Do you enjoy celebrating St. Patrick’s Day like we do?

We have enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day ever since our first son was born on March 16, 2001.

Turning 21, is quite a milestone, so I asked him if he wanted to go to an Irish Pub for his birthday, he said that would be awful!

Instead of going to a bar, he asked us all to go to Pine Mountain and go hiking with him. I guess all those daily walks during our homeschool days paid off, even in the cold, icy, and wet days.

When my kids were little, we always celebrated by wearing green, hunting for 4-leafed clovers, and making a festive snack. 

Here is Bella when she was in 3rd grade.

Wanna do this with your family? Just take a piece of bread, spread some peanut butter on it, then take a banana and cut 4 coin slices. Now stick the bananas on the bread to make a 4 leaf clover, then sprinkle with green sugar. Repeat ever year, lol! 

What are you and your kids doing for this festive green week? I would love to hear...

I love having you here! Thank you for being apart of my musical journey! I love all of you, my friends and family! And this is a great time to send you all

     LOVE     

My sister, Jenny and I love  Valentine's Day for this very reason!!

 She loves it so much that she just name her new baby, Valen. He is a precious baby boy. She really wanted to name him Valentine, but she couldn't talk her husband into it! But I think Valen is a great name.

I have a free song for you, with the chord and lyric chart, called I  Love You So.

My cousin, Jamey and I wrote it together. It is a cute song to sing with your kids around this time of year.

He has a son that is 5 years old, named Oden and I am teaching him music lessons each week. I sing this to him all the time. It's his song, because....

This song was written 6 years ago, before Oden was born (I am pretty sure it was about Oden's mama).

I played the piano part for...

You can watch this festive December flute lesson in action from this week at my house. 

I currently have the beautiful opportunity to teach my nieces, Alyssa and Alori, private music lessons. It’s great because they are perfect ages to begin learning an instrument.

Alyssa is learning piano, she is 7 years old and Alori is learning the pennywhistle and she is 6 years old.

Alori is on Lesson 7 of The Magic Flute Course, which follows the seasons nicely, as we make our way through the Christmas season.

I have Alyssa learning the songs from Playful Pentatonic Piano. After only 8 piano lessons, she is already advanced to Playful Pentatonic Piano 2 and is on the song My Horses Ain’t Hungry.

We are all enjoying it so much! I love how much they light up when it is so very playful.

 Yay!! Congratulations, Astrid!!

You are the winner of the Winter Bundle Giveaway, which includes

2 Free Traditional Pennywhistles in D made by Clarke,

Christmas Festival Songs and Songbook,

and

Make Way for King Winter Songs and Songbook!!!

I asked my husband to draw a number and he picked your number which was 62.

In fact, you look just like our little family when we were homeschooling. I also had two boys and a baby girl and we played outside in nature all the time.

(This is a picture of Astrid, when her daughter was a baby)

Can you tell us about where you are from and how many kids you have? And tell a little bit about your homeschooling interests or inspiring moments?

Warmly,

Jodie Mesler

***********

Hi Jodie!

Oh my goodness, I am so excited! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Just now I was going to look at the piano courses I purchased from you, that I'm thinking of giving to my children for Christmas, and I saw THIS message that I won!  

Wow, I am so...

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of Year! Above is a video I made for a fun giveaway, check out our winner

Full of happy tunes that you can’t help singing from all the joy in the atmosphere.

One of the best ways to get through the colder and darker days is with music.

Do you or your kids have a musical instrument that you can easily play?

Do you have easy music to sing and play during this festive time?

 I want to help you get what you need for this season.

 The pennywhistle is one of the easiest starter instruments I have ever played. It is also known as the tinwhistle.

It has such a sweet, whispery tone and sounds beautiful.

I taught my kids to play it, and they loved it!

One of my most memorable performances was with my daughter and my students on Away in the Manger. She and my student played the ukulele and I played the pennywhistle and we all sang the three verses mixed with ukulele and pennywhistle. Everyone loved it! The kids sounded so sweet and so cute,...

Happy Martinmas!

It's time to go on a Lantern Walk with your kids and sing I Go With My Little Lantern.

Would you like to learn how to play it yourself? You find it in my songbook Waldorf Autumn Festival Songs.

If you have the songbook already, check it out, you will find the sheet music in there.

Guess what makes my songbooks unique?

Each song comes with a cheat sheet for those of you who can’t read music, it looks like this

It took me so many years to learn how to read music. What if you just listened and played the music? 

It's okay if you can't read music. Music is first, something you hear and second, it is something you read -if you want to dive into that world!

I hope you have a great time celebrating Martinmas and have a reverent and beautiful time on your lantern walks.

May your journey be safe,

May your worries be few,

And may love always guide what you do

May you grow like a forest straight toward the light,

Grounded in the mother earth

Every year at Taproot Teacher Training we sing this as our closing song.

Want to hear it? Click here

What a beautiful song to bless us all as we enter back in with our families to renew our homeschool journey.

Barbara Dewey and Jean Miller, along with our Taproot team, gave such great value. We all tuned in live on Zoom to the workshops, got hands on experiences, got to participate in the chat, and meet in breakout rooms. I got to invite everyone to sing my song, Joyful Creation, live on Zoom, on Friday, with Miriam and her kids; and then live on Saturday at the hotel. The event was so wonderful and we all felt such a sweet connection.

What I find most fascinating is that this event usually takes place every year in Cleveland, Ohio, with a max of about 30 parents; but...