Studio3Music Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Miss Meresa’

Nov
13

Glorious Together

Posted in Family, Things We Love

I can’t emphasize enough the immeasurable riches and benefits I’ve had in my life because of music and dance.  My parents say that I came into the world singing and dancing, and encouraged me at an early age to study both.  No matter what the ups and downs of life, I’ve had the enrichment, encouragement, outlet, and community of the arts.  Now that I am a Kindermusik Educator; I am blessed with the privilege and pleasure of nurturing the development of children and their families through the same kind of musical and movement activities that have so nurtured me.

I love doing the different dances and movement activities we regularly have in class each week.  Participating in open movement activities is great.  I love seeing the varied and creative ways grown-ups and children find to dance to music, and of course, scarves and streamers always help.

But, one of my favorite things is group dances.  Some are fairly simple circle dances and are easier to pick up; others are more complicated and take a few weeks before they really begin to click.  This process is greatly helped when we dance as one cohesive group.

I never require that everyone hold hands when we dance in a circle, but I always encourage it, because, that way we truly dance as a group.  This is important for several reasons.  First, it is much easier to learn and participate in dancing when we have someone else to do it with. Not only do we see each other around the circle, but we can feel each other as well.  We help each other dance by picking up on the collective visual and physical cues of the other bodies around us, which helps us to communicate better.

What is more, being better communicators leads us to another one of my favorite benefits; when we dance together we create community.  It is my belief that group dancing is one of the fastest and best ways to create a safe and nurturing community in my classes.

Sometimes when I undertake to introduce a new dance to a class, I wonder what the outcome will be.  Will I explain it well enough? Will everyone get it? Will they like it? Usually by the time everything is said and done, all my concerns have flow out the window.  We all get up, we all might feel a little silly or vulnerable at first, but quickly realize that we can and will do something wonderful together, and in this place it is ok to be silly and vulnerable.

I see the confidence and courage of both children and adults take a steady climb upward when they feel the comfort and security created by dancing together.  We know in that moment as we see the smiling faces of those we are dancing with all around us that we are doing this thing together as a team.  It only works if we all work together to make it happen, which results in such a feeling of delight, accomplishment, and solidarity. Even if there are a few bumps and hiccups along the way it doesn’t matter, because hey, we did this thing together and it is glorious!

-posted by Miss Meresa, who thinks the world would be a happier more peaceful place if we all danced together.

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May
22

Stories are the Stuff of Life

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Child Development, Education, Things to do

Scottish philosopher John Macmurray said, “There can be no man until there are at least two men in communication.”  This implies that the essence of personhood resides in our relationship and communication with others.  Likewise, stories are meant to be shared.  They cannot exist without a relationship. They are meant to be told and heard, given and received. In the telling of stories, we not only pass on vital information but build and maintain relationships that span beyond the life and time of those who first told them.

For instance, think of the fairy tales and fables we continue to pass on to generation after generation of children.  They carry with them the values, experiences, and traditions of the particular cultures in which they were first created.

There are lessons to be learned, dangers to be avoided, and obstacles to overcome.  Fairy tales’ over-arching themes provide us with lessons about decision making, virtues, life and love, good and evil which prove still resonant and valuable to us who are far outside the original context they were first created in.  What is more, these fables provide valuable insight into a shared past, a culture and people who no longer live anywhere but in the tales we continue to tell about them.

A story is first told then retold.  In this manner a multi-level dialogue is established.  Like a pebble in a pond with an infinite number of ripples circling out from the origin, our stories connect us to each other in the past, present and future. Even if a person is reading a book alone, they are still in relationship with the author and characters of the story.

Moreover, stories take us on a journey.  We get to vicariously travel to places and times far from us, worlds different from our own, undertake adventures, trials, and triumphs and hopefully, come to a better understanding of ourselves, others, and the world.

Whether it is spoken word, book, staged play, television show, or film, stories provide us with infinite ways of learning and connecting.  Stories take us outside ourselves in a way that broadens our understanding.  Stories tell us we are not alone. Someone else in another time, place, or context understands our thoughts, feelings, desires, or experiences and has some wisdom or insight to share with us.  When I tell my stories, I can share what I have learned with others.

In my awesome role as a Kindermusik educator, I strongly encourage my parents to read to their children on a regular basis, and I incorporate story-telling frequently in the lessons I teach.  Added to the benefits of language and literacy skills that come from reading with children, they learn to use the language they hear to express themselves and the story of their own life.

