Appreciating Nature in Music

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity is to listen to classical music and identify nature sounds in what you hear.  A few days ago I checked out a bunch of Christmas CD's from the library and in the middle of the stack I found a Peter and the Wolf cd.  That worked perfectly today!  The cd also had Prokofiev's Carnival of the Animals, which got to be a little long, but has 12 additional animal tracks.

If you don't have access to the cd (or the original record we all remember listening to Peter and the Wolf on), I've found a fantastic version of it online.  I'd forgotten all about it, but my kids love to creep around the room acting out the characters while they're listening.  Enjoy!

Peter and the Wolf

My Kids Think I'm Crazy

There is a scene in the movie About A Boy where Hugh Grant's character is singing onstage in front of an entire grade school, so lost in the moment that he has no idea he's completely making a fool of himself.

Click image to watch this video on YouTube

That happened to me today...

If you'll remember, a couple weeks ago I tried to get my kids and their friends to dance with me for our Teaching Your Children Joy activity and they were not having it.  Today's activity was to create a "body band" by exploring all the ways our bodies can make music.  Listening to our kid music station on Pandora, Beck, Peyton, and I were laughing while we clapped, snapped, clicked our tongues, and stomped our feet along to the beats.

Then, without knowing I was doing it, I got up off the couch and started dancing.  Not just moving my feet and shaking my bum, but full on joyful amateur ballerina dancing.  It was almost the length of an entire song before I realized the boys had become quiet and still.  They were just staring at me...confused and worried looks painted across their faces.

I bowed out quickly.  Because I'm not a dancer, and yet there I'd been lost in the moment and learning my own lesson that we can find joy in the unexpected abilities of our bodies.  

Great Children's Games

I love that so many activity suggestions in Teaching Your Children Joy are simple and classic.  Yesterday and today's activities were games that everyone knows, yet I have never gotten around to playing them with my boys.  We have now, with mixed reactions.

Yesterday we played Simon Says.  I thought it would be great to teach body parts to my younger one, and directions to my older one.  What really happened is that Peyton walked away immediately and Beck HATED it because he was so bored.  This is definitely a game we're going to have to try again when we have a larger group of people to play.

Today we did the "Hokey Pokey" with much better results.  My boys love music and dancing, and the "Hokey Pokey" lets you be completely goofy.  We LOVED it! 

 Why not crank up your computer volume and dance along!