Multicultural Monday: Meet DARIA

 

I have always had a strong belief that everyone is equal and should be treated equally. As a high school teacher I found a great way to support this believe through advising diversity clubs, GSA's (Gay, Straight Alliances) and going through on many diversity/multicultural trainings. I have decided to try to do a weekly multicultural post with some educational part to it for all of you who are teaching your children. I have many resources to pull from and am finding more all the time.

Recently I was contacted by Daria an amazing musician. Here is her official blurb: Award-winning children’s performer, DARIA (Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou) has five cd’s that have won national honors.  She has the most awesome job of traveling the world to sing for kids and peace.  Her website; located at dariamusic.com, was given a 2009 Parents Choice Award for its musical and cultural content. You can find a complete list of her musical crafts and coloring pages at: http://www.dariamusic.com/crafts.php. 

Daria asked me if I would be willing to listen to one of her amazing CD's (ok I'm the one calling it amazing) and make one of her musical instruments with Hazel and blog about it.She would send me the supplies for the instrument of my choice and the CD. Needless to say I said yes. The hardest thing was choosing a CD. In fact I think I'm going to go purchase a few more of them. I decided to get what I thought I would enjoy most and not what I thought Hazel would enjoy most and picked her I Have a Dream CD. Daria mailed it to me so quickly and I love the music and so does Hazel. I finally have something I can play besides Elmo in the car and make Hazel happy. Plus I enjoy listening to the music even without Hazel in the car. I also found some of the songs so moving that I actually loaned the CD to the Christian Educational Director at my church because I thought there might be some songs on there that she could use in Sunday School.

Needless to say I highly recommend this CD and I am going to purchase at least one more of DARIA's CD's. 

Then I got to choose an instrument for us to make. If you visit Daria's website http://www.dariamusic.com/ you will see she has many crafts and instruments on there for you to do/make at home. She also gave me the choice of a quilted rainstick. Ok, Hazel has played with a rainstick at the Peabody Essex Museum and loves it (actually she loves any musical instrument) and I like to quilt. I figured this would be a perfect instrument for us to make. (For more information on rainsticks visit Daira's post on Making Multicultural Music.) Daria again sent me the supplies quickly. She however was still working on the instructions, so I had to wait. This week I got the instructions and we made our rainstick. Hazel loved it even before we decorated it. It was relatively easy to make. Daria sent us a mailing tube with wire and pipe cleaners. I gave the wire to Hazel to bend and kink up. She did an ok job at this, but I had to add some to it and then we put the pipe cleaners on to it. Then I taped the wire into the tube (making sure it went all the way through). Then we added some beads and sunflower seeds to make the noise. I played with the wire and what we put in it to get a noise we liked. You can watch the video to hear her play with it.

Hazel playing with the undecorated rainstick

Then we waited a few days to decorate it. To make it quilted we just glued fabric squares on to it. Since I had some pieces leftover from Hazel's quilt, I used them. I let her do most of the gluing so it is not perfect, but we like it. 

As soon as the glue dried she wanted it. She loves playing with it.The fabrics add such nice color to it.

Now I need to thank Daria, not only for the CD and supplies to make the rainstick but also for motivating me to blog about multicultural topics. If it had not been for her, I probably would not have explored this route and share one of my passions with you. So thank you so much, Daria!! I hope you will go check out Daria's music and her wonderful resources she has on her site and if you get a chance to see her in concert definitely go--I know I'll be jealous!!

This is where I link up...

Before Music: Where Instruments Come From with Musical Instrument Craft Round-Up

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Music is such an important part of life. We hear music everywhere. Listen to the wind blowing or the birds singing. It is musical. Today I am sharing a book that takes a look at music from across time and around the world. It shares where musical instruments come from and I'm sharing a round-up of diy musical instruments for kids. The book is Before Music: Where Instruments Come From by Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrated by Madison Safer. It is recommended for ages 8 to 12.

