27 Terrific Children's Albums



It’s pretty safe to say that there’s a lot more good music for kids than there used to be.

I have always turned on lots of diverse music for myself in the house, but when Abraham was three, I gave him his own little CD player, CDs, and a good tutorial about how to use it and treat CDs well.  It has been great for him to feel ownership over CDs, and listen to what he wants to, when he wants. He now shares with his two younger siblings.  They have a good, diverse collection, that they (and I) love!

While there are a lot of great choices, there is also plenty of mindless, crazy, and just plain bad music. I feel about music the way I feel about food: if it’s not good enough for me, it’s not good enough for my kids.  If they don’t learn to like the best now, how could I expect them to like it “when they grow up”?  There’s plenty to choose from, so skip the junk.

Here are our favorite 27 great children's albums.

Folk

• Elizabeth Mitchell--A wonderful folk children's artist, with lovely, mellow, and traditional songs.  If you like her and her style, give her Pandora station a listen, and you will find lots of really great artists with a similar sound.

• Raffi--Banana phone.  'Nuff said.

• Jack Johnson--Curious George--If you like Jack Johnson, this is quite a fun kid's CD. In fact, of his different CDs we have, this could be the best.

• John Denver—All Aboard--A really fun, classic John Denver CD all about trains!  Who could resist?

• Train Songs--If you're into train songs, that's what this CD has!  The whole CD is very vintage-sounding, and includes wonderful classics like "Drill Ye Tarriers," "Casey Jones," and "Down by the Station."

Classical & Other

• Children’s Songbook--You can download all 285 LDS Children's Songbook songs for free!  (Also in Spanish, Portuguese and French.)

• Three Musical Fables with music by John Rutter--This one has a lot of talking, but the stories (The Wind in the Willows, Brother Heinrich's Christmas, and The Reluctant Dragon) and accompanying music are lovely.  They're great for quiet time.

• King Singer’s Kid Stuff--The King Singers, Judi Dench & Mother Goose = triple-win combination.  Probably my favorite CD on this list.

• Carnival of the Animals--This one is especially great because it has the Ogden Nash poems too.  It's a really fun way for young kids to get excited about classical music.

• Peter and the Wolf--I don't have this version, but it seems well rated, and it has narration too!  My boys love this story and the music.

For Fun

This music is a little more for kids who are a little bit older and want more funny lyrics and a bit faster tempo.

• Tom Chapin--I grew up on this music, and in my opinion, his earlier music is better.  Kids get a kick out of his lyrics, and he covers a variety of genres in each CD.

• Bert and Ernie's Greatest Hits--Hilarious and sweet. . .

• Classic Disney--It's fun when you can find a good medley of great Disney classics.  Or you can just buy individual songs and make your own of all your favorites!

• Songs from the Street

• Shirley Temple--The Very Best of

• Any Putumayo Kids, especially Animal Playground--Another of my very favorites.

• Sandra Boynton’s Frog Trouble--Sandra Boynton has lots of fun illustrated books with accompanying CD's.  They all look pretty fun, but this is the only one I can speak for.

Musical Soundtracks

We all love musicals in my family, and this is perhaps the boys' most listened to genre.  Whether or not they know the movie or stage versions, they love the energy and fun of these classic musicals. These are our favorites.  Some of them only have a handful of songs worth having, so again it might be better to buy the songs individually when possible.

• Mary Poppins--Please take a moment to imagine my boys marching around to "Sister Suffragette."

• The Music Man

• The Sound of Music

• The Wizard of Oz

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

• Pirates of Penzance

• Newsies

• Frozen--I have to admit, the new soundtrack is pretty singable!

Go to Sleep Music

Any good, peaceful classical music will work for this.  These are just two of our favorites.

• Libera--Extremely peaceful and beautiful, my kids fall right asleep to this "angel music."  I secretly want to move to London so my boys can be in this choir.

• Putumayo Presents Dreamland--Lovely world lullabies.

As a bonus, here are three artists I've been listening to lately: Eric Bibb, Eva Cassidy, and The Lower Lights.

What do you and your kids enjoy?

Charity Never Faileth

Instead of doing lots of big goals in many different areas this year, we decided to have "Charity" be the theme for the year, with small goals coming from the definition in Moroni 7:45 in the Book of Mormon.  There are 12 attributes listed in the scripture (if you combine "rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth), so there are enough to do one a month!  

I made this printable so we can have it up all year as a reminder of our goals.

Every month in Family Home Evening, we will introduce the new topic and make corresponding personal and/or family goals.

January is "suffereth long."  We define this mostly as patience, and, living in a family we have already had plenty of opportunities to practice!  So far, it has been really fun.  Our kids are young enough that they still go along with all this stuff without complaining :)  We each picked one thing we had to practice being more patient with, wrote it down as a goal, and did some fun role playing.

