Saturday Song - Tue Tue

First off on today's blogging agenda, I wanted to address some technical difficulties associated with these song clips. If the clips do not show up in your side bar under the title "Songs to Sing with Children," you are missing a plug-in that you will have to download. It might look like a green puzzle piece when you scroll over the empty space under the title. Click on it and it will guide you through the simple downloading process. If for some reason you are unable to download the plug-in, you can always listen to the files by clicking on the blue "View my Files" box in the side bar. Click once on the icon you want to listen to under "Songs for the Classroom" and the song will play - no need to download it to your computer first. Hope this helps!

And now for the big news ...In honor of the centennial celebration of the town of Creel, we were treated to a wonderful choral concert featuring a very well known children's choir from Morelia (in the south of Mexico.) It was a VERY big deal, as such concerts are rare in our little town in the sticks. We encouraged the parents at my school to bring their children. Many attended, as well as some of my students who graduated last year. Well, you won't believe what happened. The choir did a bit of a 'round the world tour, singing songs from various continents. When the director told us that they were going to sing a song from Africa, one of my students told me "Tue Tue is from Africa!" (Tue Tue is a classroom favorite.) And then the choir started singing Tue Tue!!! Words are not sufficient to describe the excitement and surprise of my students in attendance. Here's a really poor, flash-less photo to prove it:And that wasn't it! They also sang La Bamba, another favorite of my children. Wow. My children ran up to me after the concert and, with beaming little faces, told me "They sang our songs! They sang our song from Africa! And La Bamba! Those our our songs!" I thought to myself ... how interesting that they always refer to the songs as theirs. For me, this just further solidifies my believe in the importance of exposing children to different music from around the world at a tender age. The wonders of the absorbent mind allow the child to internalize everything, from language and song to movements and attitudes, and make it 100% theirs. Music from other lands is no longer strange. If they have the opportunity to try on clothing from other lands, it is no longer strange. Same goes with food. If these cultures are no longer strange, but rather interesting and exciting, so are the people who belong to the cultures. This is how to nurture compassionate, future citizens of the world. I blogged more about this idea here. So get to downloading the world music files if you haven't already. With that, I'll leave you with the song that caused all the uproar among my students - Tue Tue, a nonsense song from Ghana.

Tue tue barima tue tue
Tue tue barima tue tue
Abofroda, ama dawa dawa tue tue
Abofroda, ama dawa dawa tue tue
Barima tue tue .... tue tue.

Consider adding two claps after the first and second lines. This song can also be sung in a round.

Peace,
Meg