Very Short Song/Story Time - Use & Reuse the Moment
A long rainy day here today. My cold kept LP & I indoors since I wasn't up for puddle jumping so it was art, art, art all morning long. By lunch I was out of coffee, tired of setting up and cleaning up projects and feeling pretty blah.
During lunch, LP requested (or demanded) "sing a song, sing a song, sing a song." After brief riffs on some of her favorite songs which were all met with a head shake of "no" with a grin and repeat of "sing a song," I finally caught on and started making up songs.
Most were very short story-songs...LP told me who the song was about ("a frog") and I filled in a bit (mostly rhyming to amuse us...as you might guess that frog lived in a log in a bog) and then repeated it a few times and ended it.
And immediately LP said "sing a song!"
Since my throat was pretty scratchy, these turned into more of talking-songs or talking in rhythm songs. All very short and all repeated. (If you want to warm up into making up songs, use a familiar song and change one element...instead of the itsy bitsy spider, have the teeney tiny caterpillar and see what happens).
The final lunchtime speaking-song was a about a...balloon (LP says) which was the color blue (LP's contribution) which I took out of my pocket and blew (I held up my hands and blew expanding my hands each time with a loud pffffffffff exhale) and blew and blew. I repeated the blowing 3 times and then mimed tying the balloon and letting it float up to the ceiling and ended with "...and now I have a big, blue, balloooooooooooon!" We did the blue balloon 3 or 4 times and then a couple times with the red. LP clearly enjoyed the exaggerated blowing up the balloon acting out so each time it was a little bigger.
So while we told a few different kinds of stories and songs during lunch, when we found one that engaged LP, it had staying power.
During lunch, LP requested (or demanded) "sing a song, sing a song, sing a song." After brief riffs on some of her favorite songs which were all met with a head shake of "no" with a grin and repeat of "sing a song," I finally caught on and started making up songs.
Most were very short story-songs...LP told me who the song was about ("a frog") and I filled in a bit (mostly rhyming to amuse us...as you might guess that frog lived in a log in a bog) and then repeated it a few times and ended it.
And immediately LP said "sing a song!"
Since my throat was pretty scratchy, these turned into more of talking-songs or talking in rhythm songs. All very short and all repeated. (If you want to warm up into making up songs, use a familiar song and change one element...instead of the itsy bitsy spider, have the teeney tiny caterpillar and see what happens).
The final lunchtime speaking-song was a about a...balloon (LP says) which was the color blue (LP's contribution) which I took out of my pocket and blew (I held up my hands and blew expanding my hands each time with a loud pffffffffff exhale) and blew and blew. I repeated the blowing 3 times and then mimed tying the balloon and letting it float up to the ceiling and ended with "...and now I have a big, blue, balloooooooooooon!" We did the blue balloon 3 or 4 times and then a couple times with the red. LP clearly enjoyed the exaggerated blowing up the balloon acting out so each time it was a little bigger.
So while we told a few different kinds of stories and songs during lunch, when we found one that engaged LP, it had staying power.
Labels: improv parenting story song activity reincorporation
posted by Susan at
6:44 PM
2 Comments:
Susan, these vignettes of mothering with improvised love are amazing, inspiring, and just flat out COOL. Your day to day life is a work of really deep and touching art, and it's awesome that LP gets to create it right alongside you! Go collaborators!!!!
~ana
p.s. I'm trying to figure out how to do some of this stuff with THREE little kids!
Thank you Ana - your reflection on the blog means a lot (I got a little teary).
AND thinking about doing it with three...wow! I'm doing some group storytelling at Habitot on Tuesday ams so I'll share ideas for the larger cooperative action as I figure it out! (The kids the last 2 times have been between babies who are just hanging out to 4 year olds who seem to be the most ready to jump on in.
Post a Comment
<< Home