A Day in the Andes

Today I am going to explain our "trip" to the Andes thanks to Daria. Daria recently published a new CD and e-book about a child's life in the Andes. The CD is called Cancioncitas De Los Andes/Little Songs of the Andes and the e-book is called A Child's Life in the Andes.  Both were released April 2nd and Daria was kind enough to offer us a free copy of each to review and we LOVE them!! The combo pack of the book and CD are available at Daria's Little Village Store for $12.99. You can also buy just the CD at iTunes and Amazon.

Now before I go into how wonderful these activities are, I want to give you a little background. Daria lived in the Andes in Peru for part of her childhood. Needless to say she knows much about the area firsthand.

Now onto this great book and CD. Every time I play the CD, Hazel says to me, "Mommy, I like your music." The music is not like the music we normally listen to or even the other amazing album of Daria's that we have. We began our journey to the Andes by just listening to the CD a couple of times and loved it. 

Now that our mood was set, we sat down to read the book. We learned all about life in the Andes including what food was native to there. (Sorry we didn't have a play potato or I should say I couldn't find it if we still have it.) Plus about the animals and life in general for the children. Then there were all sorts of coloring pages.

Hazel only colored this llama so far, because we were busy doing the other activities like making musical instruments. We had already made a rainstick, so we some zampoñas following the easy instructions in the book. Hazel loves trying to play them!

Then we decided to follow the suggestion in the book to have a stuffed animal parade, but we decided to use our two llamas (one stuffed and one plastic) and also to use our two instruments. We had Steven video us. (Fair warning, he is not the best with a camera of any sort!)

Now if you are interested in exploring the Andes from your home, please stop by Daria's page and buy her new CD and E-book. They are amazing and we really enjoyed them! Thank you to Daria for sharing these wonderful resources with us!!

Beautiful Rainbow World Book Review

Congratulations to Marilyn N. for winning the 5 DVDs from NCircle Entertainment!

Disclosure: Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou gave me a copy of this book free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I get to share with you an amazing book for celebrating diversity!! The brand new book is called Beautiful Rainbow World created by Suzee Ramirez and Lynne Raspet to the words of Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou's song Beautiful Rainbow World. Now I have posted about this amazing song before. Hazel and I spent some time doing activities to many of Daria's songs on her I Have a Dream CD, which I reviewed last year. 

National Hispanic Heritage Month Begins Saturday

Did you know that National Hispanic Heritage Month begins Saturday? It runs from September 15 to October 15th. President Lyndon Johnson put into place National Hispanic Heritage Week and President Ronald Reagan expanded it to a month. (Source) My friend, Daria, reminded me and asked if I would like to make some of her musical instruments in honor of the month. I, of course, jumped on it. If you have not already checked out Daria's webpage you should, but especially check out her Monthly Song Page so you can enter her great giveaways for a pair of handmade maracas and/or a basket of castanets. Everything we made today came from her tutorials which you can find links to on her Monthly Song Page. Everything was made with recycled ingredients for the most part or at least things we had hanging around the house.

Hazel had a great time making the instruments, decorating them and playing with them! The pictures above are of her making and decorating them. We will start with the most well known instrument we made--maracas! Daria does a great job of explaining maracas including a bit of history. We used a small water bottle (we only had one in our recycling bin), two empty bubble containers (with the wands inside still), toilet paper rolls, beads, and electrical tape (red) and then Hazel decorated them with paint. Hazel loved putting the beads into the different containers. I taped the toilet paper rolls to the containers and then she decorated away. We actually have some maracas from the store so I included a picture of them as well so you could see the similarities and differences!

Next we made the guiro. This is actually easy to make and is somewhat similar to the maracas. We used an empty water bottle with ridges. We put some beads in it as well. Hazel also painted it a bit, but I don't recommend this since the paint flaked off immediately when we played it. Again, Daria does a good job explaining the guiro and a bit of it history. I think this is my favorite one we made!

