YMB #58 Singing in Morning Time: Yes, you can! A Conversation with Heather Bunting

This is your morning basket, where we help you bring truth, goodness, And beauty to your homeschool day. Hey everyone. And welcome to episode 58 of the, your morning basket podcast. I’m Pam Barnhill, your host, and I am so happy that you are joining me here today. While we have a fun show for everyone. Today, we are interviewing Heather bunting from the children of the open air YouTube channel.

And this YouTube channel is all about the Solfeggio style of learning to sing. Yup. I said it, you can learn to sing and teach your children to sing in morning time using Heather’s methods. Now this is All free on her YouTube channel. She records the same lessons for your family that she uses for her family and her homeschool and her morning time.

It’s a wonderful conversation. I think you’re going to be inspired and learn a lot. We’ll get on with it right after this word from our sponsor.<inaudible> This episode of the, your morning basket podcast is brought to you by Maestro classics. Would you like to bring classical music into your children’s lives? You can add classical music to your morning time today with Maestro classics.

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go to www.maestroclassics.com. That’s my Stroh’s spelled M a E S T R O. classics.com where the best classical music curriculum awaits your homeschool. And now on with the podcast,<inaudible> Heather bunting is a homeschooling mother of three with a background in music since first hearing about Charlotte Mason, during a philosophy of music education class, Heather has spent years reading about and contemplating miss Mason’s ideas and connecting with others in real life and online who practice this style of homeschooling in 2016,

Heather created the YouTube channel children of the open air, where she shares singing lessons, folk songs, and short chats about music in the home. Heather joins us today to talk about singing in morning time, Heather, welcome to the podcast. Well, thank you, Pam. I’m glad to be here. Well, let’s start a little bit first by talking about your family and how you got started homeschooling.

Okay. Well, my husband is a minister and we live in upstate New York and we have three children. And right now they are five, eight and 10, and we just knew a few homeschooling families early in our marriage, even before we had children and just decided that was something that we wanted to do someday. And so it just seemed to fit our lifestyle and we’re the kind of people that just really love learning.

So we enjoy learning as a family. Awesome. Now I want to ask you a question because it said you first heard about Charlotte Mason during a philosophy of music education class. And even though I know Charlotte Mason talked some about music, that’s kind of like the last place. I would expect somebody to learn about Charlotte Mason, you know, from, so how did that happen?

Well, it was actually, she had a little paragraph in a textbook that we were using and I think it’s the philosophy of music education. And the last name of the author was love Buddha. And so just this little paragraph in there among other other people who had written philosophies of education, just kind of gave a description. And so it wasn’t like I settled on Charlotte Mason then and there,

but you know, that name and some of the information I learned about her kind of stuck with me. So when I heard about her later, then I had something to kind of go on. Okay. And so this was like a philosophy of music education class. It was it a public university or a private university? It was a private university. I went to DePaul university in Indiana.

Okay. Okay. Because I took a ton of education classes in a public university and I never heard anything about Charlotte Mason. So I just thought that was kind of a interesting way to get your first kind of glimpse of who she was, because for most of us that comes with something like for the children’s sake or a homeschool forum or something of that nature.

And so it was really interesting to me that that’s where you heard about her for the very first time. Right? Well, the second time was for the children’s sake because I got that as a gift at a baby shower. And so I just, I was immediately drawn to that philosophy and it just really seemed to fit who we were Awesome. And what a great baby shower,

Let’s talk about morning, time. Do you do morning time in your home and what does it look like? Yes, we do. And I have noticed it has evolved noticeably through the years and I started out, we didn’t call it morning time, but when my little boy we’re just like toddler preschool age, we did what we called Bible time, where we would just sing a few Bible songs and we would have some Bible memory work and we do a little Bible story and it was only like 10 or 15 minutes,

but that was a real anchor point in our day. And so after a few years of doing that and about the time that I had two kids officially doing school, I was just feeling really overwhelmed. I was really struggling to get my strength back after a long lasting illness. And I was juggling these two young students and a toddler as well as all the many school subjects that are a part of the Charlotte Mason approach.

And I was just really struggling. And mostly it was a mental struggle for me. Many of those school subjects, they only take like five to 10 minutes, but especially in those early years, I just felt so overwhelmed. So I was talking to a mom at a homeschool conference. It was the Ambleside online conference that year. And she had been where I was and she had kids at the next stage in life.

