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| | Kiddiesgames.com offers lovely, fun, free online children’s games for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
We also love the following children’s music tha adults will enjoy too.
These music CDs can be purchased online at Amazon. Have fun browsing through them! Click on them to go to the Amazon site, where you can click on “Listen” to hear music samples.
Children’s Music
Putumayo are the masters in choosing fun world music for children, featuring singers and musicians from around the world.
The “World Playground” music CD includes one of Putumayo’s favorite singers - Nazaré Pereira. Her fun song “Bonjour Pra Você” is full of fun mixups of language, as this Brazilian tries to speak a bit of French across an Amazon border. Even if they don’t know the words, your kids will feel this fun mixup story through the lively music. Manu Chao’s music is not usually associated with children. So trust Putumayo to have found his one song that is just perfect fun for kids - “Bongo Bong”. The lyrics and upbeat rhythm will transport your kids and even you to the jungle to be a carefree happy monkey bongo drum player. Australians will be delighted to hear their unofficial national anthem “Walting Matilda” sung in an Australian Aboriginal language by the distinctly Aboriginal voice of Trevor Adamson. Even non-Greek kids will find themselves singing “tiki tiki tak” in the “Tik Tik Tak” song. Near the end of the CD is a quiet beautiful touching song about the Ethiopian Jewish Exodus of 1991. Kids will find the children’s choir singing beautiful, while the poetic touching lyrics about immigration and longing may even bring a tear to your eyes.
With “World Playground 2”, Putumayo continues showcasing the best music that the world has to offer children. There’s a reggae version of “Old MacDonald has a Farm” from Trinidad. It has been said that the song “La Marmotteuse” from Acadian Canada is worth the price of a CD alone. Our kids beg to play that song, and we get out the pots and pans and start banging them. However, our playing of these kitchen utensils is nothing compared to the masterful musicianship of this Acadian Canadian band “Barachois” playing these very same “instruments” accompanied by a lively fiddle. In our house, the joyous dancing continues with “A Mover La Colita” (“Move Your Little Tail”) from Colombia - a great example of Latin American dance music for kids. This CD ends with a smooth dance song from the South African queen of African music - Miriam Makeba. Her song “Pata Pata 2000” includes that sound that actually doesn’t exist as a consonent or vowel in the English language - the tongue click!
And when you’re trying to get your little ones to bed, put on “Dreamland - World Lullabies and Soothing Songs” from Putumayo. The CD opens with Angelique Kidjo, that diminutive powerful singer from Benin, singing a lullaby she wrote for her own child, sung in her native African tongue. Next is a delicate, guitar-string-plucking lullaby from Madagascar. Then, hauntingly beautiful Celtic strains from a long-forgotten Scottish aire that was rediscovered by the descendant of a Scottish immigrant on Canada’s Prince Edward Island - Teresa Doyle. A smooth lulling South African lullaby - “Thula Mama” - sung by Sibongile Khumalo. Another gift to Australians - “Yi-Rrana” - sung in an Australian Aboriginal language. There's the quietly clinking Asian “Cradle Song” from the Okinawa island of Japan, a reflection of a unique little-known culture. The quietly haunting flowing harp and pan-pipe of a traditional Sephardic Jewish lullaby transported to Brazil. Every song on this CD is a beautiful, distinct gem. However, these songs all share the common unifying characteristic of lullabying children to sleep for generations past and generations to come. |
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| Ricardo Cobo is one of the world’s finest classical guitarists, and the music CD “Guitar Lullaby” is a perfect masterpiece. Many of the world’s finest guitars were auditioned for this CD, so as to arrive at an impeccably intimite sound. Listening to this CD makes you feel like Ricardo is at the foot of your warm cosy bed playing calming magical guitar lullabies, and you are a contented 5 year old whose busy day is done and now is delighting in being lullabied to dreamland. This CD cleverly starts with quietly playful melodies, and rhythmically progresses to slower, wispy, dreamier sleep tunes. The wordless songs chosen are from around the world, some familiar, some less so. But soon you and your kids will find that this CD will become as familiar and soothing as the bedroom decor. |
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| | Australia's appalling asylum seeker system
locks up children, then looses them,
with grave fears they are being trafficked for
child prostitution in Australia.
Turn the boats back and people will die
- Abbott knows this.
Australian opposition will order the death at sea of refugee children
(and possibly Australian sailors) if in government.
In Australia
legitimate refugees, including toddlers,
are imprisoned indefinitely.
Only ASIO knows why and it will tell no one.
endless detention for 4- and 7-year old
Dec 19, 2011 : A horrific 40 refugee children drown
on their way to Australia.
Australia's push for Indonesia to detain asylum seekers
and to criminalise people smuggling
directly leads to this tragedy
- Refugee Action Coalition coordinator Ian Rintoul.
"When I was a baby, my mummy and daddy
took me on a big trip to
escape the danger back home.
I have been living in a detention
centre for 3 years with my family.
Mum cries and says it is all her
fault. I don't like seeing her cry. I
give her a big cuddle."
- Amanthi* (7 years old)
Support the Amnesty International
Freedom From Fences campaign.
Right now, over 4,000 innocent people
are imprisoned in Australian detention centres.
This can last months or even years.
"We fled the violence in Sri Lanka in fear of our lives.
I have 3 beautiful children who have celebrated their
last 3 birthdays in detention.
I wish with all my heart that the next birthday gift I can
give my children is freedom.
I don't know what the future holds, at least we are alive."
- Tharushi* (wife and mother of 3 beautiful children)
Let them know they're not forgotten.
Freedom From Fences
"I fled Afghanistan because they wanted me to fight, but
what does a boy know about guns, fighting & death?
I arrived in Australia & I now live in a detention centre.
I don't understand why I have been locked up and
questioned like a criminal.
I just want to live in peace."
- Behnam* (current detainee)
And meet the heroes - the AI Refugee Casework Team.
"On the third impact with the cliff
the boat broke apart showering the sea with people
- living and dead -
wood, bags, ropes, tarpaulins, clothing,
backpacks and life jackets all doused in diesel."
Fifty refugees, including children,
died in Australian waters on Dec 15, 2010.
An inquiry finds that they could have been saved.
Did Australian actions lead to the death of
146 refugee children
so that Australian politicians can
"stop the boats"
and win votes?
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