Stories spark the imagination and help us to understand ourselves in the context of what has been, what is, and spurs us to wonder what could be. So keep telling, watching, reading, and creating them.  Stories are the threads which make up the fabric of life.

-posted by Miss Meresa, who loves a good story, and as a child had an awfully hard time limiting nightly story time to just one or two books.

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Apr
6

Getting Dirty in the Garden, Together

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Family, Things to do, Things We Love

Finally, spring is here!  The weather is warming, the sun is shining, and flowers and trees are blooming. April is national gardening month, and now is the perfect opportunity to get outside with your children and get your hands dirty.  Gardening with your children, even at the most basic level, has many varied and wide-ranging benefits.  Besides being a great opportunity to take in fresh air and get a little exercise, gardening creates teachable gardening moments that can last all the way through summer and into fall.

To begin with, a gardening project from the smallest pot on your back porch to a full-fledged vegetable garden requires planning.  Being able to plan a project, implement it, and see it through to the finish will bring great satisfaction and increased self-esteem as you and your child work together as a team.

Meresa in her garden at age 4, with her cat Max.

Gardening together can be such a positive bonding experience. Some of my earliest happy childhood memories are with my mother in our family’s vegetable garden planting green beans.  We would set up the bean poles and string twine between them for the vines to grow up; then my Mom would show me how to poke a hole in the dirt with my finger, place one bean in, and cover it over again–a great exercise of fine motor skills!

Did I mention that as a child I absolutes loved green beans?  I devoured them every time my Mom made them.  When I was four, my Mom took me to a u-pick field, gave me my own bucket and went a little further down the row and left me to merrily pick.  When she returned about 15 minutes later, she was shocked to realize I had picked enough to fill the entire 5 gallon bucket.  (Did I mention I loved green beans?) I figured, the more I picked the more I got to eat.

This brings me to my next point.  Children who grow or pick their own food are more likely to eat fresh fruit and vegetables and make healthier eating choices. Now, I can’t guarantee your children will love vegetables as much as I did (and still do), but I bet if your child has the satisfaction of being involved in the process of growing and harvesting what they eat, they will be much more likely to at least try it.  And, who knows?  Maybe you will turn out to have a ravenous green bean, broccoli, or tomato eater.  We can all hope.

Furthermore, planting and tending a garden provides real-life examples of life processes and opportunities for an increased understanding of ecology, interconnections in nature, and responsible care of the environment.  An easy and inexpensive small project you can do indoors any time of year is to make a terrarium. There is a fantastic guide on how to make one from a soda bottle at www.nationalgardenmonth.org.

Another great resource for gardening with children is the Parents’ Primer at www.kidsgardening.org.  It will help you learn all you need to know to get started gardening with your children.

-posted by Miss Meresa, who encourages you to let the horticultural adventure begin!  And wishes you the best of luck as you start planning, planting, and growing together.

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Dec
25

Love, from my grandmother.

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Family

My Grandmother Loretta loved Christmas.  I’ll never forget the joyful delight she put into preparing for the holiday festivities, or the amount of care she put into her decorating.  I have fond memories of the fashionably flocked tree covered in hand-beaded ornaments she and my Aunt made in the 70’s.  There were shiny little bells and bedazzled balls, but my favorite were the little ice-skaters that seemed to skate through the air as they dangled from the limbs.

My grandmother always decorated so nicely.  She would put up little displays of Santas, reindeer, and angels, and her mantel was always transformed into an enchanting community of snow village houses carefully placed on a blanket of snowy batting; the little lights within spreading glowing light through their tiny little windows into all the room.

My Mother inherited this love of Christmas from her. She, too, would transform my childhood home into an enchanting Christmas scene with greenery hung over doorways and down the banister, the most beautifully decorated tree with pressed paper ornaments copied from Victorian ephemera, and of course, our own little snow village shedding its light of love.  Add to this the wonderful aroma of baked goods and special recipes only seen at Christmastime, and the delight of selecting and wrapping special gifts.

Both these remarkable women have always been so good at all these things.  It’s their way of loving. I have come to appreciate this special grace even more as an adult and especially now that my grandmother has passed away.  Christmas will never be quite the same with out her warm presence.

We may not be able to do everything the exact way she did it, and I think if we did it as a way to recapture the past it would miss the point. The point of all that she did was to express through the wonder and love found in Christmas the love she had for her family.

