You guys! We have now done Morning Basket every morning for a whole month and it has become a part of our family and how we start our day every-single-day. A while back I saw that my friend Ashley over at The Littles and Me (go check out her a-mazing blog!) had song sticks for her girls and I knew we had to add them!
I used the adorable Song & Activity Sticks from Bitty Beginnings to make ours. She has 14 different colors in the download which was fantastic so that I could categorize our songs. These printable Song & Activity Sticks work perfectly with Jumbo Wood Craft Sticks!
Here are the different categories I chose for all of our songs:
Our Family Favorites – Pink
Musical Favorites – Black
Bible Songs / Hymns – Purple
Creative Movement – Yellow
Sing & Learn – Lime
Nursery Rhymes – Green
Disney – Blue
Halloween – Orange
Christmas – Red
These were extremely easy to make! I printed out all of the adorable Song & Activity Sticks pages in the colors I chose for each category onto white cardstock. I then just used a regular black thin Crayola marker to write all the songs on the cardstock pages. I am a preschool dance teacher and have previously owned a stroller fitness program, so I am very familiar with songs for littles 😉 I just sat down and thought of us many as I could. I then cut them all out with just a regular scissors. I had a box of Jumbo Wood Craft Sticks and Mod Podge already. I used a paintbrush and brushed Mod Podge onto each stick and then glued the paper on to each one. In total, because of how many songs I did today, it took about 2 hours to print, cut, brainstorm songs, write them on and glue them all.
SUPPLIES USED:
And this will make hours of fun and family memories that are going to last our littles girl’s whole lives.
We keep this jar of Song Sticks in our Morning Basket. Every morning when the girls wake up, they head straight to the table and high chair and we immediately start Morning Basket. You can find posts here on our blog about how we do Morning Basket. Here is the one from last month (September 2017 Morning Basket). I am putting together our October basket now and will have that post up tomorrow 😉
In between each activity or story we read, I have Lilly Belle choose a song from the jar. We sing it together either without any music in the background or using our Apple TV, I use Apple Music to pull the song up and we sing along OR sing AND dance along! We then go back to the basket for the next activity.
This helps to keep us on track and I love how much goodness this puts into our day and into their childhood. The songs I have chosen are songs I want them to remember always and be able to sing to their children one day. These are songs that I hope to get them through life. It was eye opening how incredible this was working for our family and what it is doing in our girl’s lives when Lilly Belle had her 4 year check-up a few weeks ago. She had to get a shot and I had to hold her down on the table. It was awful. As she was crying, I held her close with my face next to hers and she whispered, “Mommy, can you sing Castle on a Cloud with me?” So as she lay there crying, I sang to her and she calmed down immediately.
Later she told me, “I am so glad I learned all the songs in my jar because that song made me feel better when I got my shot!”
When our family just went through Hurricane Irma, I had this our Song Stick Jar in the bathroom where we had to “hunker down” for the weekend. I sat in there with the girls, in our blowup pool (had to make it fun) and we pulled songs and just sang and sang. They thought it was so much fun and never felt scared.
I know these songs will continue to help us. When the girls are having a bad day or both melting down, I either grab a book or I grab the Song Stick Jar! It always changes the mood and makes our day brighter – every-single-time. Our girls love music (I wonder why?) 😉 and our Song Stick Jar has become such a part of our everyday and I know it always will be. Our songs now are lots of baby and preschool songs, but this jar will evolve as our girls do and as our family continues to grow.
CURRENT SONG LIST
Our Family Favorites
Skinnamarinky Dink, You are My Sunshine, Billy Don’t Be a Hero, Lilly Belle (Frank Sinatra), Lavenders Blue, When Papa Put the Paper on the Wall, The Luckiest (Ben Folds), Sunshine on My Shoulders (John Denver), Save a Little Money (song my Great Grandpa sang)
Musical Favorites
Castle on a Cloud, For Good, My Favorite Things, Bushel and a Peck, Tomorrow, Do Re Mi, Seasons of Love
Bible Songs / Hymns
Father Abraham, Jesus Loves Me, Amazing Grace
Creative Movement
Baby Shark, The Princess Dance, We are the Dinosaurs (Laurie Berkner), The Goldfish (Laurie Berkner), Slippery Fish, Going on a Bear Hunt, Hop Up My Baby (Kindermusik), Head Shoulders Knees & Toes
Sing & Learn
ABC’s, Old MacDonald, Bingo, Working on the Railroad
Nursery Rhymes
London Bridge, Jack and Jill, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Pat a Cake, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Ring Around the Rosy, Jack Be Nimble, Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, Mary Had a Little Lamb
Disney
Go the Distance, How Far I’ll Go, Let’s Go Fly a Kite, Part of Your World, When You Wish Upon a Star, Feed the Birds
Halloween – For these I have an Apple Music playlist that we will put on and dance!
This is Halloween, I Want Candy, Calling All the Monsters (China Anne McClain), Monster Mash, Ghostbusters, Adams Family, I Put a Spell on You (Hocus Pocus), Purple People Eater, Thriller
Christmas – Starting early so they know these before the holiday season starts 😉
Jingle Bells, Oh Holy Night, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Silent Night
I will be keeping a blank piece of paper on our kitchen counter to write songs down throughout the week as I think of any and then add more each weekend.
I hope your family enjoys this as much as ours does!
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