And she said, you should consider doing morning time. And so I took out our, I took our Bible time habit that we already had and I expanded it. And I put in a lot of those little subjects that I really wanted to do, but I’d been neglecting. And so we added in our folk songs and picture study and some family read aloud and just adding in that truth and goodness and beauty,

it was just so refreshing. And that was really what all of us needed. And for me, it was just easier to think of all those little subjects as a part of a unit and morning time. So it felt a lot less overwhelming. So this school year, I start morning time with all of us together and we begin with a him, and then we read and narrate our Bible passage and we still practice some scripture memory work.

And we have a prayer together. It’s really similar to what began as our Bible time. But then the boys will work on some recitation. And after that, I usually do something kind of light that is especially fun for everyone. So that’s when we’ll do a folk song, we’ll do our picture study some days, some days we’ll do mad blood because they really loved that.

And after that, my, yeah, my daughter who is five, who’s kind of before school age officially, she’s free to go play. And actually she’s free to go play Bible, but she always likes to hang around in here. What else her brothers are doing. And so after that, then we get into like a media reading or two where we’re working on some history together or Plutarch or Shakespeare with just the older boys and we’ll work on some Latin and we break up those,

those harder subjects with some readings. Aren’t, it’s like, well, we’ll break up those readings with a movement break and a snack break in there. So that’s kind of what it looks like right now. Oh, I love it. And you know, I think it’s something to do with personality type or something, but, and I’m not officially a Charlotte Mason homeschooler,

but I still struggle with the same thing. You know, we’ll do like 10 minutes of grammar or we’ll do like a few minutes of foreign language or, you know, our memory work only takes a few minutes, all these little bits and pieces and it wasn’t until I put them together. And in my mind had this kind of one unit that I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the idea of getting all of these things done and we get so much more done now because to me it looks like one thing,

it looks like morning time, but you know, at any given time we have eight to 10 different subjects going on in morning time. We might not be doing all of them every day, but we have a lot of different things that we’re touching on over the course of a week. Yes. And that’s exactly what it was for me. And so it just really,

it just took a load off of my brain a little bit to be able to do it that way. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And it’s, you know, I just goes back to doing what works for you and if you’re one of those people that, that feels overwhelmed by this multitude of different subjects, she would like to do grouping them all together can really,

really help. Well, let’s talk a little bit, let’s talk a little bit about your love of music and singing. So has this been something that’s been going on for you since you were a kid? Yes, it really has. And it must’ve been really early in life because I don’t remember not loving it. Singing was just really natural for me on Sundays.

We had acapella congregational singing. That was a part of our worship growing up. And so my parents were always singing with us sometimes when we were doing chores around the house or riding in the car, those are some of my happiest memories, especially. Okay. And then, so why is it important for us to sing with our kids, especially for those of us who feel like we can’t sing?

Well, I think the simple answer is because we are human beings. Every report, every person is born with their very own instruments and that’s their voice and it’s free. And I just believe every person should learn to sing because it’s such a gift to be able to do that. And I don’t mean to be able to perform at Madison square gardens or Carnegie hall,

but just being able to easily engage in and enjoy music by singing anywhere, any time, even if there’s no guitar or piano accompaniment, that’s just such a blessing to be able to jump in and sing happy birthday with everybody or to sing carols at Christmas and to be able to sing in tune and it, and with confidence, that’s a basic skill that I’d love to see every child learn.

And I also believe that singing is the one school subject that we know we will enjoy for eternity in heaven based upon what we read in scripture. And that thought just really inspires me. And it encourages me that even though we can’t have perfect voices now, well, we can then, and just thinking about how beautiful that will be is kind of exciting to me.

Oh, I love that thought. Yeah, because I’m pretty sure that heaven doesn’t include math, but it’ll definitely include singing because we’ve been told so, so that, that’s pretty awesome. So what do I tell the mom who says to me, Pam, I just can’t carry a tune and I don’t think there’s any hope for me. Do you think following along with a program like yours,

and we’re going to talk more about it as we get into the future, but I want to kind of allay some of these fears or talk to some of these fears that these moms have. Do you think following a program like yours can actually help somebody who feels like they can’t sing on tune began to be able to sing on tune? Is, is singing a learned skill?

