it's not
necessarily handmade and
not necessarily
not (whoa...too many negatives), but music is
SOO much fun!
we have always been a family who plays with music...here's proof (ripped from Sally's Music Circle's website): me very pregnant with eli and stella playing with sticks...i think its to the tune of "oats and beans")
and i've been reminded of just how much kids love (and in my opinion,
need) music in their lives recently by stella. she received a cd player for her birthday in october and we have been blessed to her choice of tunes daily ever since. this has had it's ups and downs. one can only listen to the
cars soundtrack so many times. or the
american girl theme song (too much when eli is singing in eli talk "hey hey hey...it's great to be an american girl"). so she started venturing into our cd rack. how funny when i find her listening to
low,
pedro the lion, sufjan stevens, edith piaf, but more times than not, the
beatles. she has her taste. and it happens to look a lot like her daddy's.
there is so much good kid music out there...for some hip, fun and wacky songs, check out wxpn's "
kids corner". they even have
podcasts!
but when i am trying to encourage more playfulness and a little less "cool," i ask stella to put on some of our
music circle cds.
for the first couple years after chris and i got married (and pre-kiddos!) i worked for a great, small company called
Sally's Music Circle. i loved doing these preschool music classes. they are so much fun and the kids really do benefit so much from singing and playing with music with their mama's and daddy's! (speaking from the "violin teacher" mouth now: seriously...kids that participate in this type of program and sing and play at home with music come ready to learn their instrument at an earlier age with more competence...ok enough jibber jabber) i took stella to the classes until she was literally too old to go! (classes typically end at age 5, but we'll see about that!) and we STILL play with our instruments and sing the songs. i have watched eli slowly sing along...in tune! and do the little chants...with GOOD rhythm! stella absolutely loves them and i couldn't be happier.
these cd's are great even if you don't live in the philadelphia area (or baltimore at
peabody prep). the cd's
alone are magical. sweet songs, chants and lullabies that kids truly love to sing. so you can hop on over to cdbaby or itunes and grab one or more for yourself! you can buy the hard copy cd and they'll mail it to you or just buy the download! i've pictured two of our favorites (because it would be obnoxious to show
all the photos!)
listen and enjoy!!
*****totally unrelated and absolutely hilarious...go
here!**********
****edited to correct the link to Sally's Music Circle CDs on CD Baby...go NOW!*****
