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• Talking to Your Kids About Manners—At the Table and Beyond
• It’s in the Mail! Explore the Joys of Exchanging Letters

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Using Highlights and Highlights High Five to Help You Share Music with Your Kids

Music is a wonderful way for different generations to connect and have fun. Everybody, from the youngest to the oldest family member, knows a song or two. Swapping songs (and reminiscences about where you learned them) gives you and your kids a chance to share music and have a good time.

The Inspiration
Spoonful of Music in the July issue of Highlights (pages 16 and 17) describes how, at age 10, Claude Ferguson learned "spoon playing" from his grandmother. Making musical instruments out of household objects is an time-honored tradition. Washboards, pots and pans, and combs covered with tissue (to make a kazoo-like sound) have been played by folk musicians for generations.

To hear some actual tunes played with metal and wooden musical spoons, visit HighlightsKids.com.

What You Can Do as a Family
Put aside the iPod and earphones for a little while, take out that guitar (or create your own instruments--out of spoons, if you will), and use your voices to sing. Has your child learned any songs this year at school that he or she wants to teach you? What are some of the favorite songs you grew up with? Take turns swapping songs and then all join in to play them together.

The Inspiration
Highlights High Five presents a fanciful poem called A Cat Came Fiddling (page 2) about animals dancing to bagpipes to celebrate a wedding. Young children enjoy hearing songs and poems that encourage them to move along to the words and tune.

What You Can Do as aFamily
Remember those party-play songs and dances you loved as a child? "The Farmer in the Dell," "London Bridges," "Ring Around the Rosie," and perhaps even "Little Johnny Brown" (a dance from the Georgia Sea Islands) are some of the traditional party songs and dances that have been a part of childhood for centuries. Share some play songs from your own childhood, ask your child to teach you ones he's learned, or go to the library to get a book of them. The rhythm and rhyme of dance songs provide excellent opportunities for language learning, encourage kids to cooperate, and help get them moving. These play songs are also great party activities for young children.