Like we’re told drawing is that we can get back there better with, with practice. Yes, absolutely. Especially for children now it does become more difficult for adults, but I know that some children who have been singing with us started out not being able to match pitch and not being able to sing in tune and they were able to pick it up and do that.

And so I just want to encourage moms that, you know, I may be fluent in speaking the language of music. I believe that music is like a foreign language, but I barely know any other words in a foreign language and I really need help in that area. And I think every parent has areas where they have strengths and weaknesses. And I think that we can help our children better when we can share our strengths with one another.

So I don’t think anyone should expect to be strong in every area. And so that’s one reason I like to put these lessons out there so freely, I saw that like, for example, if there was a homeschooling family and they had three or four kids, but neither parents felt comfortable singing those kids would miss out on learning to sing with confidence because usually that’s something that they pick up from their parents and unless they had some other source that would encourage them in that.

And so then those kids would go on and have children of their own. And so that trend could continue through generations. So with these lessons that I’ve put together, mom doesn’t have to be able to sing in tune for the children to be able to learn to do it themselves. But if mom wants to join us, then you know, she might gain her skills,

doing the lessons along with us too. And that would be really great. I believe that singing too is kind of like riding a bicycle. So once a kid has that skill, they’ve got it and they’ll be a lot more comfortable. The more time they spend practicing, riding up and down the driveway and then getting on the road. But even if they let it go a while and they don’t ride for awhile or they don’t sing for a while,

well, that’s something they’ll still be able to pick up and do later, even as an adult. So doing a little bit of work on this now can mean a lifetime of musical skill. And I also know that for most people, I think it’s that the lack of confidence and sometimes just a lack of practice. And so it’s good for kids to see mom trying new things.

And I always say, you can practice in the shower or mowing the lawn. That was actually my favorite place to sing because the lawnmower would drown out my voice. So, you know, if you feel self-conscious, don’t feel too badly because to be honest, I really do to even still, so sometimes you just have to put yourself out there and give it a try.

Okay. I love that advice. I mean, I never ever want to mow the lawn, especially here in Alabama, where it’s like a hundred degrees when you have to mow the lawn. But I love that idea that if you’re practicing singing while mowing the lawn, nobody can hear you anyway. So you can just, you know, belt it out and sing at the top of your lungs.

And I love the connection you made between riding a bike and singing because there’s so much in, in muscle memory that we don’t think about. You know, I’ve actually been away from a couple of hobbies for a long time that had to do with like moving my body physically. I used to figure skate and I used to take dance lessons. And within the past couple of years,

I’ve had a chance to go back and start doing some of that again. And, you know, even after being off the ice for 12 years, stepping back on the ice, it all comes back to you, your muscles do the same. And we don’t think about the fact that singing is really about controlling the muscles in our throat and the flow of air,

you know, that’s going in and out there. And so if we are, we are learning to control that when we’re learning to sing. And so just like any other kind of muscle memory that bike riding the skating, the dancing, it will come back to you after a while. So I love that you pointed that out. I haven’t even really considered that myself that even if we don’t use our voice for a long time,

the muscle memory will come back and we can begin to use it again. Yeah. And a major part of singing is listening. Like maybe more than anything else is our listening skills. And so activating those parts of the brain with that careful listening anyway, that’s a lot, that’s a lot of it too. And you get to really practice that when you are working on.

So does Charlotte Mason’s habit of attention come in when, when you think about and talk about teaching, singing to kids? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That is a really big part of it. Especially if you are singing in a group and you’re trying to match pitch and you’re trying to all blend together, you have to really pay attention. You have to,

it’s not just about the sounds that you are making, but it’s about listening to what other people are doing around you and fitting into that. Oh, I love it. I hadn’t even thought about that. So good. All right. So what do you sing with your children? How do you integrate singing and music into other parts of your daily routines and family life inside of singing lessons and outside of singing lessons?

Well, we generally think him and folk songs and occasionally foreign language songs during morning time and outside of that, we sing in worship on Sundays. And we always end the day by singing a hymn at bedtime. And my husband, he likes to change up to him, but he thinks with the kids, but I have always done the same one for years and years.

