This blog is my attempt to document our busy but BLESSED lives raising and educating our children for His glory. A child of God, wife to one, and mom to 6 fabulous kids. We are in our 16th year of homeschooling using a Classical ~ Literature based approach.

Come along for the good, the bad & the ugly.



Sunday, September 30, 2012

Music Together: Family Favorites ~ a TOS review

You might not know that I am quite musically inclined…shhh, It’s my little secret.  As a child I played the violin and I was in choir since elementary school. When we lived in Rhode Island in 9th grade I even had a solo for O Holy Night (my favorite Christmas song) for the Christmas program. However, I got so worked up over singing in front of a big crowd that I lost my voice and could not sing. My love of singing is still there, just not so much in front of people :-).

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My girls are quite musically talented and love to sing also. When the review for Music Together came out we were so happy to be chosen. We received the Music Together “Family Favorites” CD and the companion “Family Favorites Songbook for Teachers”.

Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music program for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, first and second graders, and the adults who love them.   ~website

Music Together was founded by Kenneth Guilmartin and co-authored by Lili Levinowitz to bring music education to children in a simple and easy-to-incorporate format.

The Music Together philosophy is based on 4 easy main points:
1. All children are musical
2. All children can achieve basic music competence
3. Participation and modeling of parents and other primary caregivers is essential to a child's musical growth
4. Growth is best achieved in a playful, musically rich, and non performance oriented learning environment

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The CD features 19 of the best-loved Music Together songs. You can listen to samples of all of the songs on the “Family Favorites” CD page. The CD retails for $14.95 or you can download individual tracks for $.99 each or purchase the entire album for $9.99. Also available is a  Songbook for Teachers that includes 112 pages of music and teaching suggestions for each of the songs on the Family Favorites CD. It retails for $29.95. A combo package of  Music Together Family Favorites CD and Songbook Combo is available for a special price of $39.95 (a $5 discount). Right now, if you use the coupon code “Schoolhouse” at checkout you can save an additional $2 on your purchase!

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  Award-winning CD:

  • A Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award
  • Earlychildhood News Directors’ Choice
  • Earlychildhood News Judges’ Selection
  • National Parenting Center Seal of Approval
  • NAPPA Gold Award
  • iParenting Media Award
  • Learning®Magazine 2008 Teacher’s Choice
    for the Family
  • Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice
  • Children's Music Web Award
  • Mom's Choice Gold Award
  • Parent-Tested Parent-Approved Award

Music Together offers 2 programs, a family class and a preschool class. Both of which are taught by trained Music Together teachers. Licensing and teacher training information is available on the website. Even if you do not have a class in your area you can still take advantage of the program by purchasing the songbook and the CD.

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I used these materials specifically with Montana and McKenzie. They both love these songs and dancing and singing along. McKenzie especially loves song number 9, John the Rabbit. She loves singing the chorus portion, “Yes, ma’am”. Seriously, we play that song alone like 50 times a day! The older girls cringe when she requests her music especially now that it is on my phone. The songs were all very catchy tunes and kept us singing and dancing along. We would definitely recommend this CD for anyone looking for good, quality music for there little ones. 2 thumbs up!!! Be sure to check out what my Crewmates thought of Music Together by clicking on the banner below.

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Company ~ Music Together

Product ~ Family Favorites CD & Songbook

Price ~ $39.95

Ages ~ birth – 2nd grade

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DISCLAIMER: I received the Family Together CD and Songbook from Music Together, in exchange for a thorough and honest review. Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but are not influenced by the company or the free product provided.

DC Trip

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we spent a lot of time in front of this huge dollhouse…it is amazing!

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I hope you enjoyed a glance at our family vacation.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Great Wolf Lodge/Jamestown-Yorktown vacation

Just posting a few pictures from our vacation last week. We had a blast with our family friends, The Zeno’s and look forward to seeing them in 10 days for Apple Picking. Here is our trip in pictures.

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tomorrow I will share photos from our DC trip.