Monthly Archives: June 2013

Kids Music About Science That You’ll Also Love

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theymightbegiants_scienceI am a big science geek.  When I was younger, I loved watching NOVA.  Now I am all grown up, I still love NOVA, watch Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda, and listen to NPR’s Science Friday.

When looking for music for my kids, I naturally gravitated toward those about science.

Here Comes Science is one of the best music CDs about science, by none other than They Might Be Giants.  I played in the car for the first time for my two boys, they both loved the songs.  With titles like “I Am A Paleontologist” or “How Many Planets”, I was drawn to the music myself.

For those who are fans of the Big Bang Theory, I am certain that you’d agree with me that the theme song by Barenaked Ladies is by far the best song about Science, ever!

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started–Wait!
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history,
Unraveling the mystery,
That all started with the Big Bang! BANG!

Ladybug Girl And Pinkalicious

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Back in college, I chuckled when my psychology professor talked about how she strived to raised her children in a gender-neutral way.  She had a girl and a boy.  One day, her son wanted to go to school with hair clips just like his sister.  Despite gentle discouragement, she wasn’t able to talk her son out of it, so off he went to school with hair clips.  Fortunately other kids thought it was so novel and did not tease him.

Now I have two sons, I found myself in a similar delightful dilemma.  Ever since I downloaded Pinkalicous the Musical to my Honda Odyssey’s hard drive, little E has been asking me to play it whenever we are in the car.  Periodically he’ll shout out, “I love pink”.  Even my kindergartner says, “Mommy, do you know my second favorite color is?  Pink!”

Children’s books really shouldn’t be about the gender of the main character.  It should be the interesting things the characters say or encounter.

I’d like to introduce two book series where the central characters are girls with strong personalities.

Ladybug Girl is about a girl with a red ladybug costume.  With a vivid imagination, she forms a bug squad with playground friends.

Pinkalicious is about a girl who obviously loves the color pink.  In fact, her obsession often leads to trouble, as she turned pink after consuming too many pink cupcakes.

What other young heroine book series do you recommend?

Yoga for kids

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In the past few weeks, our little E’s teacher Chandrika started introducing yoga to kids at preschool.

When my 3-year-old boy came home and demonstrated “ice cream” and “airplane” poses, it was incredibly adorable.  I immediately purchased a copy of Bal Yoga for Kids book and DVD, the same material used at school.   Now it’s becoming our nightly routine. Before I put the kids to bed, we stretch and do a few poses.  We end the night with the Namaste pose (legs criss-crossed with thumbs and index fingers touching to make a circle).

One great thing about this collection of video is that it introduces 30+ poses, 26 of them (A-Z) are based on animals or everyday objectives, e.g. ice cream, umbrella.  Not only are kids mimicking animal postures, e.g. extending two arms to form an elephant trunk, they are also learning A, B, C at the same time.

Here’s A for Airplane pose.

bal_yoga_airplane

I did yoga when I was pregnant with my first child.  While I appreciate the meditative aspect, I never quite appreciate it until recently.   This mother-and-son yoga time has given us another chance to bond.

Here’s a promotional video from the publisher:

I highly recommend this book/DVD/audio CD set!