Every Day Sing

Carter goes to a music program after school. It's a really neat concept: the kids get time for recreation and snacks, but they also get private and group music lessons and do other creative activities. The school's philosophy is essentially that music instruction should be comprehensive and holistic. 


Carter is getting private piano lessons, and he has group classes in things like Notation (music literacy), Animation, Rhythm, and a class they call Every Day Sing, where they, well, sing. Every day. Last week, they had an open house where they shared some of the songs they've been learning so far this year. 


Carter is in the first row, on the far right in jeans and a black shirt. I'd like to state, for the record, that he sings these songs at home all the time. Loudly, even. But... well, you'll see. (Click the bottom right of the video to expand to full screen).

Parades

Yesterday afternoon, Thomas, Carter & John went to the high school homecoming parade. It was VERY exciting because his teacher was driven one of the floats.

Then, today, we were all in the Little 5 Points Halloween parade. His music school had a float and we all participated. We shrouded John's stroller in spiderweb fabric rather than risking spit up on his costume. We're saving that for Halloween. Carter, however, gave his costume a trial run, minus the teeth. Quite a few people expressed surprise when they realized that there was a "real baby!" in our stroller.

What Carter is learning at camp

Impressive, yes? It pretty much covers everything I know about music!

Carter's Concert

After several months of being camera-shy, Carter performed a couple of songs for you on camera with his "guitar". Enjoy this short video (with earplugs, possibly).



Think he has a future in heavy metal? Or in... (what's the opposite of music)?

Lyrics

On the way home from school this afternoon, Carter requested his favorite song, which is about a guy falling down and hitting his head. While the song was playing, Carter started saying "He got boo-boo! He got boo-boo again!" I turned down the volume and started quizzing him about the song and came to realize that he understands far more of the lyrics than I would have thought possible (I personally have a terrible time understanding lyrics, and I have a lot more English language experience than he does).

So now I'm just imagining what kind of influence our grown-up music is going to have on wee Carter. I can see it now. If he learns too much from this particular song, the next time he gets hurt, it might go something like this:
"Carter! How did you get hurt?"
"I busted ass off the jungle gym, mom."

Carter's Favorite Song

This morning, while running errands, Carter and I were listening to music. A song came on and Carter informed me (emphatically), that it is his favorite song. He's never claimed a favorite before, so it was pretty darn cute. For the rest of the drive, we listened to the song and sang the "uh-uh-uh-oh" parts over and over again. That is the only part that he sings and is undoubtedly the reason he likes the song so much (if you listen to the amazon preview of the song you'll hear that bit) .


As both Thomas and Mandi can attest, listening to a Ben Folds song on repeat and singing along at loud volumes is not really a rarity in my car. Like mother, like son, I guess.

Really BIG Songs

Every night before bedtime, Carter and I read books and sing a few songs. One song he particularly likes is the "big and hairy" version of the Itsy Bitsy Spider ("The big and hairy spider went up the water spout..."). It's sung with a big, deep voice and with clapping hands instead of the more complicated little spider finger play.

Lately, he's begun to insist that ALL of his songs be sung "big". So we've had to come up with some new song variations including "twinkle, twinkle, REALLY BIG star..." and "five GIANT ducks went swimming one day...".

Needless to say, you'll never see clips of these songs on this blog (at least not sung by me), but Carter loves them and the accompanying motions are pretty funny (the mother duck's quacking requires a very large range of motion).