I'm looking forward to sharing a bit about our lives with you - most importantly, sharing ideas for toddler activities, crafts, music and books. With that in mind, I'll get us started with a recycled post about children's music, from my other blog. I'd love to hear about your favourites!
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You gaze down upon your newborn, sweetly snuggling in your arms as you rock her to sleep, while a soft lullaby plays in the background. As you hum along to Braham's Lullaby, it suddenly occurs to you that your child's musical tastes won't always be so innocuous.
The Wiggles! Elmo!! Barney!!!
It's enough to fill any parent with terror.
I'm a bit of an oddity, never having lost my love of kid's music. I have quite a Disney collection, and probably know as many children's songs as most kindergarten teachers. But while I can sing "The Eensy Weensy Spider" with the best of 'em, I like to think that I have some standards.I'm a fan of Sesame Street, and I'll confess that I actually like Elmo in small doses, but you won't find The Wiggles, The Doodlebops or Barney in my house (okay, that's a lie. There is a Barney book shoved way back in our storage room).
I've always thought that kids can appreciate all kinds of music. 50s and 60s pop were staples of my music collection as a child, and growing up in Alberta even gave me an appreciation for country music. But while we play many different types of music for our two year old daughter, she still seems to prefer children's artists right now. CDs have to pass our test before they get played more than once, though!
Our daughter hasn't been a great car traveler, and if you drove with us very often, you'd realize that the phrase I say most often in the car is "Thank God for Raffi!". I loved Raffi's music when I was little, and his music is one of the few things that can calm C down when she's really worked up in the car. Thank goodness his voice is pretty soothing for us too!
He's best known for "Baby Beluga", but he has about a dozen albums - all great! He doesn't have any music videos, but here are two YouTube creations:
Raffi - "Baby Beluga"
Raffi - "All I Really Need"
A new addition to our children's music collection is Justin Roberts, and I can't say enough about him! He has catchy songs that kids love, and which parents find pretty funny too. My husband even likes him! Here's a video from his new album: "Pop Fly".
...and a simple little tune from his first album: "You Got One".
Ahhh... children's music for a new generation. Because no one should have to listen to Barney.
4 comments:
We really like "Nicky's Jazz for Kids", which is not Jazz written specifically for kids but classic pieces that have kid friendly lyrics like "chew your bubblegum" and "a tisket a tasket". It's a nice break from Music Together CDs ad nauseum.
I'll check it out - thanks for the recommendation!
C has been asking for "classical music" a lot since we went to a string quartet concert at the library, and "Irish music" since St. Patty's Day, so maybe we'll have to find a family friendly jazz concert too!
Thankfully, there are some really great musicians out there--far surpassing the Barney sing-a-long!! One of our fave FUN tunes hail from The Laurie Berkner Band. My kids roar over her folksy and catchy tunes, so we grab her for long travels.
I've seen a couple of her music videos on YouTube - cute! I'll have to listen to some more. :)
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