From list at tomhunter.com Tue Jan 9 19:15:11 2007 From: list at tomhunter.com (Tom Hunter - The Song Growing Co.) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:15:11 -0800 Subject: Tom Hunter & The Song Growing Co. January Newsletter Message-ID: <000a01c7344c$6568bbf0$0302a8c0@SGC> A mostly monthly and periodically pithy letter with greetings, a story, something recommended, Tom's appearances, and more... Greetings to you all from one week into a new year! Around here the moon is big, the daytime rainy, and they're telling us to get ready for really cold weather... There's a neighbor dog who visits us. She's skittish and darts away (naturally suspicious? beat-up?) but now and then she'll get brave and come close, just for a moment. Reminds me of something I've heard (attributed to several people) that of all the principles to live by, courage tops the list - without it, it's hard to live out whatever you think is important. Some new year courage wouldn't be a bad thing to pass around. Apologies again that we announced an unrealistic release date for our new CD "Many a Mile" - it's coming, and we'll let you know when it's actually in our hands so we can get it into yours. Extra big thanks to you who have ordered and paid for it. "From Seeds So Small" is coming too - a CD collection of songs having to do with math (a collaboration with Kaplan and Teaching Strategies). News soon! A quote (in place of what's usually a story here): "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else is to fight the hardest battle which humans can fight and never stop fighting." e.e. cummings Recommended: Get a copy of The Old Woman and Her Pig, an older and wonderful story retold by Margaret Read McDonald. She's one of the best story-tellers anywhere and this book has beautiful artwork. She has other useful books too - individual stories, collections of stories, her reflections about stories. Contact Turn-the-Page Press and ask for Andy.. If you're a parent and/or a teacher, maybe this is your year to tell more stories with your kids. Upcoming January appearances: There's some open time in May, and we're actively scheduling events (conferences, institutes, concerts) for the summer and fall. 1/9 - all day with primary grades, Parkview Elementary School, Bellingham - part of an ongoing residency 1/10 - evening program for parents, Roseville (CA) Community Preschool 1/11 - assemblies at H. Clarke Powers Elem., Loomis with evening family sing 6:30p 1/12 - assemblies at Main Ave. Elem., Sacramento 1/13 - workshops and featured evening concert (with Bev Bos and Michael Leeman) at the N.CA Kindergarten Conference, San Jose 1/14 - leading worship at Community Congregational Church, Tiburon CA - 32 years in a row (I think.) 1/15 - speaker at Martin Luther King celebration, Bellingham 1/16 - all day at Parkview, Elementary School, Bellingahm 1/19 - keynote and workshop, environmental education conference, La Conner, WA 1/22-1/26 - seminars for the Bureau of Education and Research ("Enhancing Early Literacy Skills through the Use of Music") - Mon. Oklahoma City, Tues Dallas, Wed Phoenix, Thurs Sacramento, Fri Portland - info: 800-735-3505 1/31 - kick-off celebration (in song and story) for series of events on aging, Bellingham Feb dates: 2/5-2/10 Santa Barbara and Santa Maria area (family concerts 2/9 &2/10), 2/24 keynote for Bright Horizons conference LA area, 2/26-3/2 BER in Ottawa, Toronto, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, N.VA Northwest Teachers Conference ("professional development and personal renewal for educators who want to think for themselves") is July 7-12 - fantastic event! Brochures are available and people are already signing up. The Store: New CD's coming soon! Same old fantastic stuff available now! No special deals this month. Wonderful response keeps coming for our booklet collection of five essays Visits to the Heart of Education - $10 each (contact us for discounts when ordering 5 or more copies). And for those of you who remember hearing Tom's songs 25 and 30 years ago (we're receiving notes with heart-warming memories), "Still Growing" is a collection of many from back then, re-recorded for now. Click here to go directly to our online store. Stay warm and dry, and please let us know what parts of this newsletter are most useless and most useful to you. Happy New Year! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SONG GROWING CO. 1225 E. Sunset Dr., #518 Bellingham, WA 98226 (360) 738-0340 fax: (360) 734-0295 songgrow at tomhunter.com www.tomhunter.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/songgrowingco/attachments/20070109/bc9d6f10/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 9313 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/songgrowingco/attachments/20070109/bc9d6f10/attachment.jpe From list at tomhunter.com Fri Feb 2 18:10:56 2007 From: list at tomhunter.com (Tom Hunter - The Song Growing Co.) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 15:10:56 -0800 Subject: Feb. Newsletter from Tom Hunter Message-ID: <001501c7471f$65023430$0202a8c0@SGC> A mostly monthly and periodically pithy letter with greetings, a story, something recommended, Tom's appearances, and more... Greetings to you all from another frosty morning as the big and waning moon finds a place to hide behind the ridge to the west and the brightening glow to the east takes over - the daily drama of night becoming day. The ground hog would definitely see his shadow here today.. Welcome to all you who are getting this newsletter for the first time. We've had a big increase in sign-ups recently. We love your responses to this newsletter, and soon we'll have a page on the web site sharing some of those responses (with your permission of course) - thanks for letting us know what you think. THE NEW CD HAS ARRIVED, and we'd love to get them out of here and onto your CD players! "Many a Mile" is a wonderful collection of songs good for singing and for listening, many old ones, some new. Detailed information is available in a PDF flyer you can find if you click here. As always, you can order at www.tomhunter.com/store.htm and please contact us directly for discount prices if you want to order more than five. A special thanks to all of you who ordered and paid early. You should receive your copies in the next couple of days. A story: A woman who licenses preschools in Washington recently confirmed what I've often heard - that she and other licensors love it when directors and teachers make a case for keeping something that may technically be against regulations. Sometimes they'll even grant what the schools want if the rationale is persuasive enough. She said she's amazed how many of us don't think very deeply about what we're doing and when she meets people who do the hard thinking, have some research in mind, and tell her why something is good for children, "I love those people," she said... A note from a friend brought a related idea. She said she'd recently had 3 minutes with the state authorities responsible for funding the agency she works for (helping children of poverty get what they need) - 3 minutes to say what she thought they should do and why. Sounds like a good exercise for all of us: if you had 3 minutes with your director, principal, superintendent, licensor, or state legislator, what would you say? You never know when your moment might come - it's a good idea to be ready. Recommended: I usually recommend books here but with the new CD done, CD's are on my mind. If you want an instrumental collection of wonderful tunes (played by two good and long-time friends on guitar, autoharp and mountain dulcimer), I don't know a better CD then "Late Night Conversations." I've been playing it in workshops during breaks and it's the one I listened to during some recent surgery. Homes and schools should have it, and you can get it through us. Feb. appearances: There are open dates in May and June, and some time for conferences and workshops in the summer and fall. 2/6-2/7 Santa Barbara - 4 preschool visits, presentation to parents Wed. evening 2/8-2/9 Orcutt (CA) - assemblies at four elementary schools 2/9 family concert sponsored by Santa Barbara AEYC, First Presby. Church, SB 2/10 family concert, SB AEYC, Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo 2/13 Kendall (WA) Elementary school - assemblies, teacher workshop, family concert 2/15 Parkview Elementary School, Bellingham, all day with primary classes 2/23-2/24 two family concerts - LA area and San Diego - sponsored by Bright Horizons, call us for more information 2/26-3/2 seminar for the Bureau of Education and Research ("Enhancing Early Literacy Skills With Music") - Mon Ottawa, Tues Toronto, Wed Cleveland, Thurs Pittsburgh, Fri N.VA - info: 800-736-2136 Dates in March and April are available on the web site. The Store: The new CD is front and center, of course, but our other collections of wonderful songs are also available. And people are even ordering them in quantity - a school in New Jersey buying a CD for every classroom teacher, a school in WA getting a grant to provide at least one CD to every family who comes to a family concert. Both seem like really good ideas! Items are easily ordered on line through the web site -- click here to go directly to the store.. And for those of you who remember some mention a while back of a CD of songs for experiencing math concepts (with Kaplan and Teaching Strategies), it's coming. Honest it is! We'll let you know when it's in our hands. Thanks to all who have sent such thoughtful responses to our booklet of five essays Visits to the Heart of Education -- many reports of how you've used them and many ideas about how to make them available more widely. They're still available if you want to order one or more. Our best to you all until next month regardless of whether or not the ground hog saw his shadow... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SONG GROWING CO. 1225 E. Sunset Dr., #518 Bellingham, WA 98226 (360) 738-0340 fax: (360) 734-0295 songgrow at tomhunter.com www.tomhunter.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/songgrowingco/attachments/20070202/1fcfa15b/attachment.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 9313 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/songgrowingco/attachments/20070202/1fcfa15b/attachment.jpe From list at tomhunter.com Wed Mar 7 22:59:55 2007 From: list at tomhunter.com (Tom Hunter - The Song Growing Co.) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 19:59:55 -0800 Subject: March Newsletter from Tom Hunter Message-ID: <001301c76136$3c06df00$0202a8c0@SGC> A mostly monthly and periodically pithy letter with greetings, a story, something recommended, Tom's appearances, and more... Greetings from a little farther into the month than is usual for getting this newsletter to you. We've had internet problems - amazing how dependent we are on these machines. Where you live, do the days seem to get longer faster right about now? And what's the source of the notion that March comes in and goes out like a lion or a lamb?... Daffodils are starting to show up, and we hope you're doing well. Registrations are arriving for NORTHWEST TEACHERS CONFERENCE (July 7-12) and there's still room. Click here for more details. We keep hearing from people planning to come. Now would be a wonderful time to send your registration in! It really is a wonderful event - a professional development event to nourish your soul... A story: Many of you have heard me tell about the kindergarten teacher in Portland, OR who put the names of children on the board when they were absent. She loved it when the children returned because they would always look to see if their name was still on the board - her reminder to the children that even when their bodies were gone, they were still part of the class. Her successor has continued the practice, and I've been hearing how others of you are passing the idea around. There's a first-year first grade teacher in Kent, WA who started doing it earlier this year. Then one day, she told her kids she would be gone the next day for a personal day. Right away a child said, "We'll put your name on the board, Ms. Dewey.". Don't forget - the classroom community includes the teacher too. Recommended: This one comes from Andrew at Turn the Page Press (you can count on him!) - Brave Charlotte by Stohner & Wilson, the story of an out-of-step, slow sheep who ends up knowing what to do when things get tough. (Available at www.turnthepage.com).. Have you read something good recently? for kids? for adults? Send me your ideas, I'll sort them out, and include some here next time. March appearances: There are dates open for year-end events in June, summer workshops and concerts, and the fall is filling up fast. 3/10 - Family Child Care Assoc. workshops, Coeur d'Alene. evening family concert 3/12 & 3/15 - Parkview School, Bellingham, songwriting with grades 3-5, Thurs evening family sing as last event of residency 3/19 - Everett, WA - workshop for Head Start 3/20-3/21 - Jackson Elementary, Hillsboro, OR - assemblies, classroom visits, time with teachers, first of three visits 3/26 - assemblies in 2 schools in Orcutt, CA 3/27 - assemblies in school in Grover Beach, CA and in Nipomo, CA 3/28 - assembly and songwriting with intermediate grades, Nipomo (CA) Elementary April: 10-11 Jackson Elem in Hillsboro and Wed evening with Cedar Hills Co-op parents, 12 family concert Lynden (WA) Library, 14 community event for climate change, 18-21 in NJ and DE for schools and conference keynoting, 23 family concert Seattle preschool, 24-26 Jackson Elem. The store: This month we're offering free shipping to everyone - one item, ten items, no matter, we pay the shipping - and that's no typo; it's the truth! (Click here to go directly to our online store.) Sales for our newest CD, "Many a Mile," have been very good - thank you all! .. Good ideas dept.: A school in WA got a grant to buy 50 CD's so they could give one to each family who came to a family concert. A school in NJ has ordered $1000 worth of CD's ahead of Tom's visit there in April. The husband of a teacher wants to give our book of essays Visits to the Heart of Education to each of the teachers and assistants at his wife's school. Songs (on CD's) are always great gifts and they're easy to order on line. Happy spring, everyone, be it lion or lamb. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SONG GROWING CO. 1225 E. Sunset Dr., #518 Bellingham, WA 98226 (360) 738-0340 fax: (360) 734-0295 songgrow at tomhunter.com www.tomhunter.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 9313 bytes Desc: not available Url :