Happening Parents

Singing is a great way for kids to pick up confidence, especially if they are willing to sing into a microphone in front of an audience. 

Pat bought a small toy keyboard with a stool and microphone at the Takashimaya toy fair for $29.  It comes with a range of preset songs and the kids love the way they can control both the speed and volume of these songs.  When they 1^st pick up singing, especially when they don’t know the lyrics, you will sometimes have a hard time deciphering which song they are even singing.  When Arielle was about 18 months, it took us a good 3 weeks to figure out her version of “It’s a small world” for all the words we could make out were “…small …all…(x2) …( then a very long pause finishing with)…world”  since she sang the rest of the song silently in her head.

For the Chinese illiterate, (like Pat & Ian who struggled just to pass their A Levels), the new range of Chinese CDs and DVDs are great in introducing popular children songs (with proper Mandarin pronunciations) to Raphael and Arielle.  These help to reinforce the Chinese lessons taught in schools and we have seen a marked improvement in their confidence levels and ability.  With exposure to these media, they learn Chinese characters in a fun, non-threatening and sublimal way with the subtitles. 

Sing-Along Action Songs

 Jazz is now teaching her son some sing-along action songs. Some of the songs that Timothy enjoys are: “The More We Get Together, Together, Together, The More We Get Together, The Merrier We’ll Be” and they will dance and sway their hands held together, and Tim make a turn at the end of the each song.

Another song that Timothy enjoys is: “Skimmer-ing-ki-ding-ki-ding, Skimmer-ing-ki do, I Love You…..” now Tim knows the action “I Love You”, and he does that to all of us. Tim will give Jazz a big hug and melt her heart whenever she sings this song – which is why she sings it fairly often.

 Also see educational media.