Cheery music theory
M.O.M. Project kids tune together for fun
Big Bear Grizzly
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| Stevie Q |
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
“It jingles,” 3-year-old Hannah Marini squeals, clutching a tambourine and clanging it everywhere possible. Hannah and her friends march, make music and have a blast at the Mothers on Mountain Project in Big Bear City Wednesday mornings.
The merry musicality is part of a new class called Music and Movement, geared to ages 1 to 5. Taught by new M.O.M. Project educator Nichole McGivney, the class focuses on introduction to various kinds of instrumentation, creativity and socialization, as well as following directions.
“We want moms to be able to teach their kids about music at home,” McGivney says about the class’ activities. “It’s very easy.”
The parenting resource center operates as part of the Bear Valley Community Healthcare District, and is under the Bear Valley Community Hospital Foundation funding arm. M.O.M. Music and Movement is designed to help young ones with emotional and cognitive development while playing tambourines, maracas and other percussion instruments. The activities help integrate gross motor skill refinement with items like ribbons, scarves, bean bags and balls to add to the general joy.
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| Kaleb Chappell |
And what’s more merry than a princess outfit? Kaleb Chappell, 3, puts on his M.O.M. Project uniform as soon as he walks into the play room—a blue Cinderella gown paired with a hot pink princess cone hat and requisite flowing ribbon. There is no doubt Kaleb likes unleashing his creative side.
“It kind of adds variety to our week,” says Kaleb’s mom Rebecca about M.O.M. Project. “There are classes for each stage of development.” Kaleb benefits from interacting with other kids and all the development aspects, but for him it’s all about the outfit and the scissors.
Kristy Rivera brings her 2-year-old daughter Madison to M.O.M. Project to keep her busy. “It’s hard to find stuff to do in winter with the little ones,” she says. Through M.O.M. Project, Madison gets to dance, socialize and learn new skills, which she craves, Kristy says.
Jessica Bethell, mother of 2-year-old Stevie, likes the hands-on creative element immensely, especially since it’s not at her house. “It’s a chance to do arts and crafts without her coloring on my walls,” she says. And it helps with the cabin fever this time of year, she says. “It helps her to learn to interact with other kids, and it gives mommy a little bit of a break.”
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| Monica and Hannah Marini |
Tambourine Hannah’s mom, Monica, enjoys seeing her M.O.M. Project friends, as well. As a more mature mother, she has benefited from the parenting classes M.O.M. Project offers, she says. “It’s helped to hear some of the other moms and hear that things are normal at the various stages,” Monica says. “But also, to be able to help moms with younger children going through earlier stages is great.”
Hannah, though, has her people skills perfected. “You can have the food to feed the baby and I will have the baby, what do you think?” she asks playmate Kiley Moledo. Compromise is key, something Hannah already understands. When it’s time to clean up, she’s the ringleader.
“Everyone, clean up, clean up,” she sings to the key of a popular Barney song. Kiley and Kaleb join the parade immediately, picking up toys and depositing them accordingly, making a game out of the task.
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| Taylor Moledo |
The last session of the six-week class, McGivney plans a special surprise for the kids: a big band day where the kids play the instrument of their choice and make all the noise they want. There will definitely be jingling.
Parents are invited to drop in for a single session or attend all six classes per session. The next six-week session starts May 5. The classes are free. The M.O.M. Project is at 1221 E. Big Bear Blvd., Big Bear City. For more information or a class calendar, call 909-585-5607.
Contact reporter Arrissia Owen Turner at 909-866-3456 ext. 142, or by e-mail at aturner.grizzly@gmail.com.
For the original story, click here:
http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/outlook/article_c957ebbf-2b8d-5ee3-b9df-6eedfff897df.html
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Corrupted Youth
OC Weekly
Is Dora the Explorer turning baby minds to crap?
People who say they don't let their children watch TV lie. Their pants are on fire. If they truly never turn on the tube, ever, how will their children talk about The Sopranos around the water cooler?
Plus, they may deprive their little darlings of learning opportunities geared toward developing their cognitive abilities!And the smug dumbasses miss out on a tool to reinforce hours spent teaching ABCs and 123s and possibly a second language!
You don't want to have to do that yourself, do you? And if so, are you willing to wear a rainbow wig while you do?