Do you now or have you in the past had a scripture theme for the year?  Do you make goals as a family?  How has it worked out for you?

Kids Choice Day

We made up a new holiday today.  It's called "Kids' Choice Day" and takes place the day after Christmas.  Today was a trial run, and we all rated it a smashing success!  It came about because of my thinking about how we need to be better about playing with our children, and letting them take the lead on play more often.  Here's how it works:

Kid's Choice Day

Rules:

• The family needs to stick together
• There is a set budget 
• All the kids need to be in agreement
• The kids get to choose what the family does all day!
• The grown-ups can't be involved in the decision-making unless requested

We had a blast.  The kids watched a couple cartoons in the morning (including watching UNICEF's Global Handwashing Dance three times--a family classic), then we went to the awesome College Park Aviation Museum for the rest of the morning.

 From there, we went to the park to try out our new Christmas scooters.

#backwardshelmet

Next up on their list was Chuck e Cheese.  Where in the world did they even hear about it?  Well, we stuck to our guns and didn't use veto power.  But we kept it short and only spent $5, and they seemed to have a good time.  We were too embarrassed to take pictures.

Then we came home and had pizza and watched Fantasia and read books.  We all had a great time, and it's something that they'll definitely be looking forward to for next year.  After all, it's the only other day besides their birthday when they don't have to do ANY jobs!  For us, it was fun to have a relaxed vacation day, where we were not in charge of entertaining, and the kids liked talking with each other about the plan and informing us.  

A Christmas Story: "Christmas is for Sharing"

I love Christmas stories. This one is from the childhood of my great uncle, Richard Warner (as told to his sister, Emma Lou Thayne). My mom read it to me when I was a girl, and before bed tonight, I read it to my inseparable boot-loving boys. I hope that as they grow, they will be as loving and good to each other as the sweet boys in the story. Enjoy!

source

Christmas is for Sharing

I knew that Homer had wanted canyon boots for as long as I could remember. He was eleven and I ten, and we had spent many nights under the blue quilts at the cabin talking about how great it would be to have some real boots — boots that would climb through thorny bushes, that would ward off rattlesnakes, that would nudge the ribs of the pony; we had planned the kind of leather they should be and what kind of decoration that should have.

But we both knew it was just talk. The depression had been hard on Father's business, and even shoes for school were usually half-soled hand-me-downs.

Christmas that year had promised as always to be exciting, though mainly because of the handmade things we'd worked on in school for our parents. We never had money to spend on each other, but we had caught early in our lives a sort of contagion from our mother. She loved to give, and her anticipation of the joy that a just-right gift would bring to someone infected our whole household. We were swept up in breathless waiting to see how others would like what we had to give. Secrecy ruled — open, exaggerated secrecy, as we made and hid our gifts. The only one whose hiding place we never discovered was my Grandmother's. Her gifts seemed to materialize by magic on Christmas morning and were always more expensive than they should have been.

That Christmas I was glowing because Mother had been so happy with the parchment lamp shade I'd made in the fourth grade, and Father had raved over the clay jewelry case I had molded and baked for him. Gill and Emma Lou had been pleased with the figures I'd whittled out of clothespins, and Homer had liked the Scout pin I'd bargained for with my flint. Then Grandma started to pass out her presents.

Mine was heavy and square. I'd been in the hospital that year and then on crutches, and I'd wondered how it would be to have an Erector set to build with. Grandma had a knack at reading boys' minds, and I was sure that's what it was. But it wasn't. It was a pair of boots, brown tangy-smelling leather boots.

I looked quickly to Homer's package. His was a sweater. He'd needed one all fall. I wanted to cover my box before he saw what it was. I didn't want the boots; they should have been his. He came toward me, asking to see, and I started to say, "I'm sorry, bruv."

But he was grinning. And he shouted, "Hey everybody — look what Richard's got." He swooped the boots out of the box, fondled them like treasure, and then sat on the floor at my feet to take off my half-soled shoes and put on the brand new boots.

I don't remember how the boots felt, nor even how they looked. But Christmas rang in my soul because my brother was glad for me.


Richard Warner
As told to Emma Lou Warner Thayne
December 1964

Hurry Up and Play!

One summer when I was a teenager, I met some second-cousins and we soon started playing together and having a great time outside their family cabin.  After about a half hour or so, their mom came outside and said, "I was washing the dishes inside, but I had to leave them and come out here and play because you looked like you were having so much fun!"

Evelyn obviously has too much unsupervised play

I was so impressed that she would leave her work half way through to come play with us that I determined to be "that kind of mom."

After reading and playing by himself for a half hour, Benjamin came upstairs like this.

