Right after Gus was born Molly told me about a wonderful music class that meets at the Fred Heutte Center and I feel like I have been waiting for him to be old enough for it since then. Now at 18 months Gussie likes all things musical (AKA noisy) and loves to dance. So we were off to Little Rockstars, finally.
Little Rockstars is run by Miss Holly, of Mountaintide fame. For the first half of the class she plays the guitar and everybody sings. Some of the songs are old favorites, some are rewordings of old favorites and some are her very own creations! They are all very interactive and require the listeners to help moo, stomp, clap, etc. Then comes the dancing, and after that, a giant bin of instruments to root through and experiment with.

The Heutte Center is a wonderful place for the class, its cozy and friendly but still has plenty of light and space for babies to run. Plus with all the flowers blooming around its the perfect place to play after the class is over, too.

The video below is not only Gus's favorite of Miss Holly's songs but shows a little big of how fun the classes can be. The Little Rockstars classes are $8 per session, $5 for each additional sibling. Or else you can purchase a special pass, 8 classes for $40.

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, but recently we came across something so stupendous that we just had to share: sweet, soulful children's music by local group Mountaintide. Mountaintide is duo Jim Newsom and Holly Bishop, a fiddle and a flute, and their songs for kids (they also do music for grownups) are about going outside, having adventures, and imagining the silliest things.

We saw them at  in Virginia Beach one rainy afternoon a month or so ago and within thirty seconds of them taking the stage Anouk had abandoned her scone and was up and dancing with a crowd of kids. Of course we had to go home with the CD and have listened to it every day since.

To listen to Away We Go (Mountaintide's children's album), click here. Our favorite is Outside on a Saturday but they are all so much fun.

Anouk has loved listening to music almost from the beginning (and I do mean all the way back to the beginning -- when I was pregnant with her, she would kick and roll in my belly every time I listened to music.) Lately, she's become a fan of singing, too. So almost every day now I find myself breaking out either the guitar or ukulele for an impromptu sing-a-long. In true toddler fashion, A. wants to hear the same songs over and over and over again. She could happily sit and listen to "So Long, Farewell" and "I Wanna Be Like You" on repeat for hours. 

But me...not so much. In fact, both of those songs are starting to make me want to pull my hair out though I do love them deep down. Yesterday, I'd finally had enough and thought we should try and freshen up our repertoire, so I went to the bookshelf and pulled down one of our old-standbys, Rise Up Singing. 

Rise Up Singing is a must-have resource for any musical family. It's a famous group-sing songbook dating back to the 1970s -- if you ever went to Scout camp or Bible School you might remember a copy being passed around from hand to hand. Over 1,200 songs ar efeatured in the book, which is devided into categories like, "America," "Hope," "Rounds," "Gospel" (and even "Ecology"). The songs are mostly folk songs, sea chanties, and old ballads, but there are some hymns as well as pop songs of the 1950's and '60s -- the only criterion for inclusion that the authors had when putting together the book was that all of the songs must represent "a world where everybody shares and no one is ostracized." 



Best of all, a chord chart is provided for each song, and by and large, they are easy enough for even a beginner musician to master. 

We have found so many beloved songs in Rise Up Singing. Every time we page through it, we find another gem. Yesterday afternoon we spent the afternoon singing almost every song in the "Sea Chanties" section. 

Rise Up Singing runs about $30 on Amazon, even used, but it's worth every penny, in my opinion. (The Norfolk and Chesapeake public libraries have copies if you want to take it for a test drive before buying.) In the meantime, here is a playlist of some of our favorite songs we've found in the book voer the years (you'll need to download Spotify to listen, if you don't already have it).

Enjoy, and HAPPY WEEKEND!