I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way. It’s just pick something that you like and do it. And also my kids just randomly sing while they’re doing chores or playing in the car. And that is just really natural for children to do. And I love listening to them. And sometimes there’ll be singing a folk song that we’ve been learning together. But other times they’ll,

they’ll take a familiar tune and they’ll start making up their own words or they’ll just be completely making up their own song. So thinking doesn’t always have to be led by the parents. Actually, it’s a really great thing. If it’s not, it shows they’ve developed a love for singing and it’s become a part of them, but usually parents are going to need to kind of start them down that path.

Okay. And I just want to point out to parents who might be listening and they’re like, Oh yeah, hymns. We should totally sing hymns with our kids. Cindy rollin said years ago. And I think this is absolutely the best advice that you should always start with the hymns you sing in church because then your kids are, first of all, they’re going,

it’s going to be a song they’ve probably heard before, but then it’s also going to be very useful to them as they learn. You know, if you even have pre readers who can’t read all of the verses in the hymnal, and I don’t know about your church, but my church tends to sing every single burst. Like we don’t skip first. And so getting some of those middle verses that I grew up in a church where we did the first,

the second and the last. And so I never knew the third verse of the hand. So getting familiar with all of the verses and the him and for your pre readers, being able to sing those along with the congregation, without being able to read is a really big thing. It kind of bolsters their confidence, I think. Yes, exactly. And many hymns,

they have a form where you have VR using a verse and then you sing the chorus and then you sing a verse that has different words. And then you sing the chorus and the chorus is always the same words and it’s always the same tune. So usually kids will pick that chorus up first and that’s, that’s what they’ll learn. And that’s really valuable for them.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love the fact that so many hymns just have some great doctrine embedded within the, him. You can learn so much by learning and listening to the words. Yes. And some of the hymns, they have some complicated words and ideas. So when I’m doing him with my kids, I always like to read through a verse and we’ll talk about if there’s some,

some words that they’re not familiar with or something like that. We’ll read the words first, especially if it’s something new or even if it’s just the hymn that we sing in church all the time, but they’ve never actually stopped and thought about the words before. So we’ll, we’ll go over that and then we’ll start to sing it. Great tip. Okay.

So let’s talk about Solfeggio now. Okay. First of all, how do you say, Or you said it right? Yep. Yep. That’s the thing I think Solfeggio is Italian. I think there’s a French version of it. There’s soul saw. So it’s just a few different languages take on the same word, but it’s a pretty old idea. Yeah.

Go ahead and explain It. Is this and what makes it a good method for teaching children and families, how to thing? Well, so as I kind of said before, learning how to read music is like learning a foreign language and you learn it best by cultivating an ear for the sound that you hear. And then later you learn to translate that into the notes on the page.

And so full-page is a tool to help people do that. That’s specific for singing. And with full says, you give each note a name and that’s where the dough re MI and so on comes in and you learn the way those notes relate to one another. And so in the same way that some letters of the alphabet are used more often than others,

I memorized E R S T L M. Like those are the most frequently used letters. And so that can be just something handy to know. Well, musical sounds are the same way. Some sounds are used more frequently than others. And some are used a lot as a strong place to land like dough. And so, and so you’re going to have those come up a lot more often,

and some are used more often in passing like fi and T. So with the approach that I use, we don’t learn them in the order of a musical scale. We learned them in the patterns the way we most often see them in action songs and music is just full of patterns, but we start with patterns and sounds that are the most basic and the ones that you’re going to hear a lot in those hymns and folk.

And those are the ones that are understood most naturally by children. And then slowly over time, we introduced more complex sounds and patterns. Oh, that’s really fascinating. I never, I mean, I knew there were eight notes and a musical scale, you know, eight main notes in any musical scale, but I didn’t realize that, you know, some of them were used more than others.

I thought they were just pretty much equally distributed. So that’s really interesting to know. So we’re going to teach through pattern and I really liked that in a lot of times with sulfa. I think one of the best examples is kind of the sound of music. Yes, yes. That’s what most people think of. Okay. So the song DOE a deer where she leads them through singing all the different parts.

Yes. Yes. It’s that same exact system. I think she’s teaching it more like a musical scale in the song. And my approach is a little bit different because like I said, it’s based on what are the patterns that are going to show up most frequently in just simple songs. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about the singing lessons on children of the open air.

