AuntyB: If "sing!" is included in some of your toddler's first words, you know that music has made an impact from infancy. Songs are like toasted marshmallows over an open fire. They are comforting, personal, satisfying and sweet. Sing to your unborn child, sing to your infant, sing to your toddler. It is an endearing experience that introduces music to your child.
Music is both thrilling and exciting, serene and restful. It is another world that gives variety and fullness to life. Singing is the starting place. If you don't know any songs, find a toddler teacher and learn their circle time songs and motions.
Create your own circle time, car time or outdoor time daily where you sing with your child the same circle time songs. Have fun! In sharing this time (ten songs, at least), you have made a lifetime of memories for your child.
Gradually, sing at other times. Add songs that are your favorites: Gospel, Western, Rock and Roll, Folk. Sung over and over daily, the child will sing with you and request them. (Of course, don't forget the going-to-sleep lullabies.)
Examples of Circle Time Songs:
- Here We are Together
- Itsy Bitsy Spider
- Hickory Dickory Dock
- I'm a Little Teapot
- Ten Little Indian Boys and Girls
- The Farmer in the Dell
- The Wheels on the Bus
- Mary had a Little Lamb
- Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
- Open, Shut Them
Some of my favorite "other" songs are:
- Home on the Range
- All Night, All Day
- Do Lord
- Old MacDonald
- Swing Low Sweet Chariot
- The Battle Hymn of the Republic
- This Little Light of Mine
- This Old Man
This is just the beginning: More to come on Music (like records, CDs, tapes, musical instruments, music boxes, dance and rhythm pieces, songs and sounds in nature, concerts and choirs.)
Grandmama: Music is a subject both AuntyB and I could go on and on about. Our grandmother, who had a third grade education, taught the love of music to her daughters. She sang played the piano and shared that love outside the family.
One of my newest family memories is of a conversation with a lady in her late eighties. A few years ago, my husband and I joined a church in a town seven miles from where I was born and raised. Recognizing my father's name on the prayer list, she asked if he was married to a certain "young" woman -- my mother, by her maiden name. (Our mother died, in her late seventies, in 2000.)
She then proceeded to relate to me this story of my grandmother. Keep in mind that the event happened in the late 1920's, eighty years ago! Neither my sister or I knew of this, nor did other family members still living.
In the Texas coastal town of Seabrook, children walked or rode the bus to school. Since there was only one bus for all the outlying areas, some had to wait for the bus to make its first run before their turn to be taken home. That wait seemed long to those little children.
She recalled that this woman, my grandmother, would come across the street from her little grocery store every day to the school. She collected up the children and took them to the plain church next door. There she played the piano and sang Bible songs with those children until the bus returned to take them home.
I have that songbook, frail though it is, that she used. That lady who told me that story still cherished that memory and those songs. They had helped her through hard times in her life. She, too, had spread the love of music to her children and grandchildren with songs of faith and love and laughter.
Our grandmother did not neglect to share music and faith with us much later in the 1950s and 60s. It is this almost 100-year-old heritage we share with you. May you have the blessing of music and faith to lead you through this life.
Our mother's favorite hymn, sung so often that we both know the words by heart, was Others by Charles D. Meigs. The words to the chorus reflect some of why we're writing this blog:
Others, Lord, yes others,
Let this my motto be --
Help me to live for others,
That I may live like Thee.
(Sometimes Cyberhymnal changes page locations. If that link doesn't work, try the alphabetical listing off their main page. Here's what they'd like you to know about their site: The Cyber Hymnal, Thousands of Christian hymns and Gospel songs from many denominations: lyrics, MIDI files, scores, pictures, history and more. Searchable, advanced Autoplay feature, free downloads. New entries every week. User friendly. Biggest site of its kind on the Internet.)
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