Never planned to homeschool, now wouldn't trade it for the world
If you’ve been a blog reader for awhile, you know we have loved Songs for Saplings for years. I have great news for you! They have recently changed things to get this music into more hands by making the digital downloads of all albums FREE. Yes, free.
You are able to donate to their ministry of spreading the Gospel here if your heart is led.
Remember I have printables to go along with Questions with Answers Volume 1 and Songs for Saplings ABC.
I am pleased to welcome a new blog sponsor and share a fabulous new website all focused on Teaching Children Music!
Tamsyn and her husband are launching a brand new membership website all focused on teaching children music. How cool is that?
FREE Music Activity eBook!
Tamsyn is offering an incredible 60 page eBook, Music Games and Activities, to give you a FREE sample of her work. You can download this for free here!
There are several different options with the Kickstarter, the best one in my opinion is the $30 option. During the Kickstarter campaign the $30 option will get you access to all the materials in the first two products {Beginning Rythym eBook & The Solfege Train eBook}, PLUS everything added to the membership website during the first SIX months! The first two products alone are valued individually at over $35, what a great deal!
Get a quick peek at the entire plan for the Teaching Children Music membership site through this short video!
I asked Tamsyn what she had in store for the membership site and what we could expect as members. My main question was focused on how the site will help the music illiterate parent feel comfortable and know where to start. She has several things in the works which are mentioned on the Kickstarter site, I asked her to give us more details about these so we would know what to expect.
Here’s what she told me…
 There will be several mini-courses.
- For the recorder lessons, I will assume no musical background. It is for the absolute beginner.
- The sight-reading videos are sequential and will be great for beginners because they can learn the songs by rote (ear), and pick up the note reading skills as they go along.
- I do have a course outline in hand for the music theory and ear training materials I’m making, based loosely on my college syllabi. These will start easy but will progress rapidly and assume some music background. My goal with this is to make advanced, college-level theory accessible to children.
- The chord reading/play-by-ear course is not a traditional approach to piano, and would be good for an absolute beginner as well as one who has had lessons but does not know how read, build, and play chords.
- The story books will stand independent of everything else, as will many of the games and printables I will make on the side.
If you’ve been looking for materials to really teach music literacy, this just might be for you! be sure to take a peek sometime this month so you can take part in the Kickstarter and get the amazing start up deal to the new membership site.
Tamsyn is available to answer questions, to clarify how to use the materials, and so forth. You can find contact info at the bottom of the Kickstarter page!
~Ladybug is currently 31.5 months old~
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Letter: Xx
Object: Xylophone
Vocabulary Development Theme: Instruments
Tot Book Extension: Little Einsteins
You can find the printables for this unit here on the Tot School Printables webpage.
I can’t believe we are so close to the end of Tot School Printables! It is coming at a perfect time. She still likes them, but not as much as she did in the beginning. She is ready for something new. We will be completing the units before the new year and starting something fresh in January when we return from Christmas break! I will be writing a post soon to share what my plans are, I just haven’t had the time yet!
We made play dough letters…
Coloring xylophones…
Putting stickers on the dot-paint sheet…
Fun Books & Toys for this unit here!
The theme of instruments made me think of one of Ladybug’s favorite shows, Little Einsteins. I created some extra activities for her, which as you will see she LOVED! Download the Little Einsteins Tot Book for free here!
She loved the mini book!
We slipped the dot paint sheets into sheet protectors and she squished play dough balls on the dots.
Then she asked to write their names. Her tracing seriously amazes me. Her simple desire to trace amazes me to be honest!
We made the shapes with dough too…
Then she dot painted a few of them…
We used dot stickers on some too!
She worked on her rocket colors book over a period of several days. The other printables also came out numerous times!
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I remembered to take a photo of her shelves this week! Nothing too great, but here they are……
Didn’t take many action shots, but got this one of her stringing her beads!
She loves that Laura Carrot sings. This is the same manger in the book, The Stable that Bob Built-which she is loving right now!
The instrument box was a hit! One day we turned on our Laurie Berkner DVD for some movement! She was shaking her Boca Beth Egg Shakers to the music!
Her Tot Time Notebook {which has only ABC sheets in it right now} gets filled in almost daily-she gravitates towards it on her own and will often sit and work through every single page!
The new Play Dough Box has been a HUGE hit. She has asked for it daily, almost to an excessive point!
We have been reading a few gingerbread books and there are gingerbread cutters in the box…which has provided TONS of fun for her and the boys!
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One night when the boys were at church with Daddy, she begged me to do another Truth in the Tinsel bag. Instead, we painted another crown craft, and then she didn’t want to stop, so we kept on painting!
…and painting…
…and painting!
After a few normal painted sheets, she decided to turn it into finger paint {with my approval}…
She LOVED it! 
Remember last time she painted and painted her arms? She was starting to do it again and I decided to put the limit on her this time and said just her hands.
This was her sorrowful response. The girl does not like to be told NO! She listened though, very sadly {and a bit loudly}.
We had such a fun time together, since it was mostly giggles and smiles! The tears only lasted a few minutes!
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For our weekly music time, we sing many of the same songs each week {which you can find here}, and I am also adding in some special seasonal songs. This week I chose a few TURKEY SONGS from my former Kindergarten teaching days. The kids liked them, and especially enjoyed the colored feathers to put on the nekkid turkey ;-).
Here’s an Instagram video of my daughter singing the song!
Also, I used a craft this week that was one of those package deals from the craft store. You know the type, the ones that are supposed to be easy-peasy, but rarely are. These fancy little turkeys drove me nuts. Yes, they turned out cute, but good grief, they were annoying to make.![IMG_3136_thumb[1]](http://web.archive.org/web/20151107073453/http://lh6.ggpht.com/_pOdvWF5uIYs/TNx-sP75mrI/AAAAAAAAXz8/OdNSty6F7FM/s1600-h/IMG_3136_thumb%5B1%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "IMG_3136_thumb[1]")
Visit the Fall Fun webpage to see the downloads for the Turkey Songs and more!
See more…
Looking for more Thanksgiving fun? Â Follow our Thanksgiving Pinterest Board here!
For our weekly music time, we sing many of the same songs each week {which you can find here}, and I am also adding in some special seasonal songs. This week I chose a few PUMPKIN SONGS from my former Kindergarten teaching days. I decided to make new printables for us and for you this time! I printed our songs 1 per page this time {trimming a bit after printing} and then mounted them to colored cardstock before laminating.
After we had our group time, I put the songs into a small basket with some little foam pumpkins {we got ours from Jo-Ann Fabrics}, and some books about pumpkins and Halloween from a Christian perspective .We have been using our basket each day to review our songs and read our pumpkin books too.
We own many of these and enjoy the others from the library!
Visit the Fall Fun webpage to see the downloads for the Pumpkin Songs and more!
See more…
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Bella Dia stacked paper Christmas tree craft for kids
