Head, Shoulders, Knees, and all that

Be Yourself

Well, here it is...Nagi's long-awaited 3rd single...Be Yourself. I guarantee you'll be humming this one.

Be Yourself by Nagi-chan, 4 years old

The lyrics were inspired by one of Nagi's favorites, the Fugees, and their performance of Just Happy to Be Me (Be Yourself) on the Elmopalooza video, as well as the books Toad on the Road (take a left, take a right) and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Enjoy, please share, and Nagi would be thrilled to hear your comments. Check out Nagi's 1st and 2nd singles if you haven't already.

Super Simple Songs 2

A couple of folks have asked what the deal is with Super Simple Songs 2 (thanks for asking!).  Well, as you may have guessed from the red album link over there in the left column, Knock Knock English's latest CD, Super Simple Songs 2, is available now!  Check it out. 

The story behind the Super Simple Songs CDs is that we wanted some kids' music that our students here in Tokyo (aged 2-10) could easily follow, learn from, and participate with.  As much as we love and recommend artists like Dan Zanes, Laurie Berkner, Justin Roberts, etc., most of their songs are simply above the comprehension level of our students due to their age and English proficiency.  Artists like Raffi, Dr. Jean, Hap Palmer, Greg and Steve, etc. have several songs that work great, but even those artists are just a little too fast sometimes or not easy enough to understand through gestures for our young students. 

So we began to create our own songs, and from the start we loved the process of creating a song, trying it out and seeing the reactions, tweaking the song, trying it again, more tweaks, etc.  We wanted to create songs all of our students could sing and/or act out through gestures.  Our students really helped us find the fun in each song, and we were able to see very clearly when a song was too fast for students to interact with, not bouncy enough, missing a little oomph, etc.  They helped us find the parts where...

Our first CD, Super Simple Songs, got passed around to some English speaking families here in Japan and in the U.S., and parents and teachers started telling us how much their toddlers loved the songs because they could sing and understand and interact with all of them. Everything was at their level. They could handle all of the actions and hand gestures.  And they loved the music.  The songs were THEIR songs.  So we made it available worldwide through CDBaby and iTunes, and to our great pleasure, people responded very well and we won an i-Parenting Media Award in January, 2006, right alongside a couple of our favorite artists, Brady Rymer and Cathy & Marcy.  It was a thrill.

We worked on Super Simple Songs 2 throughout 2005 and into 2006, generally trying to make sure that each song got at least a few weeks worth of feedback and revision in our classes before settling on the final version.  It was a blast to make and I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as our students have.

So check 'em out!  Ideal for kids aged 1-4, and up to age 7 for young English learners.  There are classics and originals, all made super simple for toddlers to participate and learn with.  We're working on getting #2 up on iTunes and creating a new website when we have some spare time outside the classroom, so there will be no big official release for now...but bear with if I'm back on here in a couple of weeks with another announcement!  Thanks!

よろしくおねがいします！！

Parents' Choice Awards

Read More. Play More. Learn More. That's the unofficial motto of the folks at the Parent's Choice Foundation.

They do a nice job combing through the ever-expanding world of children's music (as well as other children's products) and recognizing some great work. Check out the just released Spring 2006 list of Parent's Choice Award winners. And while you're there, have a look at some of the great articles like "How to get your child excited about classical music", and"Kitchen Concerto".

Interviews with Children's Musicians

Fran Grauman from About.com has been posting some great interviews with kids' musicians recently.  She has talked with Charity Kahn, Yosi, Red Grammer, Jim Gill, and her most recent interview is with Laurie Monopoli from the Learning Station, who had the following great advice:

Sing, sing, and sing some more to your children! Sing about the weather, hum a tune in the car, whistle a few bars shopping or make up a song all about your child (children love hearing their name in a song). Even if you can’t carry a tune, as long as the song comes from your heart it will be received by a child like the sweet, beautiful sound of a nightingale.

