Wordless Wednesday

On Sunday I was fortunate to be involved in Lea's Funrazor at Coastlands.

I played my guitar and sang with Waikanae Primary School children as part of the entertainment. I was selling my picture book 'You're Not Eating Me' and gave the profits to Child Cancer Foundation.

The highlight for me was performing the song I had written from Lea's poem called 'This little girl of mine'. It had only been written 4 days previously so I needed my words in case I forgot them. It was a thrill to see the positive response from Lea as I am extremely proud of our song.

On my mind

I participate in this feature which I found here:

 This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.

This is on my mind:

In the photo above is one of my students, Bianca. In 2007 she was diagnosed with cancer. She's currently 2 years off treatment. Recently I visited Wellington Hospital with Bianca and her mum where we entertained some of the children.

On Sunday, November 20 I have the wonderful opportunity to be part of the Funrazor for the Child Cancer Foundation that has been organised by Lea. It is being held at Coastlands Mall in Paraparaumu. I will be there with my Picture Book You're Not Eating Me. I will be playing my guitar and singing songs from my C.D with support from some children from Room 1 of Waikanae School. From every sale I will give $5 to the Child Cancer Foundation.  I am really excited about being involved and I know Lea has put in a lot of work organising a fun event.

Pirates and Fairies

Today Lea, Bianca and myself dressed up and visited Wellington Children's Hospital. Lea had us all organised in fairy and pirate costumes. I was the pirate in case you're wondering.

We visited Ward 18 armed with goodies and guitar and entertained some kids in the common area.  After playing You're Not Eating Me, my picture book song and several verses of Old McDonald we were asked to go to the paediatric oncology daystay area. There one of the little oncology patients was getting some of her treatment. The paediatric oncology daystay area is part of ward 18.

Bianca had a few years ago been in Ward 18 and was today wearing her beads of courage. The beads represented the many and varied treatments she'd had to fight her leukemia. I felt priveleged to be there to give some pleasure to the young children who were going through a lot of pain and discomfort.

Lea gave out some copies of my book and Bianca gave out stickers and balloons.

Here are some photos of our visit.

Paediatric Oncology day stay area - Ward 18

Stories to Songs

Since I became a song writer I have been intrigued by the power of putting music to words, ideas and stories. I have used personal experiences regularly to create songs from story ideas.

My You're Not Eating Me picture book and song is one I'm particularly proud of. Other songs I have written with a story base are Back to Nature Trip and Vigour of Youth.

A song that I have discovered to be popular in my classroom is Day Dream Town that originated from a story called Tum Tum Valley. This story belonged to a Bedtime Stories book I picked up at a garage sale when I was a new teacher. I read it to my class and found that it appealed greatly to the children's imagination. I used the theme of the story and converted it into a magical adventure. References to food, animals and amusement parks. I remember Paul McCartney talking about where the Beatles got their ideas for songs such as Penny Lane and Benefit of Mr Kite. It would seem that everything is fair game for inspiration.

There is no doubt for me that stories put to music allows children to create mental pictures and can open their eyes and hearts to a wonderful world of fun and adventure.

New Horizons

For the first time I have been introduced to the world of blogging. I am excited about sharing with you my passions and my adventures on the usually sunny Kapiti Coast.

One of my achievements I am proud of is my latest Picture Book called You're Not Eating Me. Let me tell you how this book was born.

I was teaching my Year 3/4 class a very interesting lesson on Alliteration.  Usually after class I go for my regular run.  I run about 10km in a session and during that time I simply love to just think.  And it occured to me on this day that I could take this lesson on Alliteration and actually turn it into something fun. Something the kids would love and enjoy.  And because they love it when we sing in class I thought my idea would simply be perfect!  So during my 40 minute run I came up with the words, but because I obviously didn't have pen and paper with me had to keep repeating it to myself until I came back to class.  Afterwards I spent about 20 minutes playing around on the piano and finally it just all fell into place.  I had words.  Fun words!  And music!  And now it was simply just to find somebody who could illustrate my book.  Not an easy task because I'm not much of an artist and I wanted something kids could really relate to.  So I did the only logical thing - I held a competition at school.

I was so incredibly impressed when Chelsea Osborne one of the Year 8 students came back to me with a selection of illustrations.  I was totally blown away by the detail she put into these pictures and finally after 8 months I was all set to get my "baby" published.

I wanted to offer something more.  Something more than just simply a book.  So I added a CD.   I included the "You're not eating me" song along with 11 others that I wrote and wanted to share with kids.  I know that these were popular songs based on the reactions in class.