The end of October always brings the delights of the Halloween season! I never tire of singing songs that reflect on classic Halloween themes, and have three that are fairly unique to my own repertoire. The first one is my “Halloween Rhymes” song, which is available on my Songs for…
I started making music with children almost three decades ago, in the classroom of my daughter’s preschool. I also started co-writing songs with kids in that same room. The very creative teacher, Terri Kelley, offered to transform the classroom’s indoor play structure into whatever the children most wanted. My daughter…
This is a re-posting of an early blog entry, and remains as relevant as ever. I love making music with kids from infancy through age six, especially pairing music with early literacy learning, which is a natural fit. I once taught at a preschool where the director told me: “Just…
Let’s create some fun alliterative sentences! As in, sentences that emphasize the same starting consonant sound, and also sound a little silly. And perhaps feature lots of cool animals, such as “cool cats in my cereal and cougars who can cook.”That’s what I did in my song “Chimmy Cha-Cha,” from…
Storytelling is a compelling art form that engages children in a story in a different way than a picture book. Storytelling has many valuable benefits, not the least of which is that the listener must mentally envision the story. My work as a music specialist has been greatly enhanced by…
It’s early November and the season is definitely changing, at least it is where I live in northern Vermont. It’s a good time to sing with children about how animals get ready for winter, using songs such as my “Nuts for the Winter,” which features my little stuffed squirrel, Chipper….
The New York Times asked people to describe the year 2020 in one word. Momentous, challenging, scary, tragic, frustrating, disturbing, perhaps illuminating. For me, it boils down to one word. Whoa. WHOA. Things started out so routinely. I went about my business as an early childhood music specialist, teaching my…
The following post is based on my recently-delivered workshop on Music and Early Literacy for the Children’s Music Network. Arts education and arts integration (defined below) are both critically important! Musicians and other artists need to be strong advocates for arts in education. We can make our case by offering…
Here’s a song to sing as the weather gets cooler and the ghouls start haunting the landscape. My “Monster Bonster” song was adapted from the song “I’m Playing with a Monster,” by Fran Avni and Nancy Schimmel. In the song, children are invited to name the monster’s body parts, which…
I’ve just posted the “Sleeping Beauty” – Revisited video to my YouTube channel. Here’s more about the background of the song and the video. Early in my music-teaching career, I learned the “Thorna Rosa” circle game that reenacts the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. I probably learned the game at…