Ever since PBS revolutionized children's programming with Bert and Ernie and Big Bird, other networks have followed—with a nice shove from the FCC, since in 1990 Congress passed the Children's Television Act, requiring kids' programs to teach something.
The success of such post-legislation programs as Barney & Friends spawned an entire new generation of touchy-feely educational programs and with it jobs for smarty-pants psychologists at Nickelodeon, Disney and PBS.
Today's television programming for young children—like Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer—is manipulated by myriad Ph.D.s driven by studies showing interaction with characters like the feisty little Latina helps improve problem-solving skills. The programs' writers, producers and researchers study bar graphs and endure rigorous sessions with preschool-age children to make sure the programs teach something.
They still have critics, of course. Unless parents work to "integrate" these shows into their "children's lives" in a "positive way," their kids may not be much better off than a coyote with a stick of dynamite in its ass. Many believe the allure of television—or "kid crack"—is so strong that moderation is impossible and stops children from participating in brain-enhancing free play.
In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics began discouraging television watching completely for children under two. Wha???
Without parents stepping in to switch off sets, they say, toddlers just may watch Dora until their eyes bleed and fall onto the floor. Kids love the stuff regardless of the fact they're learning valuable lessons.
What do toddlers love even more? Opportunities to see the characters live onstage, like Dora's upcoming production, Dora the Explorer Live!—Search for the City of Lost Toysat the Orange County Performing Arts Center June 23-27! Dora comes to life played by actress Luzma Ortiz with puppets, marionettes and walk-abouts portraying her amigos.
Dora is a seven-year-old Latina girl who speaks Spanish and sets off on adventures with map in hand through an imaginative tropical world, presumably South America, navigating across beaches and through rainforests. According to a Newsweek interview with the show's research director, Dr. Christine Ricci, something as simple as a map helps children's spatial skills. The show encourages children to yell back at the screen and perform physical movements like rowing a boat or jumping up and down.
Dora is determined, optimistic, smart and ready to lend a hand. Her world has no contras, no United Fruit Co., and no Medellin drug cartel, just friendly bilingual animals who help teach Spanish words and phrases, characters ranging from Boots the Talking Monkey to Tico the Squirrel and a mischievous fox, Swiper, who cries, "Awwww, maaaan" when he is inevitably defeated.
Sometimes the characters make mistakes, but they always bounce back, like Boots who celebrates his rebound with triple flips. Triple flips! Boots follows Dora's instructions and calls out answers to her questions after the prolonged pause allowing young viewers to figure out their own.
My little moppet watches Dora and Blue and the Wiggles, too. I watch the programs with her, and we play along. We sing and dance and jump up and down, learn that jacket in Spanish is chaqueta, and solve more problems before breakfast than most people do all day. And I never plop her down by herself in front of the television, at least for more than four or six hours at a time. Then we go to the store! And sometimes we draw a map to get to the store!
The map's a lie.
We are going to turn the TV off, though, and head to the theater to see Dora live. She's already smiling.
Dora the Explorer Live!—Search for the Lost Toys at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Hall, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 740-7878 or (213) 365-3500; www.ocpac.org. Starts Wed. Wed., 7 p.m.; Thurs., 10:30 a.m. & 7 p.m.; Fri., 7 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m., 2 & 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. & 2 p.m. Through June 27. $17-$30; Dora also appears at the Santa Ana Zoo, 1801 E. Chestnut Ave., Santa Ana, (714) 836-4000. Wed., 1:30 p.m. $3-$5.
Plus, they may deprive their little darlings of learning opportunities geared toward developing their cognitive abilities!And the smug dumbasses miss out on a tool to reinforce hours spent teaching ABCs and 123s and possibly a second language!
You don't want to have to do that yourself, do you? And if so, are you willing to wear a rainbow wig while you do?
Ever since PBS revolutionized children's programming with Bert and Ernie and Big Bird, other networks have followed—with a nice shove from the FCC, since in 1990 Congress passed the Children's Television Act, requiring kids' programs to teach something.
The success of such post-legislation programs as Barney & Friends spawned an entire new generation of touchy-feely educational programs and with it jobs for smarty-pants psychologists at Nickelodeon, Disney and PBS.
