ghost of John”.  But mostly we are just having fun pretending to dance like rolly polly pumpkins, or dance like loosely connected skeletons.

At the Saturday Family Pumpkin Party (2008), some of the pumpkin songs were used from this CD, as we planted and grew our pumpkin seeds, making music in ”Uncle Dan’s garden”  to help them grow, then made happy faces on our own pumpkins.

Andrew Gold’s Halloween Howls

Which reminds me, another fun Pumpkin SONG is “Gimme A Smile (The Pumpkin Song)” by G. Prestopino and Andrew Gold.  I found it on Andrew Gold’s Halloween Howls, which is a good collection of Halloween songs for a slightly older age group – but equally as fun for adults who have fond memories of the Adams Family, and The Monster Mash.  This is sold through Music For Little People, who produce excellent quality music and instruments for children.  Their website:  http://store.musicforlittlepeople.com/   I have LOTS of their CDs, but there is enough information for a whole other posting.  This is just a really fun CD for Halloween – very upbeat – not too scary.  Just search their site for “Halloween”.

Scared Silly, a book of poems by Marc Brown

If you are OK with enjoying the fantasy play of the supernatural, and/or want a silly fun way to help children get through their fears – through POETRY – then you MUST check out “Scared Silly”, a book of poems, songs, rhymes, and riddles, uniquely designed to help them work through their fears.  Cora has memorized many of the rhymes in the book, and knows all the punch lines to the riddles.  Now she’s doing her own Knock, Knock jokes – and their actually funny.  One of our favorites is the poem about the 10 little monsters in the house that are SOOOO hungry.  Cute illustrations, and I love how the little girl tries to help feed them, but then she  just gets fed up at their rudeness and messiness and tells them to GET OUT!    You Go, Girl!  Isabel is another girl with a lot of spunk, and handly deals with all things sort of scary.