The last instrument me made today is a cajita. Cajita means little box. It literally is a small box with an attached lid. To play it you hit it with a wooden stick on the inside, outside, wherever. I had picked up a couple of wooden boxes on clearance at the Christmas Tree Shop when we visited my parents last week. (Daria suggests a cigar box.) I pulled out the smallest one and gave it to Hazel. She added some paint so she could add her own touch (or at least that is the reason she told me she wanted to paint it). Then she played it with a pencil as well. Again, Daria does a great job explaining about a cajita, so please check out what she says.

After playing it a couple of times she decided she wanted to use the box for Ducky's diaper cream. She thought it was the perfect size for it. Oh, well. 

Since the cajita is from Peru, I thought I would share a children's book for you about life in Peru, Tonight Is Carnaval by Arthur Dorros. All of the illustrations are pictures of arpilleras sewn by the Club de Madras Virgen del Carmen of Lima, Peru. They are beautiful!!

The story is told by a young boy about his family getting ready for the Carnaval, which is three days away. First the work must be done. He goes into details about the work including farming, taking care of the llamas, sheering the alpacas and turning it into yarn and then taking their potatoes to the market in the village. After the market the Carnaval will begin. If you do not know, Carnaval is a celebration just before Lent. In the Andes it is celebrated for three days and nights with music (from a local band which the story teller gets to play in this year), dancing and feasting. 

Stay tune for more Hispanic Heritage Sharing the next month!! Next week Monday will not be multicultural due to the Virtual Book Club for Kids, but I will share something with you later in the week.

Earth Day Around the World CD Featuring Daria

 

Disclosure: Daria sent me a digital copy of this CD in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short. Earth Day was yesterday. Although I see the importance of Earth Day I do believe that we need to focus on the meaning of Earth Day every day of the year. I tend not to celebrate Earth Day as a holiday of sorts. Its use is to remind us that we need to take care of our world. As a whole the human race is destroying our planet with the fumes from vehicles, trash, and consumption of natural products. This is an important message to be reminded of but I hope we all realize that we need to stop thinking about it as a day and think about it every day! Today I get to share with you a new CD that features Daria and others from around the world. It is Earth Day Around the World. 

Around the World in 12 Dishes--Peruvian Purple Corn Pudding

Have you entered my current giveaway yet? There is just over a day left to enter!!

This month we are exploring Peru with Around the World in 12 Dishes. Now for Peru, I e-mailed my friend, Daria for recipe advice. Daria actually lived in Peru for part of her childhood. She suggested we make a mazamorra morado or Peruvian purple corn pudding. She even suggested a recipe for us. But before we get into our delicious recipe, let's talk about Peru. Now we discussed a little of Peru awhile ago when we reviewed Daria's A Child's Life in the Andes and the companion CD Little Songs of the Andes. Both are available for sale at Daria's Little Village Store.











Peru is a country in western South America and was home to many ancient civilizations including one of the oldest in the world, Norte Chico, and the Inca, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered Peru in the 16th Century and Peru gained its independence from Spain in 1821. Peru has the peaks of The Andes as well as the rainforests of the Amazon Basin. Spanish is the main language in Peru, however many Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages. (Source)

Now let's talk about our mazamorra morada. If you want a wonderful scent in your house, I suggest you cook this pudding. I can still smell the sweet pineapple, cinnamon and cloves in the air a day after making it. Now we used this recipe found on About.com. Normally I post my Around the World Dishes on the third Tuesday of the month, however I had some trouble finding purple corn. Daria had suggested a Hispanic market. I called six I found on-line. Only one answered (and one had been disconnected). The one that answered did not have purple corn, so I goggled it and found it at Amazon. I didn't get it until after the third Tuesday and then I had to get the other fresh ingredients.

Mazamorra Morada or Peruvian Purple Corn Pudding

Ingredients:
1 pound dried purple corn
1/2 pineapple (including rind)
1 quince (or a green apple if quince is not available)
1 teaspoon whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
1 apple
1 cup dried fruit: prunes, apricots and/or cherries (we used prunes)
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons corn starch
juice of 1 lime

The first step is to put the dried fruit in a heat proof bowl and cover it with boiling water. Then set aside to cool.

