A Family Guide to Parenting Musically


Book Description

"A Family Guide to Parenting Musically is a resource for families who want to make music a more meaningful part of their daily life. The guide is full of ideas about how to engage in musical parenting (doing things to help your child grow musically) and parenting musically (using music to achieve parenting goals). Designed for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and friends, this guide includes ages-and-stages chapters as well as chapters organized by musical activities and scenarios. Seventy activities offer families specific ways to explore the ideas that all humans are musical, music is important, and there are many ways to be musical. Based on the author's research and teaching with families and music over the last 20 years, as well as mothering her own four musical children, A Family Guide to Parenting Musically provides developmental information and research-based discussions in an easy-to-read format. The guide provides insights about using music to make parenting a little (or a lot!) easier, more fun, and more meaningful"--




Raising Musical Kids


Book Description

Does music make kids smarter? At what age should a child begin music lessons? Where should you purchase an instrument? What should parents expect from a child's teachers and lessons? How can you get kids to practice? Raising Musical Kids answers these and many other questions as it guides parents through everything from assembling a listening library for kids, to matching a child's personality with an instrument's personality, to finding musical resources in your community. Knowing that children can—and often do—get most of their music education from their school, parent and educator Robert Cutietta explores the features and benefits of elementary and secondary school programs, and shows how parents can work with the schools to provide the best possible music program. Throughout the book, Cutietta emphasizes the joy of participating in music for its own sake. The first edition of Raising Musical Kids delighted and informed parents to equal degrees, and this fully-revised second edition is a book that parents everywhere will treasure as a complete road map for developing their child's musical abilities.




Parenting Musically


Book Description

Parents use music in family life to accomplish practical tasks, make relational connections, and guide their children's musical development. Parenting Musically portrays the musicking of eight diverse Cleveland-area families in home, school, and community settings. Themes from interviews focused on the families' hopes and dreams for their children musically, as well as the families' perceptions of media messages regarding parents and music, serve to deepen the documentation of how families use and perceive music in their daily lives. Family musical interactions are analyzed using the concepts of musical parenting (actions to support a child's musical development) and parenting musically (using music to accomplish extra-musical parenting goals), arguing the importance of recognizing and valuing both modes. An additional construct, practical/relational musicking, adds to the detailed analysis of family musical engagement. Practical musicking refers to musicking for a practical purpose, such as learning a scale or passing the time in a car; relational musicking is musicking that deepens relationships with self, siblings, parents, or community members, such as a grandmother singing to her grandchildren via Facetime as a way to feel connected. Families who embraced both practical and relational musicking expressed satisfaction in long-term musical involvement. Weaving together themes of conscious and intuitive parenting, the rewards and struggles of musical practice, and the role of mutuality in community musicking, the discussion draws on research in music education, psychology, family studies, and sociology. This book serves to highlight the multi-faceted nature of families' engagement in music; the author urges music education practitioners and administrators to consider this diversity when approaching curricular decisions. Written in a style accessible to laypersons, this book will interest a wide range of music educators as well as families, community members, and scholars and practitioners in family studies, psychology, and sociology.




The Music Parents' Survival Guide


Book Description

This book of parent-to-parent advice aims to encourage, support, and bolster the morale of one of music's most important back-up sections: music parents. Within these pages, more than 150 veteran music parents contribute their experiences, reflections, warnings, and helpful suggestions for how to walk the music-parenting tightrope: how to be supportive but not overbearing, and how to encourage excellence without becoming bogged down in frustration. Among those offering advice are the parents of several top musicians, including the mother of violinist Joshua Bell, the father of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the parents of cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and those of violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. The book also features advice from music educators and more than forty professional musicians, including Paula Robison, Sarah Chang, Anthony McGill, Jennifer Koh, Jonathan Biss, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, Marin Alsop, Christian McBride, Miguel Zen?n, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Kelli O'Hara, as well as Joshua Bell, Alisa Weilerstein, Wynton Marsalis, Anne Akiko Meyers, and others. The topics they discuss span a wide range of issues faced by the parents of both instrumentalists and singers, from how to get started and encourage effective practice habits, to how to weather the rough spots, cope with the cost of music training, deal with college and career concerns, and help young musicians discover the role that music can play in their lives. The parents who speak here reach a unanimous and overwhelming conclusion that music parenting is well worth the effort, and the experiences that come with it - from sitting in on early lessons and watching their kids perform onstage to tagging along at music conventions as their youngsters try out instruments at exhibitors' booths - enrich family life with a unique joy in music.