Indeed.

Music for kids that even parents might love

NPR has an interview up with Stefan from Zooglobble on All Things Considered about the state of children's music. Great interview. If you are a parent or caretaker looking for some good children's music that you can enjoy together with your children, it all starts with a visit to Zooglobble, where Stefan writes some of the best kids'/familly music reviews out there.

The piece talks a bit about Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner and Stefan's thoughts on some of his current favorites, Brady Rymer and Justin Roberts. All great artists, but if you want to have a better idea about whether or not they would suit your children or your family, check out the reviews at zooglobble. He does a great job painting a picture of the music so that adults without much exposure to kids' music will be able to have a pretty good idea whether or not it will be something their family can enjoy together.

If you prefer your entertainment in podcast form like me, Stefan's interview was NPR's most e-mailed story of the day, and is currently available on NPR's Most E-mailed Stories of the Day podcast for Saturday, 08 April 2006.

Elbow room

It's amazing how much time can be spent in a class of youngsters, or when driving a couple of kids across town, dealing with little battles over personal space. Nancy Stewart has her song of the month up and it's a great little song for helping with those issues. Check it out, 'cause everybody needs a little elbow room.

Dan Zanes

Here's a nice little article on Dan Zanes.  In the article, Dan makes an important point about children's music that really hit home with me:

Zanes found that other parents had the same problem and would just play their kids the Beatles out of frustration. Zanes felt this was depriving children of an important moment in the development of their musical awareness, as well as making it plainly obvious that families could use a shared musical experience.

"I think there's a tradition of children's music that's really valuable and important," said Zanes, "and I think that skipping ahead to the Beatles, and pop music with a lot of romantic love, something gets missed."

Music is a tremendous way to engage children and help learn about themselves and the world around them.  Of course you should be exposing your children to the Beatles, Mozart, ...heck, whoever you are listening to..  The more music we expose our children to, the better.  But great kids' music speaks directly to the experiences of childhood and gives children a sense of ownership over the music.  After we made Super Simple Songs, one of the greatest pieces of feedback we got was from a parent who told us her 3 year-old son called the CD his "Big Boy Music".  Now...our CD was made for toddlers, but the fact that the music on our CD speaks to his experiences at a level which he can comprehend and participate with makes him feel like a Big Boy. 

Good children's music makes music something much more than background noise or even great rhythms for kids to move to.  It makes music into a participatory experience that helps children understand the world around them better.  Dan Zanes is not a bad place to start. 

I'd say more about Dan Zanes and the great children's music he makes, but he's got to be the most well known American children's artist out there and there is plenty written about him already.  You can start at the Dan Zanes website.  Stefan at Zooglobble has reviews of all of Dan Zane's albums.

Happy Birthday Mister Rogers

Fred Rogers was born on this day in 1928.  I, like most American kids, grew up watching Mister Rogers on PBS (America's Public Broadcasting System).  He was (rather is, even after his passing) a national treasure.  I'm sure he profoundly affected some of the ways I approach early childhood education...the way I talk with my students now, the respect I have for their intelligence and depth of thought, the importance of creative play...  I'm sure I learned a bit about empathy from Fred, and about understanding and communicating to kids that we are all special and important.   

I felt like Mister Rogers understood that even very young children thought in sophisticated ways about some pretty deep ideas, but communicating with them about those ideas required some simplification in your communication style.   The idea is not necessarily to always simplify what you communicate about, but to simplify how you communicate about it.  He dealt with themes as complex as death, divorce, adoption, body awareness, anger (as well as many, many lighter topics)...yet always in a positive, empathetic way that reached children in a way most adults can't. 

I felt like he understood that kids want to participate, not just be entertained, but you've got to allow them to.  He spoke directly to the camera, encouraging a dialogue.  His songs are welcoming and simple enough that kids can sing along, can make the songs their own, even when they are about complex issues.  In arranging his songs simply, and in creating lyrics even toddlers could follow and sing, he was able to communicate about sophisticated and simple ideas alike.  He communicated with children, he didn't perform for them. 