Today's television programming for young children—like Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer—is manipulated by myriad Ph.D.s driven by studies showing interaction with characters like the feisty little Latina helps improve problem-solving skills. The programs' writers, producers and researchers study bar graphs and endure rigorous sessions with preschool-age children to make sure the programs teach something.
They still have critics, of course. Unless parents work to "integrate" these shows into their "children's lives" in a "positive way," their kids may not be much better off than a coyote with a stick of dynamite in its ass. Many believe the allure of television—or "kid crack"—is so strong that moderation is impossible and stops children from participating in brain-enhancing free play.
In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics began discouraging television watching completely for children under two. Wha???
Without parents stepping in to switch off sets, they say, toddlers just may watch Dora until their eyes bleed and fall onto the floor. Kids love the stuff regardless of the fact they're learning valuable lessons.
What do toddlers love even more? Opportunities to see the characters live onstage, like Dora's upcoming production, Dora the Explorer Live!—Search for the City of Lost Toysat the Orange County Performing Arts Center June 23-27! Dora comes to life played by actress Luzma Ortiz with puppets, marionettes and walk-abouts portraying her amigos.
Dora is a seven-year-old Latina girl who speaks Spanish and sets off on adventures with map in hand through an imaginative tropical world, presumably South America, navigating across beaches and through rainforests. According to a Newsweek interview with the show's research director, Dr. Christine Ricci, something as simple as a map helps children's spatial skills. The show encourages children to yell back at the screen and perform physical movements like rowing a boat or jumping up and down.
Dora is determined, optimistic, smart and ready to lend a hand. Her world has no contras, no United Fruit Co., and no Medellin drug cartel, just friendly bilingual animals who help teach Spanish words and phrases, characters ranging from Boots the Talking Monkey to Tico the Squirrel and a mischievous fox, Swiper, who cries, "Awwww, maaaan" when he is inevitably defeated.
Sometimes the characters make mistakes, but they always bounce back, like Boots who celebrates his rebound with triple flips. Triple flips! Boots follows Dora's instructions and calls out answers to her questions after the prolonged pause allowing young viewers to figure out their own.
My little moppet watches Dora and Blue and the Wiggles, too. I watch the programs with her, and we play along. We sing and dance and jump up and down, learn that jacket in Spanish is chaqueta, and solve more problems before breakfast than most people do all day. And I never plop her down by herself in front of the television, at least for more than four or six hours at a time. Then we go to the store! And sometimes we draw a map to get to the store!
The map's a lie.
We are going to turn the TV off, though, and head to the theater to see Dora live. She's already smiling.
Dora the Explorer Live!—Search for the Lost Toys at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Hall, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 740-7878 or (213) 365-3500; www.ocpac.org. Starts Wed. Wed., 7 p.m.; Thurs., 10:30 a.m. & 7 p.m.; Fri., 7 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m., 2 & 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. & 2 p.m. Through June 27. $17-$30; Dora also appears at the Santa Ana Zoo, 1801 E. Chestnut Ave., Santa Ana, (714) 836-4000. Wed., 1:30 p.m. $3-$5.
http://www.ocweekly.com/2004-06-17/culture/corrupted-youth/
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Yo Gabba Gabba contract -officially- renewed
Feature writer Shawn Smith has the latest on the psychedelic kiddie show scene: The gamble paid off. Yo Gabba Gabba creators Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz (our cover boys a few weeks back) got the news they’ve been waiting for.
Yo Gabba Gabba, the frenetically fun kids show with the dancing Cyclops and infectious beats that airs during the pee-wee hours on Nickelodeon, just got its 20-episode renewal.
After years of struggling to see their vision of a Utopian dancey-dance world come to fruition, after putting it all on the line and pushing their wives’ patience to the limits—they got their second season. And that means merchandising moolah, eventually.
"Yo Gabba Gabba! is like nothing else on TV, and the show is quickly becoming a pop-culture phenomenon," said Brown Johnson, executive vice president/executive creative director of Nickelodeon Preschool, via a press release. "We can't wait to introduce our audience to more hip music, funky dance moves, catchy life lessons and exciting guest stars."
First, Jacobs and Schultz need to write a second season, slated to air in summer or fall 2008. They plan to go back to the original list they made of people they wanted to work with on the show the first season and make some calls to the ones whose schedules didn’t work out before. Then they’ll work on fleshing out the characters a bit more, writing songs.
