Countdown 24 Days!

Today’s Preview of the Sing With Our Kids Website: Grandparents!

Today’s website preview is personal. I am the proud grandmother of two toddlers, and very lucky to be able to help care for them regularly. At the same time I’ve noticed a major demographic shift in my concert audiences. Grandparents have become a major portion of adults attending with the children, sometimes by more than half.. I think this due in part to economic times, but it’s also reflects new lifestyle choices. We are rediscovering the importance of family helping family, and we are all the winners for it. And here’s the thing… Grandparents are an incredible untapped  resource. No group is more motivated, has more life experience and wisdom, and often time than this group. And grandparents who don’t live near their grandchildren are always looking for ways to connect and build relationships with  them. That’s where Sing With Our Kids comes in. Singing is the ultimate connector, and grandparents know songs! They know lots and lots of songs! And they know it’s fun and important to sing with their grandchildren. So the Sing With Our Kids website will have a “Grandparents Corner,” and the live project will have monthly Grandparent Gatherings at the Mercer Island Library. At the gatherings grandparents will:

·      Remember their favorite songs and learn fun and creative ways to share them with grandchildren while passing down family history and traditions.

·      Learn about  brain development and how singing together is one of the best ways to connect, and to enhance early learning and especially early literacy

·      Learn how to use technology to get and stay connected in a very personal way, and much much more.

  

The stories, experiences, and discussions from the gatherings will be documented and posted on the website, so grandparents everywhere will be able to use the songs and materials, and even become part of the discussion. If you are a grandparent, or know grandparents, please share this project with them!

Countdown 25 Days!

Today's Preview of the Sing With Our Kids website: Community Toolbox

Since today is National Night Out, I thought it would fitting to talk about the Community Toolbox section of SingWithOurKids.com. There you will find ideas for organizing neighborhood and community sing-alongs, printable sing-along lyric sheets with guitar chords, and information and ideas on using your own communities' resources to involve everyone in early learning. Since the live project will be going on at the same time, ideas and documentation of our community events will be added as they happen. These will include guitar classes for learning children's songs, parent education talks, book store and library events, grandparent gatherings, and of course, community and neighborhood sing-alongs! My home community of Mercer Island is the perfect place for this pilot project! But remember, you don't have to live on Mercer Island to take part. All events will be free and open to the public. It will be an amazing nine months beginning September 1st!

Countdown 26 Days!

Today’s preview of the Sing With Our Kids website: Your Voice and Your Ears!

Since SingWithOurKids.com will be a full resource website, there will be an extensive section  with information on using and caring for your voice, overcoming the “I can’t sing” complex, and protecting your and your children’s ears. This last topic is critical, as even many toys are dangerously loud. Did you know there is a free decibel meter app you can download and use to access the safety of noise in your child’s environment? As a musician who spent many years in a band working in LOUD nightclubs, I am fully aware of how easy it is to do permanent damage to hearing. And our environment today is much louder than when I was growing up. So look for a whole collection of resources on this topic at SingWithOurKids.com coming September 1st!

Countdown 27 Days!

Today’s preview of the Sing With Our Kids website:

The Sing With Our Kids Project is really two simultaneous projects; the website, and the nine month long community project. So everything that happens with real families during the project will be documented and woven into the information already on the website. In this way,  it will be a living growing resource. If you live in the Seattle  area, you can attend any of the events and programs, all of which will be free. And whether you live across the country or in Australia or anywhere else in the world, you’ll be able to follow the project and use all of the ideas, songs, and materials generated!

Countdown 28 Days!

Today’s preview of the Sing With Our Kids website:


 The Sing With Our Kids website will have a video library full of ideas and demonstrations, including ASL songs, finger plays, and how-to's for teachers, parents, and librarians! There will also be videos on how to access all materials on the computer, in case you don't know how to do that. Portions of the workshops Nancy will be giving live for parents, teachers and grandparents during the live nine- month project and  community events will be included. And you can give input on what you would like to see in the video library as well! This website will begin with the materials I already have, and your ideas will help grow it into whatever we decide it needs to be! The sky (or in this case, technology) is the limit!

Countdown 29 Days!

Today’s preview of the Sing With Our Kids website:

Of all the things the project will accomplish, here is the one I’m most excited about… There will be a song library with hundreds of songs you can download and use for free. Okay, you say, that’s great. But here’s what makes this unique and so exciting. Every song  will have a page you can print out and post that says, “This week we are singing (title of song)” It will have a QR code that will take you right to the song. So parents, babyesitters, and nannies,  can read the code with their smart phones, and have immediate access to the song!  Of course they can also look up the song on the alphabetical list on the website. But having this simple tool will mean:

1.         Teachers can post songs they are using so parents can download and sing them at home

2.         Librarians who use these songs in story times can give parents a way to sing them at home

3.         Grandparents who live near or far away from their grandchildren can download  and sing the same songs with their grandchildren on the phone, or when Skyping.

Using this simple tool, all of the adults in a child’s life can sing the same songs- together! And if you’ve ever had a young child ask you to sing his or her favorite song from school (and you didn’t know it), you will know this is huge!  Check back tomorrow for another upcoming feature of the Sing With Our Kids project website!

30 Day Countdown begins!

Hello friends, fans, family, teachers, librarians, grandparents, and other care providers!
After a year of planning, today begins my 30 day countdown to the start of the Sing With Our Kids Project. You'll find daily posts on Facebook, and you can find the full 30 days of posts here. So visit www.SingWithOurKids.com if you don't already know about the project, follow this blog and Facebook for the next 30 days, and you'll be ready to join the fun! A year is a long time for planning, and I can't wait  for it to begin!