Music Ed 101

“Can we watch a Stevie Wonder video again, Mom?  Can we, can we?”

I love that kid.

And clearly we’re doing something right because she has excellent musical taste!  I started the musical indoctrination early. Anna’s nighty-night mix includes the following:

•  Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles 
•  Your Song – Elton John
•  Just the Way You Are – Billy Joel
•  My Cherie Amour – Stevie Wonder
•  Peaceful, Easy Feeling – The Eagles
•  Blessed – Elton John
•  Ventura Highway – America
•  Is This Love – Bob Marley & The Wailers
•  Over My Head – Fleetwood Mac
•  You Are the Sunshine of My Life – Stevie Wonder

      And that's only a portion of the list; there are over 20 songs. I’ve been singing many of these songs to Anna at night since she was a newborn, while rocking or dancing her to sleep.  We started mostly with classical, and then some jazz – Ella Fitzgerald singing “Cheek to Cheek" and Miles Davis playing “Bye Bye Blackbird” were early favorites.  But when our bedtime ritual became longer and longer, I thought some soothing and mellow classic rock/pop songs would be appropriate.  Thus, this playlist was born.

Teach Your Children

Returning to our series about researchers’ most important skill areas for parents, we come to #5 on the list, education and learning.  It’s probably obvious to everyone that it’s important to “promote and model learning” and to “provide educational opportunities” for our kids.  What is interesting to me here is the variety of views out there about how best to go about accomplishing this.

One debate revolves around whether flash cards are useful or not. I will save thorough discussion of that for another post, but I will say that even though hands-on learning is best, I do think flash cards have their place too. Anna really enjoys them and has gotten quite good at connecting pictures with letters.