Cool Music for Smart Kids
Since I started teaching preschool this year, I’m even more keenly aware of the importance of quality children’s music.
I use music in my classroom almost all day long. More than half of my class speak English as a second language. Through songs and rhymes, they can engage with the class and get some fantastic English practice.
Music is fun in our class, too! We do fun things like creative movement and dancing with scarves.
Here are the newest titles in my music library:
Music that teaches SCIENCE…
Why Does Gray Matter? is a musical science lesson about how the brain works by Roger Day.
Remember how School House Rock taught us all about grammar and punctuation? Roger Day has taken the School House Rock approach with a science angle for Why Does Gray Matter?, talks about the brain and how it works in songs like “Sara Bellum, the Brainy Girl,” “It’s a No Brainer” about how great math is!), and “Brain Food – Eat it Up!” about the best foods for brain health.
Music that teaches HISTORY…
American Heroes #3 by Jonathan Sprout celebrates the lives of great Americans, such as Milton Hershey (chocolate king/philanthropist), John Muir (conservationist), Elizabeth Blackwell (first U.S. female doctor), Dr. Jonas Salk (polio vaccine), Jane Addams (Nobel Peace Prize), George Washington Carver (agricultural scientist), Wilma Rudolph (Olympic gold medallist), Thomas Jefferson (third president), Pocahontas (peacemaker) and Cesar Chavez (civil rights activist).
Children enjoy the catchy tunes of American Heroes #3 while learning about people worthy of admiration.
Jonathan Sprout does a fantastic job talking about the lives of these American Heroes in a way that children can understand and get excited about, without talking down to kids.
Music that is FUNKY…
Funky Kidz is full of “classic” songs that we remember from childhood, recorded with a fresh angle.
Voted 2009 Children’s Album of the Year by Creative Child Magazine, Funky Kidz showcases tunes in a great variety of styles from classic country-esque to…skat?!
See if the list of tracks doesn’t strike a chord with you (woohoo! pun!):
“You’ve Got A Friend In Me” – Bonerama
“Hokey Pokey” – Big Sam’s Funky Nation
“Zip A Dee Doo Dah” – Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk
“Yellow Submarine” – Papa Grows Funk
“If I Only Had a Brain” – Paul Sanchez, formerly of Cowboy Mouth
“He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands” – George Porter Jr. of The Meters
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” – Theresa Andersson
“Froggy Went a Courtin” – The Radiators
“This Land is Your Land” – Walter Wolfman Washington
“When I See an Elephant Fly” – Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes
“This Little Light of Mine” – Ingrid Lucia
“The Garden Song” – Amanda Shaw
If you are a funky mama, get you some Funky Kidz!
Music about Life…
How Now Brown Cow is a CD I wish I had written.
In How Now Brown Cow, Taft Brown revamps familiar pop songs from the past with lyrics relevant to the life of a child.
Check out some of the song titles: Counting Bananas (Parody of the Tra la la song from the Banana Splits show!), Bye-Bye Tricycle, Socks with Crocs, Sleeping Til’ Morning Time, Loose Tooth (a parody of the song Footloose!), and of course many more!
How Now Brown Cow is sure to bring a smile, maybe a toe-tap and head-bob, and probably get stuck in your head a time or two.
I have a copy of Why Does Gray Matter? to give away!
1.) To enter to win, leave me a comment telling me something you learned from a song! Thanks to music, I was able to learn the names of all 50 states in alphabetical order. This has come in handy more times than you would imagine. Thanks to whoever wrote Fifty Nifty United States!
Please don’t just comment with “Enter me” or “Sounds great”. That totally annoys me. Those entries are not eligible to win.
One winner will be chosen by random number generator.
This giveaway is open to those with a US mailing address.
2.) Email subscribers get an extra entry for as long as their subscription is active.
Already a subscriber? Leave me a separate comment on this post to let me know you’re interested in this giveaway.
Want to subscribe? Just click here: Subscribe to Mom Most Traveled by Email (Only verified subscriptions are entered for all the giveaways.)
3.) Twitter about this giveaway (include a link to this page and @MomMostTraveled ) and comment here with your Twitter name.
4.) Blog about this giveaway, including a link to this post. Leave me a comment with the link so I can check your post!
This giveaway will close on January 15, 2010, 11:59 pm EST.
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04 January 2010, 2:40 pm
I remember so many of those songs!
05 January 2010, 5:56 am
I can’t immediately think of what I learned to a song. However, while this came out quite a bit after I was out of school, I always thought that the Animaniacs singing the countries of the world was fabulous. I don’t know what kid wouln’t have loved it! We now have They Might Be Giants’ ABC’s and 123’s for my son and I really think there is something to be gained from them.
