Head, Shoulders, Knees, and all that

They are the Laurie Berkner Band

The Laurie Berkner Band's new music video DVD "We are the Laurie Berkner Band" debuted at number one on the Billboard Music Video DVD chart this week.  An impressive accomplishment and well deserved honor.  I first came across Laurie Berkner's music several years ago when I was looking for children's music for our English school in Tokyo.  As soon as I heard a few of her songs, I got that feeling you get when you "discover" a great but little known restaurant or an emerging author.  I thought she'd be the next big thing! 

She really knew how to communicate with children, she was funky and cool without a hint of pretentiousness, and she could really craft a tune.  Her songs could be as simple as an acappela rap or include just hand claps, or an organ, an ukulele, a tuba...whatever fit the song and the emotions it communicated. 

Her voice is at times reminscient of a warm Joni Mitchell or a countrified Emmylou Harris, and at other times brings to mind more alternative fare like Tori Amos or Ani Difranco (to whom she's frequently compared.)  Yet, she's always distinctively Laurie Berkner, to the point where I hear Laurie's influence in other artists' work.  Have a listen to "I'm a mess" on her album "Buzz Buzz" and tell me whether or not you think Gwen Stefani may have been influenced by Laurie on her recording of Hollaback Girl.

The songs seem organic, something that is sometimes lacking on kids' albums which feature a variety of musical styles.  It feels like "I'm a Mess" is a rap not because she thought it would be neat to include a little rap number, but because nothing could have expressed the emotion of that song better than a simple, playful rap.

One of the best compliments you can give to good children's music, in my opinion, is "my kids know all the words by heart."  The themes of Laurie's songs aren't always simple, but the lyrics are, allowing even toddlers to sing them while not being boring or babyish for older kids.  Have a look at the Amazon reviews of Laurie's CDs and you'll see review after review saying things like, "my kids sing these songs all the time"..."my 2-year old knows all the words and makes up dances for all the songs" and similar sentiments, yet Laurie Berkner is enjoyed by kids well up to their teens.

It's the same gift that Dr. Seuss had, to communicate sometimes complex, sometimes simple ideas that appeal to kids of all ages, but using  language simple enough for  toddlers to follow and participate with.  I think the great children's musicians do that, and Laurie certainly falls in that category.

It wasn't until a few weeks after I had stumbled upon Laurie's music that I learned I hadn't "discovered" anything at all, and that she was already tremendously popular with children and parents who had loved her albums for years and watched Laurie all the time on the Noggin network (which I have yet to see.)  She has been reaching a large and grateful audience for years, and while I might have come across her work a little late, I'm really happy to see her music reach so many people. 

If you haven't given her music a listen yet (unlikely if you live in the U.S. and you are around kids a lot), you can catch her and her band on The Today Show in the U.S. on March 10th in the U.S., or watch some of her video's at Noggin's website, or of course you can find her at iTunes.

You can also find nice, printable Laurie Berkner song lyrics at Noggin.

Plum Blossoms

Spring is coming!  Finally.  I don't know who came up with the whole winter idea, but it needs re-thinking.

In any case, you've probably heard about how cherry blossoms are a big deal in Japan.  They bloom in the Spring, creating an amazingly beautiful display for about a week or so and then they are gone.  Endless numbers of songs and poems have been written about them (check out Mama Lisa for a couple) and their transient beauty. 

Less celebrated is the plum blossom.  Typically blooming in late February/early March, plum blossoms signal that Spring is coming rather than that Spring has come.  Blooming in shades of pink and white, most plum blossoms have 5 petals (many varieties of cherry blossoms also have five petals, but you are also likely to see cherry blossoms with 10 petals, 50 petals, up to 100 or so). 

People do turn out to view the plum blossoms, just not in the same numbers that the cherry blossoms draw.

This past weekend I went to see the newly blooming plum blossoms in Okurayama, a Yokohama suburb.  Ume Matsuri...Plum Blossom Festival. I got a chance to hear some fantastic traditional Japanese music with shamisen, koto, and shakuhachi players, take a few photos, and celebrate the coming of Spring, finally.  It can't come soon enough!  

Thanks to my friend Taro for telling me about Okurayama's Ume Matsuri.

Picture of the day

Dreaming.

2007 U.S. Budget...Impact on Early Childhood Programs

For those in the U.S. or anyone with an interest in early childhood-related funding issues, have a look at at ZeroToThree.org's reasoned analysis (.pdf file) of the President's proposed 2007 budget.  The budget now goes before congress, so now is the time to express yourself. Several early childhood programs will be affected.

