Gingerbread people, little zip-loc baggies of icing with a tiny hole in one corner, and the industry of many children resulted in great parties and beautiful cookies in both of my children's classrooms on Friday.
Merry, merry, merry, to you and your family. I'll post again in a few days.
Thanks to Kimberly Cody for this one.
Merry recycling!
Not only is there a boundless amount of gorgeous, made-by-hand, one-of-a-kind items for sale, but the the website itself is a work of art.
I learned on Etsy.com about something called the Hand Made Pledge. Read about it at buyhandmade.org.
Really. I'm in love.
My paternal grandmother made gifts by hand every year. She was constantly making things by hand, all year, for a big, disorderly family of six children and many, many grandchildren. She created paintings, made ceramics, made dolls (and their clothes), and countless other projects big and small. And she was good at it: she taught others how to do these things, and she sold many paintings and dolls over the years. This is the part I am sad to tell you: I did not appreciate these handmade gifts at the time. I didn't get it. If I could talk to her now, and on a certain level I believe I can, I would not only revel in her handmade gifts, I would hop on a plane with my children and play in her wild, disorderly studio with her near the beach in southern California, where my father was raised. Some lessons take a while to learn, but I learned what you taught, Grandma. I get it now, and thank you.
Did you know you can receive excellent midwifery care right here in north Arlington? Tammy McKinley, a neighbor and friend of mine, is a practicing midwife. If you were from the Seattle area, where I'm from, this wouldn't seem especially unusual, since there are so many midwives in practice in that area. But here on the east coast, the trend is much smaller but growing, so I'm delighted to let you know that a wonderful midwife is really, really nearby. Midwife-attended births are growing in number world-wide, as more and more people learn the huge benefits of evidence-based, natural maternal and infant care.
You can contact Tammi at tammi@naturalbeginnings.org
My daughter, Leah, was born with attending midwife and doula, and I'm a huge advocate of giving birth this way. If you'd like to learn more, here's a good place to start: http://cfmidwifery.org/index.aspx
And a great book to read is Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, a terrific overview by legendary midwife Ina May Gaskin.
Justin and I took our two children to the Puppet Company Playhouse in Glen Echo Park, MD (only took 20 minutes to get there). We saw The Nutcracker, and all four of us are completely in love with it. Wonderful! If you haven't yet gone to this puppet theatre, go right now. Please, take my car.
Blog reader, this is John Feierabend, Ph.D., professor of music at the Hartt School, University of Connecticut at Hartford. I've just found this guy and some of his articles on-line. He's an excellent writer, and he makes compelling arguments for the absolute necessity of quality music education for young children. Check out the article "Music and Movement for Infants and Toddlers: Naturally Wonder-full" here:
May there be pie in your day today. May there only be football if you like football. May there be family. May there be lots of dirty dishes, but then lots of cheerful helpers to wash them. May there be leftovers for sandwiches tomorrow. May the cranberry sauce remind someone of Grandma, and may everyone raise their glasses to family members no longer with you. May you and your kids strut around the dining room table, with your elbows out and your knees up high, singing,
"Who's That struttin' round, lookin' mighty perky?
Looks like it might be old Mr. Turkey!
Gobble, Mister Turkey, that's a fancy way to talk,
Strut, Mister Turkey, that's a fancy way to walk!"
Happy Thanksgiving, friends.
They do several performances and community sings every year. They are both professionals and talented community members--they hold auditions every year for both adults and children. Their performances draw upon the folk music of many cultures: Celtic, Tudor and Victorian English, French, Russian, Scandinavian, American Appalachian, Italian Renaissance, African-American, Gypsy—and different time periods.
The Christmas show is pricey (eye, there's the rub), but worth it. There are other shows and informal events through the year that cost less or are even free, so check them out.
Notice the morris bells just below this guy's knees? If you were in my summer camp, do you remember being morris dancers, making and shaking our own bells?
I think the Revels are cultural anthropologists, keeping traditional music alive so that we can pass it on to another generation.
Here we are at Friday of our enrollment week (already!). Thanks to all who have already signed up! If you haven't yet, my offer of a free Kindermusik CD for early registration is good until Dec 1st.
They scooped up the big pile of trash that was once this house, dropped the scoops into the skippers, hauled them away, and now there is bare earth. I watched it happen, and yet it's hard to believe my eyes when I look across the street. 
May I share with you this chalk drawing, made by Leah, my daughter. When I asked her what she calls this drawing, she said, Girl with Long Hair Plays Glockenspiel. Note the floating musical notes and bass clef. Thank you, Leah!
"We know that there are critical periods for acquiring new skills, such as language. If a child doesn't learn leanguage by the age of six or so (whether a first or a second language), the child will never learn to speak with the effortlessness that characterizes most native speaker of a language. Music and mathematics have an extended window, but not an unlimited one: If a student hasn't had music lessons or mathematical training prior to about age twenty, he can still learn these subjects, but only with great difficulty, and it's likely that he will never "speak" math or music like someone who learned them early. This is because of the biological course for synaptic growth. The brain's synapses are programmed to grow for a number of years, making new connections. After that time, there is a shirt toward pruning, to get rid of unneeded connections." [italics mine]
We help our children form new neurological connections every day in Kindermusik. Yahoo!
