A resource for parents by a parent. About life as a stay at home Mom after life as a graduate student in psychology. Finding ways in daily life to foster child development.
A little while ago I introduced you to a cd that is meant to help kids learn yoga in a fun way. This week is a continuation of that with a new song that my kids instantly thought was interesting. By the middle of the song my son was already starting to do the moves and by the end of the song my daughter was too.
Yoga has so many great benefits from focus, energy, strength, flexibility, to increasing positive emotions I think it is a great thing to teach kids.
The Bari Koral Family Rock Band has a song called, The Sun Dance. This is basically the Sun Salutation which is a flow of specific "warm up" yoga moves that get your body ready for the other poses (at least that is my understanding you may feel free to correct me if I am wrong).
I would also think about checking this song out on youtube because the video was part of what caught my kids attention and helped them see what movements to do. Once they get the movements down they could probably just listen to the song and know what to do.
Hey there, it is that time of the week again and I am finially on the ball this week. I just wanted to remind you first of a post I did a few weeks ago on Music Friday. Emelie Sande was the focus of the post and I am happy to report that she is finally being played on the radio here and her music is fantastic. Check her out!
This week I am heading back into kids music, yeah! My kids have been enjoying listening to an educational cd in the car that is to help them learn Spanish. It is a cd called Rock n' Learn Spanish, they also have DVDs.
I have to say that it is a bit loud but my 2 year old repeats the words already and with very good pronunciation for a two year old. My son can count to ten in Spanish. Since this is the best age for learning language (after all that is one of their main jobs during the first few years so they can communicate with us) I figure that listening to this will at least help get a few words in there brains. I already knew most of it but am understanding it much better now.
Interestingly there are many of the same benefits to brain growth with learning a second language as there are for exposure to music. During the early years our brains actually build more brain cells to deal with new languages (including music)! This seems to help later in life with processing all information (http://www.musiclingua.com/early-language-benefits.html). What a perfect pair. :)
I know that I still remember what words mean from Raffi songs that were in sung in Spanish that I listened to when I was a child. After taking a year and a half of college Spanish those are still the easiest words for me to understand. I also remember a lot of the songs we sang in French class in high school but not much else. This just helps to provide anecdotal evidence that music helps to reinforce the learning of a second language and that learning it young is very helpful.
David Tobocman has a great song called I Count to Ten.
This song is about "cooling down" when you are angry. Learning about feelings and how to deal with strong emotions can be a very challenging thing. It is very helpful to have some plans about what to do when you are feeling one of those strong emotions such as anger (usually rooted in sadness), sadness, and excitement.
One thing that has been a great help to us is music in general. Singing and dancing can change the mood very quickly and create a lot of fun or allow to be very expressive with our bodies and the volume of our voice. One great thing about this song in particular is it gives us some training in another plan for what to do when strong emotions arise AND helps identify what we are feeling like when we are starting to get angry.
Catching those feelings before we act of them or get overwhelmed by them is one thing that really helps in calming down from them. My son and I sat down a while ago and talked about what things might help him to feel better when he is feeling angry or sad.
Here are a few ideas:
Coloring: Keep a small notebook and a small container of colored pencils or markers around at all times, in your purse or where ever you can.
Dancing to music: Stomp out the feelings, jump up and down if you are excited, twirl, etc.
Sit and Read a book: This is especially helpful for my son if I read to him, just looking at books on his own is not really enough he wants to feel my care for him. Since I am trying to train him in how to effectively deal with anger and feel better not worse I am okay with this.
Go outside and hit/kick a ball around.
Do a Puzzle
Play with playdoh.
Ask for a hug.
Play with Legos.
Music is one great way to deal with strong emotions like excitement.
Most of these things work really well and work best if he knows that I am there for him either by giving him a good long hug before he goes to do them or sitting with him while he does it.
Here are a couple of great feelings books too.
This last one is one that teaches about how emotions might look and feel but is covert about it. All the different dinosaurs are very different personalities that can help to show how people are different and how each person can have a variety of actions depending how they are feeling.
What do you do to help your kids deal with anger, sadness, excitement and other emotions?
The other day while on the way to a grocery store I was listening to the radio. There happened to be an interview going on with this musician I had never heard of, Emeli Sande. She is apparently a break out artist in the UK right now and I think that soon she will be here too.
She has an album coming to the US soon but you can download the music now on iTunes or Amazon.
I thought she was amazing when she sang on the radio and I listened to more of her music on YouTube and have to say that I was really enjoying it. Check her out below.
During the week I like to listen to music on Pandora to discover new music that is similar to other types of music I already know I like. One of the songs that came up a few weeks ago was Pizza by Gemini.
This is a really silly and fun song about the joy of pizza. It has a really danceable melody and is totally sing along friendly. To go along with this pizza song I thought I would share a pizza book and cooking project to do with kids.
I read this book with my son and daughter after having spotted it while browsing the library shelves. I had scanned through it in the library and discovered that there was a recipe at the end for the pizza dough and the kind of pizza in the story.
My son and daughter enjoy working in the kitchen with me and we have a few kids cookbooks but I love how I was able to read the story and do a project with the kids related to the story.
We changed the recipe a bit because my son does not like tomatoes and really really wanted to put pepperoni on the pizza (he had just made pizza in preschool a few weeks before and felt that pepperoni was a necessity). I just put all the ingredients out and we each got a section of pizza to create.
The other change that I made was that I used whole wheat flour and a little extra wet ingredient to make up for that. :)
I served the pizza with a strawberry, pinenut, spinach, and mozzarella salad.
Verdict: my son declared this was the best pizza he had EVER had.
My daughter liked it too.
Oh and two weeks ago I had a give away for the Music Friday music and Stephanie was the winner.
Music Friday is a little different this week in that you can win the music for free!
Lukas Hein performs with a Brazilian trio named Dialeto Brasileiro in this recording comprised of wonderful, mostly calm, saxophone. Brazilian style jazz. These performers apparently recorded this in one session in a very short amount of time just before dropping Lukas of at the airport to return back the the United States!
You can read more about the recording or purchase the cd or mp3s of the album here.
This is a great addition to any jazz collection. This would be great for a summer evening dinner party or dinner with the kids.
Lukas Hein was generous enough to offer to give away 10 cds so if you would like to get in on this (and you are at least 18) please leave me a comment telling me your favorite music this week, your favorite jazz music, or really anything about music at all and then make sure to check back in two weeks when I will post the drawing winners.
I will pick the winners randomly from the people who comment. Please do not comment anonymously or I will not be able to include you in the drawing. I will announce the winners in two weeks on Music Friday. You will have one week to reply by e-mailing me your mailing information. Good luck!
