This week I attended that rare form of toddler group: one where I’m pretty sure I was as, if not more, entertained than the children! At times I was enjoying myself so much that I almost forgot the kids were there. But then I zoned back in and caught sight of the Little Big One running towards me wearing an unfeasible amount of head gear including a sparkler headband and some star framed glasses and I remembered that I wasn’t, in fact, at a real gig. I was instead at a toddler group, surrounded by small children and bundles of fancy dress and shaky instruments. But I was listening to a great cover of ACDC’s Back in Black. Yup, this was not your standard toddler group play list… Humpty Dumpty and Incy Wincy didn’t even get a mention!
Rock the Tots is one of two music-based groups that I’ve attended in the last couple of months (the other one is Music for Miniatures – more on this later) that bring “real” music to children; inspiring a passion for music that parents and their little ones can share together. Here’s more about them.
The more contemporary of the two, Rock the Tots, is run by a lovely musical couple called Stephanie and Craig. Craig plays guitar and sings (in a number of different styles) and Stephanie sings and works her magic with puppets and props. They pair songs with fun on-screen visuals that capture the children’s attention and they have a great range of dress-up props and shaky instruments that the kids can work their way through during the session; as I mentioned above, the Little Big One took full advantage of this, at one point wearing five different pieces of head wear, shaking a sparkly pom pom and singing into a microphone simultaneously. She’s a rock star in the making.
Every month the music has a different theme. September’s theme was colours so we were treated to renditions of Purple Rain, Fields of Gold, The Yellow Submarine… you get the picture! Despite this being a preschool group (it’s for under 5s), its very much choreographed with grown-ups in mind (which I loved). Not only have nursery rhymes been completely vetoed (as well as the examples above, we heard covers from the likes of Coldplay, KT Tunstall, Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell) but Craig’s impersonations of the artists are spot on (I particularly enjoyed his Eiffel 65 – yep, you remember that classic 90’s song Blue… da ba dee da ba daa). At a couple of points he threw in the odd anecdote about a song or band too; anecdotes that went way over the kid’s heads but gave us grown-ups a bit of a laugh or a flutter of nostalgia.
Now it’s not always easy for parents to loosen up and relax at these events so to break the ice, there was a game of say what you see that saw the original lyrics of “Whoa, Black Betty, bam-a-lam,” replaced with things like “bramble jam” and “panda lamp” which was a great way to get the parents engaged and was very funny too.
The event ended with a colour themed story – bringing it back to the kids. Wow, Said the Owl is one of our family favourites so it was the perfect finale to a great morning. October’s theme is Spooky fun but I’m told there won’t be anything too terrifying! Dates tend to appear on their website the month before, so you’ll find October dates here.
Prices: £4 per head but if you are bringing a second sibling they offer a small discount – a siblings ticket will cost you £7. We got ourselves a loyalty card too – get 5 stamps and your 6th gig is free!
Venues: Gigs take place in Bath, Bristol and many places in between, including Corsham and Bradford on Avon. Check the website for a full list of locations.
After embracing our inner rock stars at Rock the Tots, we took the pace down a level at Music for Miniatures and indulged in a bit of classical music. Now, if I’m honest, we don’t really listen to a lot of classical music in our house (apart from the occasional nod to it with the Ballet for Kids playlist on Spotify). We’re plebs, I know. Having said that though, our house is always filled with noise and the girls seem to love music of any kind so I figured Music for Miniatures would broaden their musical horizons a little bit.
Music for Miniatures is all about introducing live classical music to babies and young children. It was started by musician and mum, Julie, who is joined by a host of other musicians to bring high quality live music to families, without the stress of trying to keep little ones quiet and still. Classical music has been proven to be calming for children of all ages (and grown-ups too!) but at these concerts, it doesn’t matter if babies cry and toddlers babble and totter around because they are encouraged to explore, dance, pick up a shaker or scarf and get right up close to the performers. There’s something really special about seeing different instruments up close too – my two were fascinated by the oboe and the Little Big One couldn’t wait to have a tinkle on the piano at the end (her daddy plays it and she loves joining in).
Each concert has a different focus – at one event you might be watching a jazz quartet and one week it might be all about percussion or horns. The concert we attended was called A Musical Zoo and all of the songs were animal themed, which was a great introduction to classical music for my two. There were the obvious animal themed tunes like Swan Lake (which was a big hit with our ballet loving Little Big One) and Flight of the Bumblebee. And there were some more subtle links to animals where we were encouraged to listen to the sounds within the music and pretend to be whichever animal it made us think of; for example, the bouncy tones in Benjamin Britten’s Bacchus saw us become jumping kangaroos. The girls loved getting involved and we all enjoyed the beautiful music.
Prices: £8 per adult/child pair, £4 per extra adult, £3 per extra child.
Venues: Concerts take place in Bath, Frome, Street and a few places in between (we went to one in Midsomer Norton).
Their upcoming Autumn dates are listed below:
The Parent Play List 