Music Together

Alee galloo galloo, alee galloo gallee, Allee, galloo galloo gallee. WHEEE! (Dance around, pick your baby up high and have fun).

About a month ago, Baby L and I started going to Music Together, a music class for babies and grown-ups. Our teacher, Jeff, began with this song, Allee Galloo, and we were sold. L and I already loved to dance around the apartment, but now we were in a whole room full of grown-ups and babies dancing around, singing, and clapping. L was in heaven!

Music Together is an early childhood music program with classes all over the United States. Maybe there's one near you? The basic idea is that all of the grown-ups sing, dance, and play instruments like shakers and drums. We model enthusiasm for music for the babies, and the babies learn to mimic and even invent their own singing, dancing, and instrument playing. Each "semester" the class uses a list of about twenty songs over and over, so that we get to know the songs really well. We sing them in class, and we have a CD and a songbook to listen to and read at home, and in the car.

Recently, our family just did a very long road trip with lots of little trips once we got there--from Brooklyn, to Underhill, VT, to Stowe, VT, to Monkton, VT, back to Underhill, then to Boston, MA, back to Brooklyn. For short trips around the neighborhood, Baby L usually just entertains herself in her carseat. But for this trip, we had to pull out all the stops. Daddy B and I took turns sitting in the back, playing with every toy we could find, playing every game we could think of, and nothing seemed to work. Until we put on the Music Together CD! L is such a music lover, she does a little dance as soon as she hears a familiar song. Why didn't we think of it sooner?