Early childhood programs are in many ways easy targets for budget cuts.  Many of the benefits of quality early childhood programs  don't make themselves fully apparent until many, many years later when the beneficiaries of those programs have grown into productive citizens.  It's not always in the best interest of a politician who is only looking 2, 4, 6 years down the road to do what we know is in the best interests of the children and of society as a whole over the long haul...fully fund early childhood education. 

If you would like to take some action on this issue, Zero to Three has put together an advocacy kit (.pdf file) with great information.  Here is a great place to start (and a great place to bookmark).  One way to get involved is simply by contacting your local representatives and asking them what their views are on funding early childhood programs.  Let them know it is an issue you care about.

Freeze Dance with Bells

The Freeze Dance game is one of those activities that I think is tough for adults to really get.  Many of my young students go nuts for it, but it's one activity that is hard for my adult mind to fathom could be that fun.  Play some fun music, kids dance around (and in my classes sing!) and freeze when the music stops.  That's pretty much it. 

When I introduce a new song in class, I often like to do it with an activity in which they are listening to the song but with no implied expectation that they need to learn the song.  By the time we really sing the song together, they've learned most of it already just through repeated listenings during other activities.  There is no real teaching involved you could say, just learning.

The Freeze Dance is a nice activity for this.  Kids are listening intently to the music throughout even though they are focused on something else.  And we just naturally start singing. It really does just kind of soak in.  And I love seeing the way kids express themselves in their dancing.

Toddlers Today has a nice idea for playing freeze dance with toddlers, but it works great with older kids as well.  Attach some bells to the children's wrists and/or ankles.  For the younger kids, it really helps them play with the rhythm as they are dancing, and for both older and younger kids, it helps identify the kids who are moving when the music stops.

Toddlers Today has some other great ideas for exploring rhythm with young ones in the same article. 

As an aside, I think one of the great things about having started this blog is that I may finally have a handle on spelling the word rhythm ;-) 

The Wheels on the Bus

I just finished a great class with my 3 year-olds in which we sang Wheels on the Bus and played on our make-believe bus.  That lesson is always a ton of fun... and Wheels on the Bus never fails.  It's one of those kids songs that has like a 97% approval rating. 

It got me wondering, what are the characteristics of the song that make it so popular with kids?   

1)  The tune.  Clearly, it all starts and ends with the tune, and Wheels on the Bus is easy to sing and predictable enough that kids can really get into it because they know what is coming next.  I think there is a comfort in that. 

2)  The rhythm.  The rhythm of the words to Wheels on the Bus is appealing, even to kids who don't yet speak or understand English.  It allows emerging speakers to play with the language even if they don't fully get it.  We have a couple of Wheels on the Bus picture books, and I find it almost impossible to read one without singing it.  The words just flow like that. 

3)  Repetion of lyrics.  This allows kids to get into the song right away, and it gets them really listening closely.  They quickly understand there will be repetion, so they listen closely to the start of each verse so they will know what to sing.

4)  Lots of movement and gestures.  Every verse can be acted out, allowing children to become a part of the song, not just sing it.  It's more than a song, it's an activity.

5)  Reassuring theme.  There is something about how this song conveys how things work, that there is an order to the world.  The wheels go round and round, the babies cry waa waa waa, and the Mommies say shh, shh, shh.  The song doesn't say it directly, but it communicates that the sun rises and sets, you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning, Mommy and/or Daddy goes to work and comes back home, and through all of it, Mommy or Daddy will be there to comfort you when you are sad.

6)  Easy to build on.  There are so many great activities and crafts and role-plays that this song lends itself too.  We love to make a pretend bus with chairs or boxes, make a bus stop, give everyone pretend money, etc.  We get to talk about where we are going.  We go fast and slow, turn left and right, bounce up and down...  And at the end we always get to go home. 

It's definitely a great children's song.   Here are the tune and lyrics.  Check Kiddidles for more lyrics and actions.  Check the Virtual Vine for related activities, and DLTK for bus-themed crafts.

Update:  Also, check out Madonna's version of Wheels on the Bus here (well, not really Madonna, but another great job by the folks at Mother Goose Rocks...this version was even on the British pop charts for a while).

Song recommendations from a food economist

Parke Wilde is a food economist who writes an interesting blog about U.S. food policy.  He recently wrote about some good children's songs with nutrition themes, including tunes by Wayne from Maine and Steve Roslonek.   