I carry that love from her and for her in my heart always, and I am using this blessed time of Christmas as a way of  honoring the love of my family, not only in keeping past traditions alive, but also by carrying that spirit forward into my own celebrations.  I want to relish the love I feel stretching toward me from the past while also expressing love to others in the here and now, and I think that is what Christmas is all about.

It’s not about presents or Santa Claus or what you eat or drink.  It’s about love in its many manifestations; love for all and the love of God that sent a little tiny baby to change the world. It’s the love that burns in our hearts like a flame we can pass one to another till the whole world is glowing like the little snow village houses on my grandmother’s mantel.

-posted by Miss Meresa, who is planning seven different ways to put on weight, aka Christmas cookies.

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Nov
3

Fall in a box.

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Recipes

I love fall.  Don’t get me wrong, there are things I love about every season, but fall has always held a special place in my heart.  When I was a girl, I liked the excitement of starting school again, falling into that familiar routine of everyday life after the wanderlust days of summer.

There is also always the delightful anticipation of my birthday.  On the 21st of October it is the beginning of the holiday season in my family.  First comes my birthday, which flows nicely into the festive fun of Halloween, which means one can have a costume party for your birthday and get twice as much Halloween and candy-loving goodness.

Mostly what I love about fall is that it is such a rich sensory experience.  Some years here in the Pacific Northwest, we have the most glorious Indian summers.  Though it may not always be particularly warm, the sun has lowered in the sky and gilds the glorious array of changing leaves.  The air is crisp and golden.  Even when the grayness begins to set in, I still feel warmed and cheered by the fiery intensity of those bright leaves as I snuggle down a little deeper into my coat and scarf.

Besides the visual and tactile splendor of falling leaves and crisp breezes, there is another sensation that above all others I associate with fall. It holds the key to all those beloved memories and sensations I store in my heart.  It is smell.

When I was growing up, my mother was an avid homemaker.  She cooked most things from scratch with care and love.  When I went through a phase where all I wanted to eat was bread, my mother decided to make her own and that it would be the healthiest most nutritious bread around.  That bread not only nurtured my body; it fed my soul. There is nothing like returning home from a long day at school to a house that is completely overcome with the smell of baking bread.  My mother took the simplest things of everyday life and made them special.

There is another smell I associate much more closely with fall; one of my favorite smells of all time.  My mother concocted the most enticing potpourri of spices that would diffuse through the house as it simmered in a little red and white enamelware pot on the back of the stove.  That smell, whether it was in the cool morning as I crept sleepily downstairs in my pajamas for breakfast, or after returning home from school, was a herald of home.  It said, “Fall is here.  You are safe.  You are warm.  You are home.”

When I shipped myself off to school for a few years in Los Angeles, (where, as far as I’m concerned, they don’t really have fall). I felt out of place and out of touch with those familiar markers I had always so closely associated with the rhythms of my life.  I used to travel around the LA hoping for the slightest inkling of fall foliage among the lanes of scrubby palm trees.  The closest I could get was some grand old sycamores whose leaves didn’t change so much as just turn brown and fall off.

My saving grace was two packages I received from my parents.  The first was a box full of colorful Seattle leaves that my father had lovingly collected and pressed.  It was fall in a box. Every time I needed some fall color, all I had to do was open that box. The other was a care packaged of fall goodies from my mother.  It was full of spicy candles and decorations to make my little studio apartment cozier. But the items in her package I prized most, (and had begged her to send me) were two small jars of her potpourri.

I got out my own small pot and let that spicy goodness simmer and send its message of fall through my apartment, so far from home, till it seeped into every crack.  You are warm.  You are safe. You are loved.  Fall is here.

I invite you to savor the richness of this season, and encourage you to fill the everyday moments of your life with your own goodness and tradition. To get you started, I’ve included my mother’s potpourri recipe, with permission of course.  The amounts are approximate and allow room for you to adjust this spicy magic to suit you.

4 Tbs. ground cinnamon
A few whole cinnamon sticks
2 Tbs. whole allspice
2 Tbs. whole cloves
2 Tbs. dried orange peel or cut up fresh peel
Optional: add a few drops of orange or cinnamon oil

Once you have the mixture, put some of it in a small pot of water on the stove and let it simmer on a low setting.  Enjoy.

-posted by Miss Meresa, who is going to go put some of that spicy goodness on the stove right now!”

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