05 January 2010, 5:56 am
I subscribe to you
05 January 2010, 6:24 am
I can’t think of anything I learned from a song except maybe Mr. Rogers singing “I like to take my time …” (for some reason “Never Smile at a Crocodile” immediately came to mind :o)
05 January 2010, 6:25 am
I’m an email subscriber.
05 January 2010, 6:26 am
I tweeted http://twitter.com/slmiresse/status/7401732443
05 January 2010, 8:19 am
I learned the presidents in order that they were president from a song.
05 January 2010, 8:19 am
I subscribe via email.
05 January 2010, 8:24 am
I learned my ABC’s from the ABC song … and of course I learned what a bill was from I’m just a bill… on capital hill
05 January 2010, 8:24 am
I subscribe to your emails
05 January 2010, 8:26 am
tweet
@bdelaughter
http://twitter.com/bdelaughter/status/7404529910
05 January 2010, 9:07 am
I learned the times tables
05 January 2010, 9:07 am
I subscribe by email
05 January 2010, 9:49 am
What was the one from school house rocks? How a bill becomes a law? I am too old to remember! LOL! Cool giveaway–my girls would love this!
05 January 2010, 9:49 am
I am a subscriber
05 January 2010, 10:45 am
I STILL can say all the states in alphabetical order because of that song! I love it! I also remember a lot more about the bill-to-law process due to a song!
05 January 2010, 10:45 am
I am an email subscriber!
05 January 2010, 11:47 am
Well, I learned the alphabet from a song of course.
05 January 2010, 11:48 am
I’m an email subscriber
05 January 2010, 11:48 am
Tweet:
http://twitter.com/clctaube/status/7409950149
05 January 2010, 8:37 pm
Does learning the alphabet count? That is a song! Head, shoulders, knees and toes? lol
Ok, ok, on a more serious side I learned (and have used this song to teach my girls) to count to 10 in Spanish from a song off of Sesame Street. It was one Maria sang and my girls love to sing it!
girlygirlugh at gmail dot com
05 January 2010, 8:38 pm
I am an email subscriber.
girlygirlugh at gmail dot com
05 January 2010, 8:40 pm
I tweeted!
http://twitter.com/girlygirlugh/status/7425729579
girlygirlugh at gmail dot com
06 January 2010, 12:40 am
I learned about the great Chicago fire from the song about Miss O’Leary, or something like that, when the cow kicked over the bucket and what not…
06 January 2010, 12:41 am
I’m an email subscriber, too!
06 January 2010, 12:46 am
I tweeted on you!
http://twitter.com/onlyincambodia
(How do I post my status?)
06 January 2010, 8:40 pm
i learned yrs. later that bob dylan’s song hurricane was about a real fighter
06 January 2010, 8:41 pm
e-mail subscriber
11 January 2010, 3:26 pm
my abcs
11 January 2010, 3:29 pm
I learned the multiplication tables to music. 3,6,9,12,15…(to jingle bells!) I can’t help singing it now… What’s learned in song, sticks! Great giveaway
11 January 2010, 4:18 pm
sticks and stones will break my bones mverno@roadrunner.com
11 January 2010, 6:17 pm
I learned my ABC’s from a song but not until I was in kindergarten. I made sure I sang that song when I brushed my kids teeth very young so they would learn them earlier.
11 January 2010, 6:18 pm
E-mail subscriber
14 January 2010, 7:43 am
I learned my abc’s from a song.
14 January 2010, 12:10 pm
I learned from Here Comes Science that there is a fourth state of matter - plasma and that the sun is made of plasma, not gas. Thanks for the giveaway!
15 January 2010, 9:23 am
thanks to music i know the new testament books in order
15 January 2010, 2:15 pm
This may not be what you were looking for but music has taught me that my kids are mor like me than I ever thought they would be. With them growing up with music, we have all enjoyed being a family that sings together and many of the songs we enjoy are the same that my mother and I enjoyed while I was child. I guess you could say that song has taught me togetherness, love, happiness and how to be child again.
15 January 2010, 2:15 pm
email subscriber
15 January 2010, 2:17 pm
twitter follower & tweeted…. http://twitter.com/packerfantimmy/status/7800277360
15 January 2010, 10:40 pm
The animaniacs helped me remember state capitals LOL
16 January 2010, 12:54 am
I learned about the countries of the world from the Animaniacs.
16 January 2010, 1:08 am
I subscribed by email.