My Friends,

Now that summer is here and the kids are out of school, I got to thinking about earlier summers I shared with my two daughters and my husband.  Back then, we used to spend our days swimming at Lake Michigan, taking bike rides and nature walks in local parks, playing sports, sharing laughter, and sometimes, just plain acting silly. My daughters also spent time in arts and crafts classes, as well as attending summer day camps.

It got me to thinking about the music I have written over the years, and how much of it relates to summer and summer activities. I sat down and made up a list of summer songs that I think you and your children might enjoy. Each of these songs is available on iTunes, but I wanted to give you a FREE download of “I Think You Dropped This” as a way of saying thank you for visiting my website!

I Think You Dropped This

This is an eco-friendly song about picking up after yourself AND others, when possible, and not being a litterbug. After listening to the song, you might consider walking around the outside of your home or around the block with a friend or one of your parents, picking up litter. It’s a great, neighbor friendly activity and it reinforces your shared concern for the earth. Click here for a FREE download of “I Think You Dropped This.”

Skip to My Lou

Summertime and skipping go together, don’t you think? In this classic children’s song, listen closely to all the movements I sing about. When I perform this in concert, I often stop singing at various points and have the children “freeze” or stay still, until I resume the singing.

The Ice Cream Truck Song

Here in Chicago during the summer we still have ice cream trucks and ice cream carts!  What about where you live? For many years, our neighborhood ice cream truck played the song “Do Your Ears Hang Low” as is trolled the streets looking for customers. When my children heard that melody, they rushed around the house looking for loose change to buy ice cream treats. My husband Jay and my oldest daughter Hope penned new words for this old, traditional song.

Color Me Singing

A great song when you’re sitting around the house with a box of crayons and a little bit of time on your hands. Have your child send me a drawing of whatever they’d like (make sure they sign it) and I’ll put it on my website photo gallery. Send pictures to me at ssalidor@aol.com

At the Resale Shop

This is a song about my favorite activity in the whole wide world, shopping for resale items. One great activity is going to a local resale shop, and giving your child a dollar or two to spend on whatever he or she wants. It’s like an inexpensive treasure hunt.

The Boo Boo Blues

Summertime’s a blast, but every once in a while, a knee or two gets scraped.  This song lets children know that we all get boos boos, and it’s written in a traditional blues style that is so popular here in Chicago.

The Boo Boo Gets better by and By

I wrote this song to help little ones understand that as bad as their newest boo boo may be, it will get better over time.  .

The Flicky Flacky Song

Summertime, like any time, is a great time to make up stories.  This one’s full of make believe characters in a make believe place who learn that working together makes solving problems easier.

I Love My Sister

Summertime is a wonderful time to hang out with family, whether you’re on vacation or on the back deck.  When things are going well between siblings, it’s easy to sing.  When children aren’t getting along as well, it’s good to have this song on hand to remind them of their true feelings for one another!

Tap Your Toe and Follow Me

My most often downloaded song, “Tap Your Toe and Follow Me” is a fun “copycat” song.  Don’t feel as if you have to stick with my examples (tap your toe, clap your hands, bob your head, waggle your tongue) – make up your own or ask your young one to take lead.

I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers

This song can be helpful when you’re trying to resolve a conflict among children.  Better still to practice the song when everyone is in harmony with one another.  Check out the YouTube video at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZHV2YasXxI

Mommy, Be My Baby.

My daughter Hannah used to love to pretend that I was the baby and she was the mommy.  This song was born out of my desire to immortalize those precious moments in song.

When I Only Have a Minute

This song is literally one minute long!  I co-wrote it with Matt Yanny-Tillar, a wonderful guitarist, songwriter and teacher who often accompanies me in concert.  This song is a fun one to memorize.  Good luck!

I Went to France

I wrote this song after I have was invited to sing in Paris, a number of years ago. It’s fun to imagine Paris at any time of the year, but I think of it especially in the summertime when many people take a vacation. Whether you are fortunate enough to travel inside or outside of the United States, it’s often an adventure trying new foods, learning a different language or enjoying new customs.

Viva L’Amour

While I have you thinking and dreaming of France, here’s another song you may know.  It’s a great song of community and friendship.

Give Me a Little Beso

My husband, our friend Peter Buttitta and I wrote this song.  “Beso” means kiss in Spanish.  “Beso” is virtually the only Spanish word in the song, but the rhymes are fun to listen to, and children enjoy the latin rhythms of the song.

I Saw Five Fish

A sweet little ditty about counting (and subtracting) fish.  Perhaps this summer you’ll visit an aquarium or go fishing!

A Little Help is All I Need

This song reminds us all that little ones can do a lot, especially if they get a little help.  The song encourages a spirit of self-reliance, as well as an understanding that it’s always nice to get help from mom or dad.

Mighty Fine Road

I wrote this song while I was driving to a gig.  I use it in concert to get children thinking about the name of the street on which they live, but it also works as a “road trip” song to encourage children to read street signs.  By inserting your own street name in the lyrics, your child will learn what street he or she lives on.

The ABC Song

No matter where I go to sing with children, this song is always a favorite.  In this version, I’ve taken the familiar melody of “The ABC Song” and jazzed it up a bit.

Pick a Bale of Cotton

This is a great dancing song.  In concert, I often pick two dads from the crowd and have them mime the actions of the lyrics for the crowd.  By the end of the song they’re exhausted, but not the children who have been dancing along in the audience.  Cotton is a crop that loves the sun and warm weather.  On our annual summer trip to the beaches of North Carolina, we often see fields of cotton and tobacco stretching over many acres of farmland.

I hope you enjoy these summer songs and all of your time together with your children. As for me, I’ll be outside in the Chicago sunshine as much as I can this summer, sharing moments with my husband and daughters, singing these and other great tunes.

