Great time to connect

• Sitting down at the table together for dinner is one of my favorite times to converse with my children. Sometimes the most simple questions start the most amazing conversations. Granted, I don't have ones in high chairs any longer and they can feed themselves now, but even with young ones, maybe preschool and up, consider these great conversation starters:

1. What was the best thing that happened in your day today?

2. Name one new thing that you learned today?

3. What did you do today to help someone else?

4. How did you make the world a better place today?

5. What was the funniest thing that happened to you today?

6. What thing did you do today that you are most proud of?

7. What are you thankful for today?

8. What did you do to improve yourself today?

9. What do you want to accomplish tomorrow?

10. What can you do to make someone else's day brighter tomorrow?

Other websites I found to be helpful in starting conversations are here and here. The latter also has GREAT ideas for how to bring little ones into the kitchen to help with mealtime prep.

Parachute gown

This little story is from a Kindermusik teacher named Barb from Indiana. She posted this message on our Yahoo group. I thought I would share it with you.

"After I posted my questions a week or so ago about parachutes, I mentioned to my mother that I was ordering a parachute. That immediately triggered a sweet memory for her. Right after World War II, my mother's mother got hold of a beautiful white silk parachute. It was probably a surplus. Her husband, my grandfather, was in the army. She loved the fabric and used her creative talents to make an evening gown out of it! My grandmother died not long after that at a young age. My mother was only 17 years old when her mother died so I never knew her. But I love knowing about my elegant grandmother wearing a lovely white silk evening gown made out of a parachute."

On This Day in History...

This is a website that allows you to see details from the day you were born! It really amazed me. For example, on the day I was born (I'll let you guess what year that was), bread was .22 a loaf, milk was $1.11 a gallon, eggs were $1.05 a dozen, cars were $2,410, homes were averaging $23,300, stamps were .05 each, the average income in America was $8,395 per year, and the minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. The website also lists music, movies and more!

'I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality.'

~H.A. Overstreet

Texas SNOW

12 large flour tortillas

1/2 stick butter, melted

1/2 cup cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Fold a large flour tortilla in fourths. Using clean kitchen scissors, cut shapes into the folded tortilla. Open the cut tortilla and place on a cookie sheet that has been coated with cooking spray. Using a pastry brush or a paper towel, brush the surface with melted butter. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the tortilla. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the tortilla is golden. Makes 12 tortillas.

"According to neuroscience and child development research, brain development proceeds at a faster pace between conception and the first day of kindergarten than during any subsequent stage of life. In the early years, basic capacities such as trust, self-confidence, empathy, and curiosity are established. How people think, learn, reason, and relate to others throughout their lives is rooted in their early relationships, experiences, and environments.

"Common Vision, Different Paths: Five States' Journeys toward Comprehensive Prenatal-to-Five Systems"

Listen

There's music in the sighing of a reed;

There's music in the gushing of a rill;

There's music in all things, if men had ears: Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.

~Lord Byron

Kindermusik Educator Wendy Jones shared a few thoughts with me and I wanted to pass them to you. I feel they are very important. Thank you for your commitment to making music with me! In a Kindermusik class, it involves body, mind and soul.

Too many people think of music as something that needs to be provided for them, and the whole point of Kindermusik is to help children AND families realize that music is something which everyone can make and that doesn't require all sorts of special instruments and professional, "already made" music. Beat-keeping and instrumental ensemble play to a recorded sound source is only one of the ways music happens. Music should be coming from the children to prepare them for the next step, when they are ready to sing whole songs on pitch, read rhythms and notes, and play both percussion and melodic instruments. A child who sings only with a recording is not relying on their own internal pitch sense, and the same child singing unaccompanied with their peers is developing a much better sense of listening to the group to match pitch, tempo, and style. Movements need to be labelled, discussed, and explored to develop competency and range before adding them into dances--otherwise, a child tends to stick with a much smaller range of expressive movements when moving to a recording. Most importantly, the child who is constantly given the message that 'real music' is the recorded type is receiving a very powerful message about the worth of his or her own musicality, which WILL affect their later willingness to create and develop as musicians. Rhymes ARE music training- how else can we later understand the rhythmic patterns we read? Singing IS music training- we need to produce pitch ourselves in order to hear and feel its motion. Movement IS musical- all musical concepts can be explored through body movement, and a child needs concrete experience and labels to understand abstract musical concepts.

Lastly, in this age of children's videos, CDs, and computer games, we need to send a strong message to the children we reach that YOU CAN DO THIS, and that what you are doing is the 'real thing', not just a makeshift version or 'make-do' in the absence of something. It has broken my heart a few times in classes over the years to see puzzled looks on the faces of a few 3-4's as we sang, played instruments with our singing, and then heard them say, "but when will the music start?" or "when will you turn on the tape so we can make music?" We ARE the music.

I am so ridicuously addicted to this blog. http://soulemama.typepad.com/, It is very down-to-earth, very endearing, and has great ideas for simple, home-made crafts that bring you closer together. Thanks to my Kindermusik friend, Launa, from Arlington, VA (who visits my blog, bless her) for letting me know about this. I have gotten some neat ideas, and have felt a kindred spirit with Amanda Soule, even though we've never met. See for yourself.

Happy New Year 1907

A friend sent this through email the other day. I thought I would share it here because it was so interesting!

THE YEAR 1907

One hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1907 :

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. , and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist made $2,500 per year, a veterinarian $1,500 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME .

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as “substandard.”

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month , and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas , Nevada , was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available overthe counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

Just try to imagine…..What it may be like ….In another 100 years !!!!!!!

Try Kindermusik at a demonstration class held at the Music Conservatory in Parker Square---
January 22:

newborns to 18 months at 9:30
1 1/2 to 3 year olds at 10:30

January 25:

1 1/2 to 3 year olds at 10:30
newborns to 18 months at 11:30

Tell a friend! Registration is required due to space limitations. Classes are 20-30 minutes in length. Call 972-754-0853 today!

Something new for the new year

Would you like some Kindermusik with that coffee? Every first Monday of the month at 10:00 a.m., Kindermusik with Heidi will provide a Kindermusik storytime for you and your children at Texas Roast in the new Shops of Highland Village. We will play instruments, enjoy some movement activities and fingerplays, and share a story, all centering around a theme. Tell your friends and help spread the news! Open to anyone, including currently enrolled families. The storytime will debut on Feb. 4th, 2008. See you there!

Calling all Picasso's

This is a really amazing website I discovered. It allows you to paint a masterpiece then print it or even email it to others. Your children could create something for a faraway relative. Go to www.art.com, then type artpad in the search box. Send your masterpiece to me, too!

Happy New Year