The Music Parents' Guide


Book Description

A lot can happen with 10 minutes of musical practice a day. Self-disciplined, compassionate, responsible, collaborative, confidant, and proud. These are all characteristics of children who play musical instruments. What's more, the benefits of music education reach far beyond the lesson and well into all aspects of adulthood.This book will help your child reap the rewards of opening that case; together, you will learn what music can teach:* Every child is naturally talented.* Consistent practice is the key to success.* Parents and music educators are partners in the learning process.* How to remove barriers to successful practice.* The importance of giving your child ownership of their learning.With the right approach, your child will do much more than grow in musical proficiency, they will become the person they were meant to be.




A Family Guide to Parenting Musically


Book Description

A Family Guide to Parenting Musically is for families who want to make music a more meaningful part of their daily life. It is full of ideas about how to engage in musical parenting (doing things to help your child grow musically) as well as parenting musically (using music to achieve parenting goals). Designed for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and friends, this book includes 70 musical activities and is written in a clear and engaging style. The companion website features audio examples of songs, chants, and activities and links to Lisa Huisman Koops's popular Parenting Musically podcasts.




The Harmonious Child


Book Description

Children are naturally musical, but many parents don’t know when or how to begin their child’s formal musical education. Whether you wish to encourage your child’s musical growth, or would like to plan more advanced study, this book provides insight and guidance for parents of children from toddlers to teenagers. Beth Luey and Stella Saperstein walk you through the basics of finding the right instrument and instructor for your child, the ins and outs of music lessons, and successful ways to manage practice time. Along the way, they let you know what questions to ask and why. This is the place to find practical, friendly, and knowledgeable advice about marching band, orchestra, and recitals—even the possibility of a musical career. With a thorough list of resources and a glossary, this guide will help you encourage your child to channel that joyful ruckus into beautiful music.




Freak the Mighty


Book Description

Max is used to being called Stupid. And he is used to everyone being scared of him. On account of his size and looking like his dad. Kevin is used to being called Dwarf. And he is used to everyone laughing at him. On account of his size and being some cripple kid. But greatness comes in all sizes, and together Max and Kevin become Freak The Mighty and walk high above the world. An inspiring, heartbreaking, multi-award winning international bestseller.




Dear Evan Hansen


Book Description

From the show's creators comes the groundbreaking, bestselling novel inspired by the hit Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen. Dear Evan Hansen, Today's going to be an amazing day and here's why... When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family's griefover the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore--even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend.As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he's doing can't be right, but if he's helping people, how wrong can it be? No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He's confident. He's a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself. A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.




The Grimm Conclusion


Book Description

From Newbery Honor-winning, New York Times bestselling author Adam Gidwitz Cover may vary Did you know that Cinderella’s stepsisters got their eyes pecked out by birds? Really. And that Rumpelstiltskin ripped himself in half? And that in “The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage,” a mouse, a bird, and a sausage all talk to each other? (Okay, I guess that one’s not that grim.) Those are the real fairy tales. But they have nothing on the fairy tales in this book. For more twisted tales look for A Tale Dark and Grimm and In a Glass Grimmly. * “Underneath the gore, the wit, and the trips to Hell and back, this book makes it clearer than ever that Gidwitz truly cares about the kids he writes for.” —Publishers Weekly starred review “Entertaining story-mongering, with traditional and original tropes artfully intertwined.”—Kirkus Reviews “As innovative as they are traditional, the stories maintain clear connections with traditional Grimm tales while creatively connecting to the narrative, and all the while keeping the proceedings undeniably grisly and lurid. . . .Readers will rejoice.”—School Library Journal