The Grammy Award for Best Children's Musical Album this year went to the Mister Rogers tribute album.  I had mixed feelings about that.  I would have been thrilled if an album of Mister Rogers performing his songs had won, but this album was kind of an adult contemporary tribute to Mister Rogers, made for adults more than kids.  The simplicity of his songs (the arrangment and the lyrics, not necessarily the topics) is what makes them so great and so timeless to me, so I felt like it was kind of missing the point to line up the best singers and producers to perform his music.  I honestly felt the 4 other albums were much better children's albums, but I understand that it would have been hard for any adult to vote against Mister Rogers.

To hear some Mister Rogers classics performed by the man himself, check out PBS kids.  How's this for a wonderful, simple children's song? 

The Archive of American Television's 4 1/2 hour interview with Fred Rogers has recently been posted at Google video.  Obviously, that's an awful lot of interview to sit down and watch in one sitting, but try watching one half hour segment a week.  Or better yet, just let the interviews play as you do your work throughout the day or do some housecleaning...whatever.  He talks about everything from his childhood to his thoughts on kids to insights on the TV and recording businesses. You are sure to be a better person for having listened.

One, two, three, four, six

I've had the opportunity to observe some great teachers of young learners over the years, and one little device that all of them used to some degree is feigning ignorance.  It might be holding a potato and saying, "Mmm...I love apples."  Or in a delightfully silly way, forgetting the names of all the students.  Or in the middle of a storybook saying "The End" and closing the book and asking "wasn't that a great story?"

Besides just appealing to the children's growing appreciation of the humor of the unexpected and incongruous, it encourages children to speak up and share their knowledge in a way much more fun and interesting and meaningful than asking them, "Who can tell me the characteristics of an apple?" or "Today we have a new student joining the class, please introduce yourselves,"  or "What do you think happens next in the story?"

Of course there is a balance here...feign ignorance all the time and you run the danger of coming across as a clown.   But used occasionally as one of the many tools in your toolbox, and with a knowing smile, it's a great way to encourage kids to share their knowledge with you in a passionate way.  If you are a teacher of young kids and you feel like you are not reaching them, not making a connection, try dropping the occasional absurdity on them.   It's fun, it keeps them on their toes, it allows you to see which students are having trouble focusing or comprehending the topic at hand, it encourages creative thinking, and they'll be dying to share their knowledge with you.

For me, as a teacher of non-native English speakers, it's a fantastic way to check comprehension and encourage the children to produce English that is meaningful to them rather than parroting the teacher or waiting for someone to tell them what to say. 

Children's music performer Eric Herman provides a wonderful example of feigning ignorance.  In The Elephant Song, Eric sings beautifully and earnestly, "Elephants, I like elephants.  I like how they swing through trees," only to be interrupted by a child saying NO!  Elephants don't swing through trees...monkeys do.  Eric continues..."Monkeys, I like monkeys.  I like how they swim in the ocean..." whereupon he is corrected again, and again, and again.  It's a great device that encourages critical listening skills, and the sharing of knowledge about animals... but above all it's just a lot of fun for kids (and a great tune that you'll be humming all day).

Find out more about Eric Herman and his Invisible Band at his website.

Stefan has reviews of Eric's albums Monkey Business and The Kid in the Mirror over at Zooglobble.

A Low Tolerance for Mushy

Looking for some music you can enjoy with your kids, but have a "low tolerance for mushy"? 

Check out Zooglobble.  Stefan writes witty reviews about contemporary children's music, including work by They Might Be Giants, Dan Zanes, Laurie Berkner, Milkshake, Justin Roberts, Eric Herman, Monty Harper (coming soon!), Ralph's World, and more.  If you are looking for something you can play during long car rides with the kids that won't drive you crazy, this is a great place to start your search.