It got me thinking about what my favorite food related children's song is...and it's got to be Peanut Butter and Jelly.  This one, not this one.  Surprisingly though, it took me a long time to think of even one food/nutrition related song.  What am I forgetting?

Update:  People who grew up in the U.S. in the 70's/early 80's might remember the "Time for Timer" mini-cartoons they played in between the Saturday morning cartoons.  He was always talking/singing about nutrition...my favorite was "You are what you eat" in which he took us on a tour of the stomach.  You can view some of his clips at Scott-o-rama.  They are not exactly sing-a-longs, but they sure do bring back memories of camping in front of the TV on Saturday mornings eating 12 bowls of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.

Dragons...myth or reality?

Beth has posted a report on the Chinese New Year lessons she did at her children's schools.  I kind of wish I was a student in one of those classes.  I love the questions the kids came up with to ask Beth's friend in Hong Kong:

What time do Asian people go to bed on Chinese New Year?

Why were the villagers so scared of the dragon if dragons aren't real? Could they have been afraid of something else?

Is the dragon smart or stupid because he was afraid of firecrackers and loud noise?

Is hard is it to learn how to write Gung Hay Fat Choy?

Check out the rest of the questions over at Beth's Blog.

Personally, I think the dragon was smart to be scared of the firecrackers and loud noise...bad news those fire crackers. 

Potato Pal

Unlike his fellow countrymen U2, Patrick Jackson is not a rock star, though he does have rock star moments.  My 4 year-old student Chikara was over the moon to show me Patrick's autograph on several books from the Potato Pals series (authored by Patrick) which he collected over the weekend at an Oxford University Kids' Club Event in Tokyo.  Since one great feature of the Potato Pals series is the music on the accompanying CD, and since Patrick has extensive experience teaching young children, I asked him to give us some of his thoughts on music and early childhood education.   Here is our e-mail correspondence:

Devon:
Hi Patrick. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. We really enjoy the Potato Pals Series...I think it's very well thought out; distinctive characters, great illustrations, situations kids can identify with, and it's easy to use with kids of varying levels of English ability...readers and emerging-readers alike. The CD also makes it easy for children and parents to use at home, which I think distinguishes it from a lot of young children's English learning materials. With a lot of our students, they go home and learn the new book by heart before we even use it in class. How long did it take to develop the series and did you have a lot of input from children?

Patrick:
Thank you for the kind words, Devon.  Your school was one of the first to adopt Potato Pals when they first came out and it’s really great to hear that that your students enjoy the books and songs. Delighted!

Potato Pals ‘grew’ in a kid’s English conversation school where I worked for the first 4 years I was in Japan. Rie Kimura, who illustrates the books, was my classroom assistant so we were just enjoying making materials for our students. 

After a few years had passed like this, trying out all sorts of things in the classroom, we sent a proposal to various publishers and had the good luck to be contracted by Oxford University Press to do a series of readers and support materials.

It wasn’t until then that we thought of putting songs to our books and it was that step that really transformed them. Although I had always ‘done’ quite a lot of music and movement in my lessons, I hadn’t fully understood the power of music; the magic ‘spoonful of sugar’ for the language teacher.

As for input from kids, well my own children (6 and 2) listened to the early versions of most of the songs and funnily enough, their favorites have become mine too!

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes...by U2

Congratulations to U2 for their big night at the Grammys last week, taking home 5 awards, including Song of the Year and Rock Album of the Year.  Of course, Bono, Edge, Adam, and Larry are frequent readers of this blog...congratulations guys.

The word is that U2 is the early favorite to win the 2007 Grammy for Best Children's Recording for their powerful version of  Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, performed with some very special guests.  I love Edge's backing vocals. (By the way, this years winner for Best Musical Album for Children was Songs from the Neighborhood - The Music of Mr. Rogers). 

U2 will be coming to Japan in April for the first time in many, many years.  They'll be playing Nissan Stadium in Yokohama, the home of the 2002 World Cup Final.  I saw U2 play several times as a younger lad...the last time being 2 consecutive nights at the Los Angeles Colosseum for the the Joshua Tree tour, and I'm really thrilled to see them in Yokohama.  I'm interested to see what kind of crowd they draw...I rarely meet U2 fans here, but if they are playing Yokohama Stadium, there must be quite a few.  I'll give you a brief review after the show and let you know if they play Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

Check out the ONE campaign here and sign the ONE Declaration.