My friends,

Spring is the greatest season for my adopted city of Chicago.  I’ve written before on these pages about what I call “pushing spring,” or the efforts Chicagoans make to bring on the warm weather by dressing  inappropriately light before the weather really warrants it.  Typically we can have a day in late March that reaches 70 degrees and then suddenly you can’t find one winter coat on the street from that day on until October shows itself.  I am one of these happy Chicagoans, but we sometimes pay the price for our hopefulness.  For example, I left home the other day in capris and sandals and nearly froze by mid afternoon when the temperature had dropped 20 degrees! 

In my preschool classrooms, I see all sorts of well-meaning foolishness:  Little girls in short sundresses wearing snowboots; heavy cotton tights paired with tank tops and shorts; t-shirts and capris with mittens and hats.  Boys, on the other hand, are mostly dressed by their mothers as far as I can tell and are usually dressed appropriately.  I am always tickled when I see boys’ clothing that belies the tough exterior of certain preschoolers.  For instance, I have one boy who takes a long time to warm up in music class each week, his folded arms and crossed legs professing his distate of singing and making music and dancing.  Let it be noted that this same young boy often wears the sweetest Disney-themed shirts.  Make no mistake, this is no mother-dressed son!  This boy is passionate about his clothes and claims to dress himself.  Getting him to sing and dance often takes some convincing, but fashion, well that’s another matter.

As the 2009-2010 school year draws to a close, I want to thank the schools who provided me with gainful employment!  I know it is not easy to find funding for the arts in the economic distress of our time.   I know many of you dug deep in order to have me in your classrooms on a weekly basis and I hope you know how grateful I am.  It has been a joy and I hope we can do it again next year.

I wish all of you a happy, healthy summer.  My family and I will be traveling to the sparkling sands of North Carolina in August for our annual vacation.  I am confident that we will find the energy and spirit to face next year, for it is a huge one for our family:  our daughter Hope will graduate from Oberlin College and our daughter Hannah will graduate from Walter Payton College Prep.   Jay and I will also celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in May of 2011. 

Hugs and kisses to you,

Susan

Friends,

Today is the first day of school for Chicago Public, so both my husband and my baby (Hannah, 16 years) left the house early this morning after a long and luxurious summer.  I count my blessings regularly, but never more so than at the beginning and end of summer.  The privilege of having 2 1/2 months off each year is only one of the blessings of being a teacher (and being married to a teacher).

Daughter Hope is studying in Copenhagen this semester (lucky girl!), so we did not make the roundtrip to Oberlin College in Ohio last month.  I have always loved the start of school, and I am missing the sights and sounds of a new year on a college campus. 

My work continues although I am having fantasies of becoming a painter.  Wish I had the funds for “Come and Make a Circle 3,” as I am eager to start on it, but it will have to wait a bit.  My preschool music classes resume this week and by the first week of November I should be teaching every day with a handful of concerts, workshops and birthday parties on the weekends.  

In October I will be attending the annual Children’s Music Network gathering in Asheville, NC.  Looking forward to reconnecting  and making music with friends new and old.  Like many grass roots organizations, CMN has had its share of challenges over the last year, but I am happy to report that the annual conference is a “go” and local chapter song swaps here in Chicago are enthusiastically attended.  For more information on the Children’s Music Network, I encourage you to check out their website at www.cmnonline.org.

Thanks to all who, in spite of the weak and scary economy, continue to make music education a priority for the early childhood crowd!  People like me really appreciate people like you.

SUMMER 2009

That’s what we say in Chicago, anyway.  Hope the weather is a bit more predictable where you are, or is that a thing of the past?  We survived early summer storms and are now enduring a blistering heat…. but it’s not snowing, so…

In a week I’ll be in Nantucket to vist with my good friend Mollie and her family and make some music on the island!  I am very much looking forward to running into old friends, making new friends in my toddler music classes, and meeting all the new babies from the past year.  You can check out my Nantucket schedule by visiting the website for NCMC, the organization that is sponsoring my visit (http://www.nantucketschoolofmusic.org/files/SUMMER_PROGRAMS_2009.pdf).

I hope to promote “Songs In the Key of Chai” in a bigger way this fall and will begin working on “Come and Make a Circle 3.”  If you haven’t heard, “Songs In the Key of Chai” is oldish, newish and mostly Jewish songsfor all families released at the very end of 2008.  Daughter Hope painted the front cover; younger daughter Hannah took the photo of me on the back cover; husband Jay co-wrote the exquisite song I Should Like (The Gaze of God).  The recording is dedicated to the memory of my parents and in honor of my stepmother, Margot.  I like to think of it as the kind of CD with songs that remind you of and make you feel good about the things you hold dear — family, faith, tolerance, peace-making, and the joy of celebrating holidays with those you love.  Let me know what you think — it is a very personal album.

I’ve got a handful of concerts in and around Chicago this summer and a bunch of birthday parties where I’ll do my best to get everyone, and I mean everyone, singing and dancing.  (How else can we expect our children to sing and dance?)  My family is off to the glorious beaches of North Caroline in August and Hope will be traveling to Copenhagen for her fall semester, lucky girl.  In September I’ll be back at my regular weekday teaching gigs and full of gratitude for the work.

I will have some open times on Thursdays for “Cryin’ Out Loud Music Classes,” so if you’re a new mom and have 6 or 7 friends with babies looking to have a good time, give me a call to book an 8- or 10-week session IN YOUR LIVING ROOM!  That’s right, you do the phone work and I’ll do the leg work getting to you with instruments, scarves, and assorted other fun things to keep everyone busy and entertained.  (That’s a particularly sweet deal during the winter, don’t you think?)

More to come….