And as if all this isn’t already exciting enough to make their heads spin uncontrollably, as if being on the cover of their hometown alternative newsweekly wasn’t stoke enough, and news that the show has streamed 17.8 million times, according to Advertising Age, isn’t completely rocking their worlds—they’ve recently been named by TIME magazine as the No. 8 best new TV series of 2007. What do they think about the hubbub? “It’s pretty rad,” Jacobs says.
Still, the news was a little bittersweet for Jacobs. Pushing things as far as he could, he and his wife decided to put their beloved Huntington Beach townhouse up for sale, just in case. The Gabba guys got the news about the pick up just as Jacobs was loading a moving truck after it sold. Still, he’s stoked, he says, and is looking forward to having a job for another year.
As is his wife, who knows her husband gets a bit cranky when he has to work for the man and not doing something creative on his own terms. And his new roommate, his father-in-law, is just as thrilled. “Yeah, so I’ve got that going for me,” he quips about moving in with his wife’s parents, who he would like to state for the record are very, very supportive. But still . . .
Things are definitely looking promising from here on out for the Yo Gabba Gabba crew. And when Jacobs walks by Dad on the way to the shower in the morn, he can always remind him about that whole TIME magazine thing, or that the show will be airing in the United Kingdom and Italy soon.
“The pressure is off,” he says. “But it’s not like we’ve hit the jackpot. We’re still plugging away. So in other ways, the pressure is on again.”
Editor's note: This post was originally published Dec. 12. We took it down at the YGG crew's request as Nickelodeon had not officially given the show it's stamp of approval - though the creators had been given the unofficial thumbs up.
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A recipe from M.O.M.’s heart
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| Micah Hoffman |
Big Bear Grizzly
Posted: Wednesday, August 12, 2009
There were squeals from one table when the kids seated found out their assignment was to make the “guts” of the cake. Love and Logic facilitator Megan Meadors led a group of young kids through a cooking assignment at the M.O.M. Project on a recent Monday morning—making their first pineapple upside-down cake.But there was a catch. They had to give it away.
It wasn’t all flour, brown sugar, pineapples and cherries on top. The participants in the M.O.M. Project’s newest Love and Logic class “From Innocence to Entitlement” get to bake yummy goodies each week, but they also learn the value of giving back to the community.
“We are trying to get them to think outside the box,” Meadors says about the kids in the class. They think they are just having a good time between the whisking and craft time, but what they’re really learning is how good it feels to put a smile on someone else’s face.
The class is based on the premise that entitlement is a thief, out to steal all that is truly valuable in our lives and the lives of our children, the authors of the class textbook Jim Fay and Dawn Billings write. The class is a six-week course that deals with self-esteem issues of children, emotional intelligence, fairness and having the courage to say no to your child. And there’s cake.
Mother of two Theresa Hoffman enjoys getting help teaching her daughter Micah, 6, and son Joshua, 9, some life lessons. A self-confessed over indulgent mother, Hoffman struggles with the same issues as so many other doting parents trying to find the balance in creating an ideal childhood while still doling out responsibilities.
“It’s like, you don’t have a choice about setting the table,” she says acting out a typical argument in her household. But that’s not to say her well-behaved children are terrors. They’re not. They just need a reminder and positive reinforcement like any other kids.
After the potholders are personalized with one-of-a-kind art by the kids, and the cake is officially upside-down, it’s time for the getting out into the community part of the class. The parents round up the kids, grab the cake and they’re off, headed for a walk down the street to see Marilyn and Tony Vecchio at their home in Big Bear City.
Marilyn has been struggling with a rare form of leukemia. Marilyn started the M.O.M. Project but has been on a leave of absence while undergoing treatment. The kids enjoyed the chance to visit with her and wish her well, but probably not as much as Marilyn enjoyed seeing their little faces.
“This is great,” Marilyn says. “It was well worth getting dressed.”
The next series of Love and Logic classes start in September. For more information, contact the M.O.M. Project at 909-585-5607. The M.O.M. Project is at 1221 E. Big Bear Blvd., Big Bear City.
Contact reporter Arrissia Owen Turner at 909-866-3456 ext. 142, or by e-mail at aturner.grizzly@gmail.com.