If I’m completely fascinated with this idea of letting Heather teach my children, how to sing, which I think a lot of moms would be, how did the lessons on, on the YouTube channel work? Well, as I’ve been teaching my children’s songs and basic sight singing and working towards music literacy in our home, we’ve been making YouTube videos to share with other families so that they can learn too.

And I just saw that there was a real need for that because not very many people have that knowledge. And so I saw that there was a way that I could share what we were doing and I’m not a professional videographer. And my children who are singing with me are not actors or anything like that. We’re all really real people. And so it’s just me setting up my iPhone to record and share what we’re doing in our home,

but everything is just completely free for anyone to use. And the YouTube channel is organized into playlists. And several of the playlists are just simply resources that are there for the parents to use. And you can use them in any order whenever you think you might need them. So there’s a favorite folks on playlist and I’ve included a few recordings made by my family,

but I’ve also linked some of our family favorites that are by professional artists like Elizabeth Mitchell and Dan Zanes. And those are just great songs to listen to, and you can learn to sing them as a family. And I especially think Elizabeth Mitchell is a really good vocal model for children. The songs are light on instrumentation and it makes it easier for kids to hear and they can match pitch and sing along.

Not everything that they hear on the radio is going to be in their singing range. And so these songs are just more accessible for children. I also have a music chat playlist and that’s designed for parents so that they can know a little bit more of the background, what I’m doing in the lessons and why children could watch them. But it’s really just me talking.

And they would probably be a little bit bored, but then I also have a seeing lessons playlist, which is also optional, but I put those videos up there for both parents and children. And there are a couple of videos with some fun vocal warmups. And there’s one about the ways to troubleshoot if your child is having trouble finding their singing voice. And there’s another,

if they’re having trouble matching pitch. So not everyone is going to need to use those videos, but there are some children who might need a little extra help, or maybe if someone’s extra interested in learning more about singing technique. And so I put those out there and refer people to them if they’re having a hard time. Okay. And so with the folk song videos,

about how long are the videos about how long would it take to sing a folk song? Well, probably most people are going to want to do the full fall lessons like in morning time. And those, all of the videos are less than 10 minutes long. Okay. So we’re going to start with the lessons and those are under 10 minutes. And so this is going to work for just about any age group,

right? Yes. Yeah. That’s right. It’s really designed for the whole family. I do think that my children are elementary age. And so if, if you want to use them in morning time with your family, the ages are really flexible. You can make some modifications for younger children when we get to some writing. And I know a few teams that sing along with us,

but I can also understand why some would feel like the program is a little babyish for them and that’s okay. Okay. So elementary is kind of the sweet spot there though. You could pull in some younger kids and maybe some older kids. And then what would I need to do is the mom ahead of time to prepare to do one of these lessons in my morning time?

Well, I always include some information on each video. I put some, some lyrics there, any materials from around the house you might need to gather or any special instructions, you might have to click on the description of each video to see that, but they’re there. And those kinds of preparations are very minimal. And we’re usually talking about, grab a cup from the kitchen or get some paper and some markers.

Those are the kinds of things that I expect would be in every home. But if a parent wants to preview or look ahead, that’s fine, but it’s also perfectly fine to just wait until it’s time to do selfish and pull up the next video on the playlist and then just watch it and think together. Okay. So you’ve made this really easy. There’s not a lot of preparation at all for the mom ahead of time.

I have really tried to. Yes. And it’s also fine to repeat the lessons, repeat watching the video, or even better just singing the songs together or practicing some of the sounds and the hand signs on your own. One thing I want to say is everyone will need to start with the introduction video and then lesson one of level a I’ve had some people me about that.

Like if my child has had some music before, can we just jump ahead a level? And, and I recommend that they not do that because the skills build upon each other. These lessons are really short, but I recommend not watching more than one lesson a week. And that’s because if you go through the, the lessons too quickly, the children just really need time to absorb and assimilate with their learning and hearing.

And it may feel a little bit slow, but it’s meant to be practiced until it’s second nature. And so after your children have gone through these lessons, they’ll, if they’ve kept up, there’ll be fluently reading the simple song by sight, and they’ll be able to identify and write down what they’re hearing and that kind of learning takes time. And it’s meant to be done in very short lessons over the course of several years.

