Have You Danced With Your Child Today?

Thank you to my friend and Shop @ The Learning Basket partner, Sanne, for this inspiring blog post about one of our shared loves: Kindermusik!

The Energizer Bunny was craving for her Kindermusik songs the other night so I put it on for her. This time, instead of just watching her, I joined in her dancing. It was so much fun! Making memories like this, while acquiring very important life skills, make me fall in love with Kindermusik week after week after week.


Creativity    Our blocks became rhythm sticks, her plastic pots and pans, cymbals. Are you as amazed as I am when our kids imagine and come up with the most creative ideas? These are the foundations to thinking out-of-the box and creative problem solving.

Gross Motor Skills And Vocabulary   We swayed and rocked and swung our arms up and down. We learned about directional words (up, down, side, right, left) and keeping control of our movements. We sway when the music is slow and run when the music is fast. Child’s play? Yes! And a very fun way of developing gross motor skills (for your future athlete?) and learning new words.

Culture   I love how Kindermusik uses music from different parts of the world. My child has been exposed to African folktales, American nursery rhymes, and traditional children’s songs from New Zealand, among others. We learn about the language, rhythm, and musical instruments from all these different countries and distinguish them from our own Philippine music, dance, and instruments.

Listening Skills   Studies have shown that early exposure to music help promote critical listening skills, as well as language and literacy, creativity and coordination. These skills are the very foundation to learning.

We were dancing and just being silly for about an hour and it remains to be one of my favorite memories with my toddler. Ditch the gym and dance with your child today! 

Have fun!

sanne

Get Up And Move: A Giveaway by Kindermusik with Teacher Suzette and Friends

Our Learning Basket always has some music in it. Having been enrolled in Kindermusik since Little T was ten months old, our collection of high quality music is quite large. We can find songs to go along with most of the books that we read.

• When we planted sunflower seeds for Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear, we sang I can plant a flower seed, just like this, just like this!
• When we talked about monkeys being copycats in Caps for Sale, we sang Monkey see, monkey do
• When we pretended to ride a bus to go around town in The Big Green Pocketbook, we sat on a giant jigsaw bus puzzle and sang Kindermusik's version of Wheels on the Bus
• When we talked about birds in Ang Mayang Uhaw, we hopped around while singing Once I Saw A Little Bird
• Every time we pretend to be ballerinas, we put on classical music and float around the room

For bedtime, I sing love songs to my children, You Are My Sunshine for Little T and Tell Me Why for Baby Boy.

A Giveaway

To share our love of music with you and your children, and because I'm a U.S. licensed Kindermusik educator teaching under the program of Kindermusik with Teacher Suzette and Friends, we are having a musical giveaway!

Teacher Suzette Yu-Kho, whose program is ranked top 5% among all Kindermusik programs in the world, is generously giving away the following:

• Five (5) Get Up and Move audio CDs. (Click on the link to listen to sample music.) 
• Four (4) free Kindermusik sessions in her Capitol Hills, QC studio for each of the five winners. The classes are for newborns up to seven (7) years old.

To join this contest, you must be a resident of Quezon City or at least willing to travel to the studio in Capitol Green Street (right outside Ayala Heights) to avail of the free sessions. You can give the CD and gift certificates to a child you love provided that his parents will pick up the prize in Quezon City.

The CD and gift certificates will be handed to the winners personally and will not be delivered. We really want you guys to try the program! (Here's a link to a recommendation by Teacher Mama Tina.)


Let's do this contest the old-fashioned way and let go of Rafflecopter for the moment. :) 

• Post a comment on any of the blog posts linked above at the beginning of this blog post. That's it!

For additional points:

• "Like" us on Facebook and write a comment on any of the pictures in our Shop-Musical Instruments album at Shop @ The Learning Basket. Do the same if you like us already. 
• Follow us on Twitter and tell us you want to win. Remember to tag us @learningbasket and write #giveaway. Do the same if you're already a follower.

Once you're done, come back and write on the comments below what you did and who you are. We just need one comment containing all your entries. If you did all three, your comment below will look like this:

     Wrote a comment in (blog post title) - mariel

     Liked and commented in FB - mariel.uyquiengco

     Followed and said hello on Twitter - rrunson

This giveaway will end on June 13 at 12:01 a.m.

Make magic!

Love Songs for My Children

I have a love song for each of my children. When they are distressed and bawling their hearts out, I gather them in my arms and I sing to them “their” song. When they are sleepy but fighting to keep their eyes open, I sing them to sleep. When my heart is overflowing with love and a million “I love yous” is not enough, I sing. I sing my love, I sing my joy, I sing, I sing, and I sing!

You Are My Sunshine

(click here to listen to my favorite version)

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

Little T and I fell in love with this song during Quiet Time in our Kindermusik class when she was just a year old. We brought it home into our hearts and made up our own nighttime version: You Are My Moonlight. :)

Tell Me Why

(click here to listen)

Tell me why the stars do shine

Tell me why the ivy twines

Tell me why the sky’s so blue

And I will tell you just why I love you

Kindermusik has given our family the gift of expressing ourselves through music. At 12 months, Baby Boy lights up and signs “love” the moment I start singing “his” song. His breathing slows down and he falls peacefully to sleep.


What love song do you sing to your children?


Make magic!

mariel

To Little T and Baby Boy on Mother's Day

Dear Little T and Baby Boy,

Today is Mother’s Day. We sang, we twirled, we had so much fun at Teacher Jeannie and Company’s  Kindermusik Family Music Festival. We had a blast, all four of us – thanks to your dad who gallantly went and stayed with us. He was absolutely itching to go home and catch Manny Pacquiao fight Shane Mosley in pay-per-view. He settled for a replay when we got home. Love!

Little T, when I told you last week that today was going to be Mother’s Day, you asked me right away when Father’s Day would be… and Kid’s Day… and Little T’s Day… and Baby Boy’s Day… and Lola’s Day… and on and on and on and on! I love you my quick, silly Little T! You make me laugh. All the time.

Baby Boy, I was SO surprised that your new pair of pants and shirt fit you already. I thought you would be wearing your onesies, tie-side shirts, and just diapers at least until you’re three. :) I thought my heart would burst looking at you looking so big and handsome in your big boy clothes and swanky sneakers that match your Papa’s. I thought I would cry when you beamed at me while I played the one-bell jingles in front of you.

  

Today is Mother’s Day. And I can’t be happier because we are together and I have my day’s fill of gigil hugs and kisses. When you’re grown and away and it’s Mother’s Day, I think I would be happy with just hugs and kisses. And maybe a song and a twirl across our pretend dance floor. Like what we did today. Like what we do everyday.

Time. I feel it ticking away.

Love,

mama