I, unfortunately, don't think that I've held to that determination very well.  When the kids are playing happily by themselves, instead of thinking, "That looks fun!"  I think, "Look how much I can accomplish!"  And when I'm done with the urgent things on my "To Do" list, I often read to myself or to the kids, but not often enough do I think of playing with them.  

Source

The holidays are a perfect time to take advantage of the kids being around and playful, but it's also very convenient to keep hacking away at the endless "To Do" list. It's not always a get things done OR play decision.  I've been surprised how much faster my chores go when I really make an effort to go fast. And it's more fun!  When I work hard to make child-led play a priority, there are big payoffs in our relationship, and it's also really fun! 

Are you good at remembering to play with your children?  What do you like to do together?  How do you find time, and how do you remember?

LDS Perpetual Christmas Advent Calendar

LDS Holistic Living made a beautiful advent calendar that you can print off and use how you will through out December.  We'll definitely be taking advantage of it!

Yep, Christmas Music has definitely started at our house.

Suppa' Time

Between 5:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. chaos erupts in the cute little ranch-style house with the white picket fence. Fiery explosions come in blasts from a tired one year-old, crashes come from a penned-up toddler who loves to romp through walls and furniture, and an almost-teenage angst comes from a kid who wants to play but needs to work a bit, even after a long day of school. 

The water in the pot bubbles to a boil, the vegetables begin to steam, and the oven temperature climbs. The heat is on at the Marshall's in those pre-dinner hours.

Dad comes home and the chaos melts into symphonic celebration. Loud joy. 

Then dinner, which is a clamor. For food, yes, but more for attention. This comes in the form of boisterous baby babbling, talking through stuffed cheeks, standing up on chairs, loud voices bouncing off the narrow dining room walls, and behavior fit for an oafish lump of vikings. 

I'm out of ideas. 

I love dinner.  I work hard to make dinner and to prepare for it.  We even breathe and stretch for a while before dinner starts to help everyone mellow out.  

What do you do so that meal prep time and dinner time are peaceful, happy times?  How do you teach and reinforce manners without making them the only topic of conversation at dinner?  How do you teach your children to be polite when other people are talking?

Family Personal Scripture Study

My five year old (who has just become an independent reader) recently started asking for his own Book of Mormon.  We thought it was a great idea, and started a morning personal scripture study time right when the kids wake up. The younger siblings can only look through scripture related picture books. We do it for about ten or fifteen minutes. I've been really tempted to use the time to make a delicious breakfast for these cuties, but I feel it is important for them to see me studying my scriptures too.

 So far, the boys love it and remind us right when they wake up!  It makes sense to start personal scripture study now, while they are young and excited about it. That will make it all her to continue that tradition as they grow.

Happy Autumn!

Yin and Yang

My mother is in Argentina right now, and has had something of a monastic two weeks by herself to contemplate and meditate.  In her weekly letter to family, she included this brilliant piece about Yin and Yang.  It's worth a read, and will give you some food for thought for your weekend.  With her permission, I share it now.

In prayer and reflection time, I've thought of the concepts that eastern philosophies have words for the energy balances we need in our lives--yin and yang (my feng shui teacher insisted that we pronounce yang in a way that rhymes with "song," not the orange breakfast drink!) Life would probably have been easier for me if we had words for them in English. As I understand them, they acknowledge that a balance of both energies in each system (a life, a family, a home, a country, etc.) is ideal for well-being. 

Yin, known as the female energy, is receptive, quiet, nurturing, characterized by listening, hearing, understanding, mercy, beauty, winter, the moon and night. The male yang is a bright energy of activity and growth, action, and justice. It is dynamic and powerful, characterized by the sun, speaking, acting and giving. These characteristics should not be confused with the genders they represent, as all people have, or should have elements of both in their being, though the gender association is surely not accidental. In my unofficial observation of marriages for example, I think that in some cases the wife is the more yang and the husband more yin of the two. It probably doesn't matter.

They both sound good to me in my own extremely yin season, and yang sounds especially good at the moment.

Together, they represent perfection (think of the yin/yang symbol). But each energy in its excess leads to dis-ease. Yin can cave in on itself, and implode in sloth and inaction. Yang is hurried and competitive. Unmoderated, it leads to enmity, thoughtlessness, aggression, insensitivity and violence. Ultimately, it explodes. Consider young men at war. (Hugh Nibley's article "Matriarchy and Patriarchy" has informed my thinking on this, and is probably another way of looking at the same energies). It's interesting to consider the tendencies toward violence and ugliness (in my opinion) of very yang societies which repress or pervert yin energies, such as some in the Middle East. According to Nibley, yin societies stagnate.