Next put the purple corn in a large pot and add 10 cups of water. Then cut the pineapple into small bite sizes. Put the cut pineapple aside but add the rinds to the pot. Quarter the quince and add it to the pot with the cinnamon sticks and cloves. Bring the water to boil and boil uncovered for about 30 minutes until the water is purple (which it is almost instantly) and the quince is very soft. While it was boiling, Hazel juiced the lime and we took a pineapple break with the other half of the pineapple. It was the first time Hazel liked a fresh pineapple though she did get a hurt tongue from eating too much of it.

Once the mixture is done, strain the liquid and return the liquid to the pot. Throw away the corn, pineapple rinds, cinnamon sticks and cloves. Take 1/2 cup of the liquid and put it in a small bowl with the cornstarch. Set it aside for later. Peel and cut the apple into small bites. Add the sugar, pineapple, apple, dried fruit (strained from the water), and a pinch of salt to the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil and boil for about 20 minutes until the apple is soft. Stir occasionally.

Add the cornstarch mixture and bring to a boil again. Stir constantly for about 5 minutes until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice. Cool. Serve room temperature or chilled. Sprinkle with cinnamon when serving.

We loved it!! Steve thought it was a bit spicy, but he enjoyed it.

We of course enjoyed some stories from Peru. Hazel really loves hearing the different stories from all the different cultures.

We also listened to some Peruvian music with songs from these CDs. 

We also looked at some resource books.

Now a few of these books are craft books. The textile book suggested a Peruvian weaving as a craft. Since we did a weaving recently, I decided not to attempt this right now. We did however try the Peruvian clay whistle from the World Crafts Musical Instruments book. Ours did not turn out well though. (It was suppose to look like the yellow one on the cover.)

So that is our exploration of Peru. Have you explored Peru or made a Peruvian dish? Feel free to link up here and visit the others to see more dishes and explorations!! Also print out the Peru Placemat and Passport Pages to have explorations with your own kids.

Song Inspired Art: Ride, Horse Ride by Daria

Last week I shared our first music inspired art/activity post. This week, we are sharing another song inspired art from the same CD, I Have a Dream by Daria. The song this week is among Hazel's favorites. It is called Ride, Horse Ride. First I am going to share with you the song via Daria's video.


Now this song is rather simple and has a fun beat. Daria e-mailed me a wonderful idea of making a Pow-wow Drum to play while listening this song. We have not done this yet, but I hope to.  We however worked on mirror image paintings and chalk drawings for the sun and moon beams and then put horse stickers on them.

We started with chalk drawings. We folded a white piece of paper in half and then used sun colors: red, yellow, orange, white and colored on half the page. Then we folded the page and used a rolling pin over the paper to try to transfer the chalk to the other side. It did not transfer as much as we hoped, but we had fun with it. We repeated this activity with black paper using moon colors: blue, white, green, yellow. Then we put small horse stickers on them.

Next we used some paints. We used washable finger paints and a few colors of acrylics. We used too much paint on each picture. They are going to take days to really dry. However Hazel really enjoyed this. Again we folded the paper in half and put paint (drops) on one side. This transferred much better to the other side. (In fact for those looking for a lesson there is a fractal lesson I once did with this type of painting. The transfer process puts lines into the paint and they form a type of fractals.) Next we went and put horse pictures on them. Hazel decided which one got the big stickers and we had horse head stickers for the other ones. Hazel also made one extra painting with all the colors of finger paints.

While making the drawings and paintings we were listening to Daria's CD and Hazel enjoyed singing into the microphones on her portable CD player. She knows all the words to all the songs so she was having a blast.

Chinese New Year Instruments

We have been reading some books about the Chinese New Year. Hazel is rather excited. In fact her favorite activity is to pull out musical instruments and practice marching for a parade. The books we have read so far are Dragon Parade by Steven A. Chin and A World of Holidays: Chinese New Year by Catherine Chambers. We also have been playing the dragon race game that was in her High Five Magazine which was her first introduction to the Chinese New Year.