If I was doing this in public school, this would be happening from kindergarten to about fourth grade, but we try not to get too hung up on grade levels because we’re homeschoolers, you know? Right. Okay. So what I think I’m hearing you say is it would be much better to watch a lesson at the beginning of the week. And then if we wanted to work on singing more than once during the week,

either watch the lesson again and repeat it, or if we felt confident doing so practice some of the notes and hand signs on our own. Yes, absolutely. And mostly I’m talking about the soul far lessons that are in the playlist. And if you want to think folk songs every day, or, you know, seeing him every day or any of those kinds of things,

that’s wonderful. There’s really no limit on that. But when you’re actually learning, Solfeggio you just want to pace yourself on that. Okay. So if we’re learning selfish, we don’t have to go all the way through those lessons before we can start enjoying singing the folk songs in the hymns. We’re not going to mess ourself up by quote unquote, jumping ahead and doing that.

Oh, no, absolutely not. In fact, I think it’s, it’s advisable, but especially if some people are listening and maybe they have younger children, if they have all preschool kids or something like that, just start sending some folks on at the family, start picking some of those simple ones before, you know, don’t worry about getting into the football lessons until they get to be about school age.

Okay, perfect. That is some great advice. Love it. All right. So what should we do if our kids aren’t singing along, you know, they might be listening quietly, maybe they’re losing focus or getting a bit distracted or what if they’re even resistant to learning how to sing. Do you have any suggestions for that? Yeah. In my experience,

if it’s just a child getting distracted, you know, you can put a hand on their shoulder or just kind of Pat them on their knee to help redirect their attention. Even just looking at the child with a look on your face that says, I’m expecting you to do something sometimes just a word like, okay, everybody and jump in. It’s also good.

If you can hear each child sing alone from time to time. So you can pause the video and have each child try to sing a little bit on their own. And that can be a good way to bring someone in if they don’t feel too shy about it. If it’s persistent, you can take the child aside and talk to them and just say,

I noticed you often don’t join in when we sing and what’s going on. And, you know, listen to what’s going on in their head. I can’t know all the different reasons why, but sometimes hearing from them what their perspective is. Maybe you can find a way to help them or encourage them, but in order to sing well, you have to listen and really pay attention.

So working on singing might be able to help a distractable child strengthen their attention, but I haven’t really distractable child. So I know that sometimes this is going to be a little tough, but with older children, especially if you, if you have an older child, that’s just a little resistant. Sometimes if you can engage them to help with some of the teaching,

if they are already a confident singer, maybe they can help lead everyone in a song. And, and also I find that it’s a little trickier with boys and some boys, they, they really need a male role model. So ideally if you have a daddy or an uncle or someone that really enjoys singing, that’s great. But if there’s no one in your circle that really fits the bill,

you can switch an older child to Hoffman Academy. And that’s a program that teaches piano and he’s a professional, unlike me. And he put free lessons on YouTube. And our approach is a little bit different because I’m coming from a singing angle and he’s coming from a piano angle, but we use the same fish and rhythm learning system. And I find it’s a really complimentary program and we’re both working towards music literacy.

And he does a lot of singing along with teaching piano and his programs geared toward older students. So if you have a boy who’s just not really getting, you know, getting with us, that’s okay. Maybe being taught by a man could be better received, and then they can learn to sing and play piano at the same time. Okay. What a great resource.

I love that. And something to point out as we talk about children, not paying attention. And you’ve, you’ve mentioned a couple of times that, you know, really this is for school age children. So I would encourage the mom who maybe has a six year old, even up to a seven year old, especially with boys. If they’re very distracted by the lessons that maybe you just stick to singing folk songs and hymns for a while,

and then six months later, come back and try try it again because you’ve got plenty of time. Absolutely. Yeah. And I do find too that, like, I’m not the most exciting person to watch on the video, but a lot of the kids that I hear from are connecting with my kids and it’s mostly my boys who are on the videos.

So that may help too, that they may have fun watching my boy doing the things that they do Well. What do you do about the kid who just flat out says I’m horrible at this and I don’t even want to try, do you have any suggestions for that situation? Yeah, that is a tough case. I think that we want this. We want our children to have every opportunity and to be able to,

to be able to sing with confidence. But I do think there’s a point at which you have to decide if it’s worth pushing it or not. And, you know, if this just isn’t a good fit, that can be okay. Maybe, you know, maybe it’s just a time in their life that they just need to not be pressured in that and that they can come around later and give it a try,

especially if they are, you know, if you’re singing as a family from time to time and you’re singing in worship and that maybe over time there’ll be drawn in, or, you know, this holidays that are, you know, a little closer than I would like to think at this point in the year with the holidays coming up, that’s a time when people start pulling out music and seeing that don’t normally.

