Sunday, May 5, 2013

Road Trip Songs for the Kids

Western Washington hit a spell of amazing weather this weekend. My first thought like always when the meteorologists promise the impossible, BEACH!!! We live over three hours from Long Beach, WA, but it's worth it. We were hoping for seventies, but hit 80's instead. What a boon. Oh, we consists of my two boys, my sister, and my mom. But with over 6 hours of driving time total all in one day, we have to be armed with entertainment...MUSIC. For all those who plan to take to the road with children, here are a few of my favorite songs/albums.


My boys rock out hard when they listen to The Imagination Movers. Okay, so do I. The music is fun and easy to pick up...even for me.

 
My mom always asks, "Who is this?" "They Might Be Giants, mom." "Or they might not be."


Warning: The song One Small Voice by Kenny Loggins & Kids can turn your happy sister into a griping grouch until the song ends, then when your son who loves slow songs asks you to replay it and you do, be prepared. It's not a pretty sight.


This album will inspire some hip shaking and possibly your kids shouting from the backseat for you to stop singing. Also, if you are not musically inclined and have no music memory it's possible a single song lyric will stick in your head for weeks, keeping you up at night, sneaking past your lips as you walk your kids to school. You've been warned.


VeggieTales is Christian based and their songs are ridiculous, but man, my kids love them, especially the Pirate song and the Bunny song. I do not know why.


Check the library because it seems this CD is out of stock. There's a song along the lines, "M-O-M-M-Y needs C-O-F-F-E-E." My kind of song. A little goes a long way for this pick.


Pete the Cat is a wonderful series of books with I Love My White Shoes being my favorite. This song closely matches the book and my boys love both! Other books with great songs are Brown Bear Brown Bear and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (spell this one correctly on Amazon or else...yikes!)

Don't forget tapping into movie soundtracks. Madagascar, Chicken Little, Cars, Tangled, Mulan, Curious George. Or TV shows like Yo Gabba Gabba and Playhouse Disney. Think about throwing in some classics like Queen's We Will Rock You. Kids love rock! I suggest making mixed CD's. It's just more fun that way. Happy Driving!!!


10 comments:

  1. That's quite a list!! My son's favorite when he was younger was 'The Ants go Marching'. Now we listen to Kids Bop, Taylor Swift, Adele, Maroon 5 (edited version), and One Direction most of the time. Love the new picture of you guys at the beach! Jaclyn @ JC's Book Haven.

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  2. That's a great list! The Ants go Marching...I have that on one of my Sesame Street DVDs. Will still loves it. John would love your playlist, oh and if saw Taylor Swift, forget about it. I never knew a 4 yr old boy could girl watch like he does. Our beach pictures always make me smile, this was one of the few that didn't show bugs crawling on us.

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  3. That's a nice list. I haven't heard any of them. :( But I've seen all the animations you mentioned: Madagascar, Chicken Little, Cars, Tangled, Mulan, Curious George. I have Madagascar 3 on my PC, but I'm yet to watch it. I'm saving it for a less busy day. I love animated movies! The latest one I saw was Brave. I really liked it, and it won an Academy award. :)

    Thanks for sharing!

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    1. I love animated movies too! I haven't watched Brave yet. My favorites are The Incredibles, Kung Fu Panda, and Tangled. Luckily we can't find the Madagascar 3 DVD right now. My oldest spent five nights in a row watching the first fifteen minutes over and over. Hmm, where did that DVD get to?

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  4. You'll find it where you least expect it to be. :) It happens like that sometimes.

    My favorites are Megamind, Bolt, Cars, Chicken Run, and I still like the good ol' Tom and Jerry. I liked Mars Needs Mom too, but it performed badly at box office. And I like movies like Avatar and John Carter, where animations are used. John Carter performed badly too, although it was a good movie. Can't wait to see The Croods. :)

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    1. I forgot about Megamind! It's one of my favorites. I haven't seen Mars Needs Moms. I just reserved it online at the library. I loved the beginning in John Carter when he kept escaping. The Croods looks good. I hope the Monsters Inc. prequel is good. Have you seen any of the How to Train your Dragon? It was a movie and now a TV series. My boys love it and it cracks me up.

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  5. I haven't seen Monsters INC, but I've seen How to Train Your Dragon. I like it. Didn't know it had a TV series. But I know Madagascar (Penguins of Madagascar) and Kung Fun Panda has, on Nickelodeon. I've seen just one episode of Penguins of Madagascar. It was nice and really funny. :)

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    1. I think we could compare animated movies and shows until we run out of blog space. I grew up on Japanese anime and loved those shows so much I even skipped a day of school to watch my favorite one...it was not worth it when my mom discovered my backpack still at home and drove it to school where she discovered I was absent. I was eight.

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  6. Hi, Robyn! My kiddos are older now but when they were younger, we actually recorded VeggieTales videos (remember those?? ;) onto cassettes (and these??) and played them on road trips. It was awesome! We still listen to the Cars soundtrack as well as Madagascar. Thanks for this post - brought back memories of good times when my kids were younger! :)

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    1. The Cars and Madagascar soundtracks are big favorites. I remember videos because I still have some! Cassettes, my mom and sister made the best mixes while I was in college.

      There is nothing like hearing my boys singing or catching them dancing when they think no one is watching. I hope to have a lot of road trips this summer. I need to get busy making new mixes! Thanks for stopping by, Brandee!!

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