Dreaming of Hawaii with Pu'ili, Hawaiian Rhythm Sticks, Music and Stories

Now this winter has been harsh for most of North America. The past two weeks it seems it snows five to six inches every few days here. I am so over winter and cannot wait for spring!! My friend, Daria, invited me to make pu'ili with Hazel and tell you about her fabulous giveaways!! Daria is giving away a ukulele and a pair of pu'ili [POO' ee lee] which are Hawaiian rhythm sticks. Now she thought of us because she knows about Hazel's ukulele and knows how much Hazel loves to play it as well as any instrument really. We have even made our own ukulele. I should also add that Hawaii is my dream vacation. Steve has already been there, but it is the place I really want to go. One day I hope...

Amazing Prizes I Won This Month

This month I have been very lucky! I won two contests!! I won first place in the Multicultural Kid Blogs Pinterest Scavenger Hunt and I won one of Daria's contests on her Monthly Song Page. I thought I would share with you some of the amazing things that have been arriving in the mail the past two weeks. 

Now first we won some electronic books. Now we are a pretty low-tech family (old fashion cell phones, etc.), so I do not have a Kindle or anything of that sort, so I got the pdf versions. From Be Bilingual, we got the pdf version of Be Bilingual Practical Ideas for Multilingual Families by Annika Bourgogne. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but since Hazel's new school focuses on Latin, I think I may try to refresh my high school Spanish and teach her some as well. Which leads us into our next electronic prize. From the Spanish Playground we got Los Pollitos Story and Coloring Book and we got Spanish Animal Cards (cards are available for purchase here). To go with the Los Pollitos we got this adorable wooden chicken toy. 

When you hold the toy by the handle the chickens peck at the food. The toy next to it also came from Spanish Playground. It is a top game called Toma Todo. Hazel and I tried to play the other day. It is a great introduction to learning Spanish for us.

Next we got some books. From Hartlyn Kids we got The Bamboo Dance by Cress Sia and one mock passport. The book contains a sticker for the passport. The Bamboo Dance is about two boys in the Philippines. It introduces some Philippine food, dance and culture. It is a perfect book to add to our Multicultural Library. 

We also received two wonderful books from Lee & Low Books.  The first is Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell.  This book is about a group of kids who are visiting their grandfather on a rainy day. Normally they go out to play, but with the rain, they cannot. Their grandfather suggests making his famous rainbow stew. It requires going out to the garden and picking all the colors of the rainbow to put in the stew. It is a wonderful book about family togetherness, healthy eating and more.  Hazel asked to make rainbow stew after we read it.

The second book from Lee & Low Books is How Far Do You Love Me? by Lulu Delacre.  This wonderful book travels the world with how far a parent loves her child and the child loves the parent. It covers all the continents and gives a quick view of each as well as culture there. Another wonderful addition to our library.

The next  thing we won is a stuffed China from Plushkies. I thought Hazel would be more into this, but she did not seem as interested as I expected. However maybe the next time we discuss China she will get more into it. She was also overwhelmed since there were three packages awaiting our return from Cape Cod this week.

Our final prize for the Multicultural Kid Blogs Pinterest Scavenger Hunt is a Caxixi Woven Rattle from Africa which was provided by World Music for Children by Daria. We also happened to win Daria's monthly contest and won two kazoos. Hazel LOVES the kazoo. She figured since we won two, one is for her and one is for me. She has not stopped playing hers since we opened them the other day.

Now Daria has several contests on her Monthly Song Page each month and this month she has a link party for African posts. Make sure you stop over to enter and share!

Thank you to everyone who provided prizes for the contests!! We are loving ours! And a huge thank you to Leanna over at All Done Monkey who organized the amazing scavenger hunt!! And if you are interested in checking out the posts that needed to be pinned for the hunt, you can check out my board. There were so many great multicultural ideas shared there.