And so that may be a helpful time to draw them in when, you know, when you’re you have candles and it’s kind of dark and no one’s looking at them and they’re joining in with some Christmas Carol or something like that. So sometimes trying to capitalize on those kinds of opportunities. That’s some good, that’s some good advice. And I love the idea of,

you know, if we’re not going to pressure, I, I certainly don’t think it would hurt them just to sit and listen. So, you know, maybe the, the idea could be okay if you’re not going to participate at least sit and listen to the lesson quietly, and you never know what they might eventually pick up from that years later as they,

you know, if they later decide they are going to give singing a try. Absolutely. Yeah. We just don’t always know what’s going on in their heads. Well, not so much for the kid who doesn’t think they sound good, but what if my family is singing and making a joyful noise, but all together, we don’t necessarily sound good. How much does it matter for us to stay together and stay on pitch when we’re doing this?

I mean, what if we’re just horrible? Do we keep trying anyway? Well, I would say sounding good is not the goal that we have, but we’re trying to work to grow in confidence and accuracy. And so if you have joyful fingers, that’s really great. That means they have a heart that’s learned to love singing, and you don’t want to smell that and you don’t want to be a perfectionist because that really just takes all the joy out of it.

And so I think, you know, sometimes you just have to let go and just join in and relax a little bit, but you can work on some things. And so some could, because these are skills. So staying together and staying on pitch, those are skills that be learned, especially with practice. So maybe something to consider maybe is it just one child that is off?

And if that’s the case, can you take that child aside on their own and do a little work or say a few words to help them? One of my children was a very enthusiastic singer as a young child, but with kind of a yelling voice. And so she just needed a little work to find her singing voice and then gentle reminders sometimes use your singing voice,

and that would bring her in with the rest of us. And sometimes just giving a word to the group can help with that, that, okay, we’re going to be singing and doing this altogether. So that means you don’t rush ahead in the song. We need to listen to one another and blend their voices together. And that is a learned skill in order to be able to listen to others while we’re singing.

And so I also want to reassure people that despite the fact that, you know, their parents and their grandparents saying my children are not actually born singing like the bomb traps from the sound of music, and I’ve had to work with them and teach them some of those things, like I just mentioned, and children are just going to need some guidance to learn those skills.

And I get messages from time to time from parents that need some help troubleshooting. And I’m always glad to help. I can usually give some pointers or suggest maybe one of the singing lesson videos with some ideas to work on. And I’m really happy if I can help him that way. Oh, I love it. Okay. So what about all the extra noise when you’re doing singing lessons,

you know, distractions from babies and toddlers. And I know that, you know, my good friend, Don Garrett, she posted the other day on her Instagram channel, a video of her dog, and he always Howells during him singing. So what do you do about the toddlers and the dogs that just, you know, are making their own joyful noise during singing time?

Well, when I’m making, thinking lesson videos, we do kennel the dog away from us because we have that issue too. That’s kind of fun. So we can do that. But, you know, with the babies and the toddlers in my experience, singing can be really calming for them. And like in church, it was often the one time during the worship service that my babies and toddlers would actually sit there happily.

And so if you can kind of help that toddler engage a little bit, sit ’em on your lap and, and bounce them to the beat or pack their back in time to the music, or you can rock or bounce a baby to the beat. That’s actually a great time to kind of engage them in the family and what you’re doing. And so you might be amazed that you might hear your 18 month old start singing,

little snatches of songs. And two, it’s pretty remarkable if they’ve been hearing you all doing that. And so you might not even have to help that child learn to sing in tune later if they’ve been joining in and being a part this since they were just little babies. Okay. That’s great. And I, and I love, and I think it just goes back to what you were saying before that,

you know, this is not about perfection. This is about the process. So, you know, if you’re doing a bang up job on your tune, and then the, the, you know, the toddlers starting to make a lot of noisy distractions or something like that, it’s, it’s all a part of life. And we just learn to roll with it and draw the kids’ attention back to what we’re doing and start again.

