I'm a big fan of bringing world music into the classroom; it makes teaching and learning fun. I can talk about things other than music and children are happy knowing about them. I have students studying GCSE and IB complaining about the world music component (although they don't mind this as much as the composition component). Well, if all they've been exposed to from primary school onward only include classical music, we can't blame them for not being able to appreciate Indian raga or the sound of didgeridoo.The Putumayo Kids World music teaching kit is the resource I use (pic on the left). I bought mine at Bumps to Babes in Central. I LOVE Putumayo series (I think I even used a few Putumayo CD's in my own wedding). You can usually find them at HMV. Given the number of songs each CD's contain, their CD's are quite expensive, but I think their quality makes it worth it (especially their children series, it's SO hard to find quality children songs nowadays). I ran into a sale at HMV last year, and it only costed 99hkd per CD, which was GREAT value! (original price is something like 138hkd or something)
Here's a video that tells you about Putumayo's Playground series. I like the intention and philosophy behind the making of this series! I hope parents will appreciate it too!
Click HERE to see the track list, the lyrics and the translation
