Making playlists with kiddos

When I’m sick, sometimes it’s hard to find fun things to do with Wood Sprite. I hate putting the TV on for hours and hours while I hack and cough, but sometimes it feels like that’s all I can do. Yesterday I was lucky enough for it to be a day when she was content to build Lego cities and creatures and read books. When she did want my attention (I was in and out of napping on the couch, courtesy of Nyquil), we decided to make some music playlists together.

The benefit of making these playlists (we made ours on Spotify—but you could make them on YouTube, iTunes or anything you want) was that they weren’t just a nice way to pass the time without a lot of physical effort, but a way to share our musical interests together.

A lot of her songs came from movies (“The Goonies R Good Enough” and “The Power of Love” from Back to the Future, of course) and pop radio (“Poker Face” and “Roar”), but some of them surprised me (she wanted “every song by Journey and Queen”). I added some songs to my regular playlists and introduced her to them. I put “Lime in the Coconut” in my feel-good list, for example, and she laughed hard over that song. I introduced her to some Sarah McLachlan (she really enjoyed “Building a Mystery”) and Bette Midler (“I’m Beautiful, Dammit” made her laugh, too). I also played her “Oooh Child,” a song I always play when I’m not feeling great physically or emotionally, and she kind of just shrugged. That’s okay; she’ll find her own meaning in her favorites. We ended up making a few new lists and adding dozens of songs to existing lists, and it ended up being a fun indoor activity and a good way to pass an hour while sick. Plus, now we have something to show for it when we play them and remember that afternoon together. Have you ever made play lists with your kids? How did they turn out?

Photo courtesy of Sara S.