Absolutely. That’s I think that’s one thing that our culture is getting a little bit off on, and that is that thinking has become like a performance. And, you know, we’re so used to hearing these professionals and not hearing just people just joining in a song randomly and, you know, like it used to be. And I mean, you know,

like a hundred years ago when families were working together or they’d have little singing games that children would do and sing together, and that was just really natural and I’m afraid that’s just not very natural now. And so we don’t want our kids to grow up with this sense that singing always has to be a performance. It’s really just a human activity that we can all engage in and enjoy.

And it can add a little bit of color and joy to our lives. Oh, I love it. Okay. Well, what about folk songs? You’ve mentioned folk songs. A couple of times, we all know that we can go to our churches to find hymns, but where do we find folk songs? Do you have any resources? I know you,

you said you have some on your YouTube channel. What about some other places? Well, in our family, I use a CD by the seekers and it’s called American folk songs for children, and it has over a hundred songs on it. And I liked that because it’s so comprehensive, but in full disclosure, in full disclosure, I do skip over a couple of them.

And so it’s good to choose what’s best for your family. We also let’s see, we really like Elizabeth Mitchell. I mentioned her and she has some songs on my favorite folks on platelets, but I really love all of her recordings. And, you know, children’s music recording. They’re so frequently chaotic and annoying, but Elizabeth Mitchell, I don’t think it’s like that.

And it’s actually enjoyable for the parents too. And so that’s important, I think. And we also use many of the folks on schedule by amplified online and on their website, on the folks on page, they have links to both lyrics and YouTube recordings for many of the folk songs. And just another resource that I really like. It’s called little Songster and it’s a website by a homeschooling mom and she posts the lyrics and the songs,

and she thinks them herself. And she has a very clear voice and she’s, she seems in a perfect range for children and she also doesn’t use any instruments. And there’s nothing wrong with thinking with instruments. All I enjoy it, but they can distract young singers if they aren’t confident in their voice. And so last year we as a family did several of the songs that she posted.

And while I think they’re great for anyone, because they’re just really good quality folk songs. I think if there’s a family with them, some children who are still learning to sing in tune, and they’re struggling to hear the melody of a song, I think they would especially benefit from her recording. And I can send you some links for the show notes if you’d like,

Perfect. Oh, we absolutely love that. Well, Heather, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. You’ve given us so much to think about, and I know it’s going to inspire, inspire some families to get out and look at some singing lessons with your YouTube channel and also folk songs everywhere, and think about how they could possibly bring in some of this to their own morning times.

So would you mind telling everybody where they can find you online? Yes. If you just go to YouTube and you type in children of the open air, that’s the name of our YouTube channel. All right. That’ll pop up. And then you’re also on Instagram as well. Yes, that’s right on Instagram. I am church mouse at home. I just share a lot about our homeschool day.

Oh. And one other thing I forgot about, I have several people who asked me if I have a website and if I do principals or if I have links and I don’t, but another mom has made one and it’s called<inaudible>. And again, I can send you the links to the show notes, but she uses many of my videos with my permission and she provides some other resources to go along with them.

So that may be helpful too. Lovely. Lovely. And you’re a member of Charlotte Mason, IRL as well. Aren’t you? That’s correct. Yes. Curators. Let’s give a plug for that. For the mamas who out there who are interested in Charlotte, Mason, they can find you guys on Instagram. Yes, that’s right. We are primarily on Instagram and I just find it such an encouraging community.

Okay. And that’s instagram.com and it’s that username? Give it to me so I can tell everybody else. Sure. It’s the app sign. Charlotte, Mason, I R L. And that stands for in real life. Perfect. All right. Well, Heather, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on. Well, thank you, Pam.

It’s been a real pleasure. And there you have it. Now, if you would like links to any of the wonderful resources, CDs and YouTube channels that Heather and I chatted about on today’s episode of the podcast, you can find them on the show notes for this episode. Those are@pambarnhill.com forward slash Y M B 58. Now, while you’re over there,

if you would like to leave a rating or review the, your morning basket Podcast, we would really appreciate it. The ratings and reviews that you leave on iTunes or Stitcher for the podcast, help us get the word out about the podcast to new listeners. And we really love it. When you take the time to do that, we’ll be back again in a couple of weeks with another great morning time interview,

and until then keep seeking truth, goodness and beauty in your homeschool day.