Happy Kids Songs #hsreviews

Do your kids like music?  Would you like them to learn more about manners?  Well we recently reviewed some products from Happy Kids Songs that fill all of those categories.  Don’t think that’s right?  Well keep reading and find out!

We received downloads for three cd’s as well as a workbook.  The Happy Kids Songs Workbook: Hands-on Activities to Build Character, Social & Emotional Skills was a great resource to use along with the songs.  In fact, I really enjoyed just using a page or two of that as well as listening to whichever songs we wanted that morning.  They have 8 different albums of music to listen to.  We received three to review.  Those three are:  Friends & Sharing (Set 1), Happiness & Attitude (Set 5), and Manners & Character (Set 6).

Now a bit more information for you.  The music is geared towards ages 4-8.   Each of the sets we received to download had 5 songs on them.  So we have a total of 15 songs to listen to.  These are downloaded to your computer and from there you can just listen to them, transfer them to a cd, or even put them on your mp3/phone.  Now, I said you can do those things.  I am not technologically that great, so I just downloaded them to my computer and we listened to them from there.  

Currently, the workbook can be purchased for $12.56 while the song sets are available for $4.95 each.  Or, you can purchase the songs from the song set individually for 99 cents each.  

As I stated above, each of the downloads has a set theme.  I’ll share that with you here!

Song Set One:  Friends and Sharing – This song set has five songs about the importance of friendship.  It teaches how to reach out to others, including others in your play, saying goodbye, being happy with friends even when you disagree, and sharing time together.  The songs included are:

• Sailing on the Seven C’s
• Everybody Wants to Find a Friend
• Sharing Friends
• Happy as Can Be
• Together

The next set we received was Song Set Five: Happiness and Attitude – This is a big one in our house!   It even tends to make me remember to check my own attitude daily.  This album focuses on thinking positively, giving compliments, paths to get to happiness, handling limitations, and how to handle the transition from being with friends to being without them.  The songs on this set are:

• Shake it Out and Dance
• Who Knows What’s a Kudo
• I Don’t Understand
• Be Good to Yourself
• Better Together

The last set we received for review was Song Set Six: Manners and Character – This one shares about the value of honesty, saying please and learning to use your manners properly, being considerate, how to appreciate the differences in others, and honoring multiple perspectives.  The songs on this set are:

• H-O-N-E-S-T-Y
• The Magic Word
• Quirks
• The Golden Rule
• Six Little Kids

I am very picky about what music my children listen to.  I wasn’t before.  I have always loved country music.  We listened to it a lot around our house.  I love to have music to listen to as we are doing things, like cleaning!  For some reason music just makes cleaning more fun!  Anyway, I would listen to country music while cleaning.  But then my kids started singing those songs.  They’d be playing and start singing songs.  Those songs they were singing were not ones that I wanted them to sing.  So then I switched to primarily some of my Celtic music.  Celtic music is a love of mine and I thought it would be okay.  I had never really noticed anything wrong with it before.  And then my song started singing a song about being a heartbreaker.  And again I knew that this music was going to have to go.  

I was at the point to go to solely Christian music.  So we listened to a Christian radio station on the computer.  We don’t have a working radio or even a working cd player in our house anymore.  Ours quit and we didn’t have the money to replace it and decided it was not a necessity.  It was then that I realized if I wanted to listen to cd’s that our blu ray player could accommodate that.  So, we listen to Christian music all the time now!  I have a few favorite stations to listen to on the computer or we have some praise cd’s that the kids and I enjoy.  We also have some children’s adventure cd’s and books on cd that the kids enjoy.

That brings me to this series of music.  Not only is this fun Christian music for kids, but it packs a good message as well.  The song sets teach something.  They do more than sing and put catchy lyrics into your head.  They teach.  They teach your child about having friends and sharing.  About happiness and how your attitude will affect your own happiness as well as those around you.  The last set talks about manners and character.  Of course, I don’t know about your children, but mine need reminders in the manners category more than I care to think of.  

 

Some other points to make.  You can copy from the workbook.  That’s right.  Whether you have one or ten kids you can use workbook pages with them all from the same workbook.  That is always a huge money saver for us when the copyright of a product allows for copying.  And of course, once you download the song sets to your computer you can do what you want with them.  You can put them on a cd to use in the vehicle or if your child has a listening device like an mp3 you can put them on that.  I personally just used the computer to play the songs when we wanted to listen to them.  My only complaint was that the song sets were not long enough and they would end way too quickly! 

When you download the song sets, you also get the lyrics and a free PDF workpage for the kids to do.  The workbook we received contained all that comes with the downloads but also much more!  It’s a great resource and one I would definitely recommend purchasing in addition to the downloads.

The songs are cute and upbeat.  They keep my children’s attention.  My kids like to sing them.  And best of all!  My kids are learning from them.  I love that they are walking around and playing singing these cute songs that have an awesome message.  What mother doesn’t want her kids singing about sharing and having good manners?  This sinks in and they soon begin to model what the songs are saying as well.  Great way to get music and manners into your classroom!

Want to learn more about these song sets?  Check out the Main Crew Blog Post to read what all of the other reviewers thought.  You can also find them on facebook, twitter, and youtube.