As I have considered this tension, I believe one of the reasons that the world is heading toward its prophesized violent combustive ending is that yang energy is generally (but not completely) ruling the world, and increasing. Eckhart Tolle has mentioned this (see A New Earth). In some corners, yin energy is growing, as seen in the growing popularity of yoga, and meditation.

But generally, we are in a period of increasing speed of almost everything, including travel and communication, and living in general. We no longer recite or listen to poetry, sit together, visit one another, go for walks, or watch the sun set.We don't even write much, generally. (Most TV watching seems the worst of both worlds--utterly useless inaction spent watching an aggressive, self-focused yang world.) This has been coming on for a long time now, and much of it is due to technology, (which I mostly adore), but which obscures the natural rhythms of life--the gathering of darkness in winter, the cold which drives us inside to be together, to talk, to read and to listen. Now, it's always daytime, and we can always, day and night, tell and hear some new thing (Acts 17:21). Some may think this is not to be regretted, and candidly, I'm not sure how many poetry recitations I'm prepared to sit through at the moment. But I do think we are off balance when sensitivity, gentleness and growing things like marriages and children take too much time, as we rush headlong through hard and often thoughtless, activity-driven living; likewise when, as Elder Christofferson mentioned, women characters have joined the killers in video games. (And, to be current, when somehow it is weakness to negotiate compromises in a representative government, so that shallow, unexamined ideologies and enmity rule.)

My thoughts today have been that in the gospel, the Lord honors both yin and yang energies, and asks us to do the same. The Savior, with only three years in which to teach the gospel and organize His church, resorted often to personal prayer and reflection, often leaving the masses of people who wouldn't leave Him alone. (Sometimes He left them miraculously.) He made time for quiet conversation with individuals at the edges of wells, and in the midnight hour. He took naps on boats! His yang activities were mighty--cleansing the temple twice, feeding the multitudes (probably also twice), preaching at the temple many times. But He sought time with His Father always. The prophet Joseph Smith, the kingdom builder, also took much time for meditation and prayer. How he ever did anything but appear in court with the hundreds of accusations thrown against him is a mystery to me!

In the gospel, the sacrament, scripture study, prayer and temple worship are surely critical yin activities. Missionary work, service of so many kinds, provident living, and much of family life are usually mostly yang. All are essential. I think that yin energy may be growing in the Church, to its great benefit, as yang grows in the world, as the role of women in the family and society is celebrated as it was by many speakers in this conference, including Sister Stephens and Elder Christofferson and others. The importance of yin devotional time ("Abide with Me") is pared with yang work and energy ("Put your Shoulder to the Wheel"). We heard messages of "Never look back at what you have done. Look at what you still have to do," with "If you don't take time to be well, you will surely take time to be sick." And we are taught to take time to make sure we have the Spirit of the Lord with us as we engage in the yang work of teaching, serving and doing missionary work.

This weekend, I have felt the Lord's assurances that in my life, both yin and yang energies are essential, and that the Lord will allow time and strength for both, if I seek them, regardless of what my responsibilities now or in the future may be.

Tea Party Food

The tea party for our sweet baby's first birthday was really fun.  I tried to design the setup and food for the birthday girl and the other babies to be comfortable and enjoy themselves. And I think they did.

Birthday Princess

We had three little tables, one for the babes, one for the big girls, and one for the mamas.  They all had variations on the same food. 

The Mama's Table

The Mother's Table had herbal tea, banana cupcakes, cucumber sandwiches and oranges.

Cucumber Sandwiches
Mix softened cream cheese with dill-weed, a little lemon juice and a bit of Tabasco, salt and white pepper. Peel and slice cucumbers thinly, let sit in salty ice water for up to an hour or more in the refrigerator. Drain and pat dry with clean dish towel or between paper towels. Assemble on good quality sliced bread, and use cookie cutters to cut them into cute shapes :)

The Big Girl Table

The Big Girl Table had apple juice, mini banana cupcakes, and jam and cream cheese sandwich

The Baby Table

The Baby Table had water, cheerios, bread stars, and tiny cupcakes (in ketchup cups).  It was all in plastic, and baby-proof, and they were very happy to wander around a table their height and browse the food at will.

The banana cake is a sugar-free recipe I have (that works equally well as a muffin or banana bread). 

BANANA SPICE CAKE

Beat together in a bowl:
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
¼ cup natural peanut butter (I use chunky)

Stir together in another bowl:
2 cups whole grain flour (I use oat)
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon ginger (do not use fresh ginger root, use the powdered ginger)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients.  Pour into greased pans.  For a 8" square cake pan, bake at 350 for about half an hour, until a knife comes out clean.

For frosting, I beat equal parts Trader Joe's Pumpkin Cream Cheese and Butter until fluffy, and then added a sweetener of choice until desired consistency.