Little Folkies, Award-Winning Folk Music Curriculum for Kids, Releases Playful New Digital Album Songs For Fall Today on Smithsonian Folkways | Shore Fire Media

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9 August, 2024Print

Little Folkies, Award-Winning Folk Music Curriculum for Kids, Releases Playful New Digital Album Songs For Fall Today on Smithsonian Folkways

Little Folkies, Award-Winning Folk Music Curriculum for Kids, Releases Playful New Digital Album Songs For Fall Today on Smithsonian Folkways

Listen to Songs for Fall HERE

 

Each season of Little Folkies’ original four-volume set – Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer – will be rolled out digitally + individually through May



Complete physical set out September 2025.

 

Little Folkies, the multi-award-winning, San Francisco-based folk music program for parents, teachers, and kids ages 0-5, is out with the first of four volumes of original folk music for young children, Songs for Fall, today on Smithsonian Folkways. Listen to the album, which features a party of string instruments and the lilting vocals and guitar of musician, educator, and Little Folkies co-founder Irena Eide, HERE.

The first album of a four-volume set that orbits around the earth’s seasons, Songs for Fall embodies the season of transition and gathering with sweet, peaceful tunes about animals, the universe, and more. Mastered by visionary traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo expert Dirk Powell (who also plays fiddle on “Rocketship”) and featuring the old-timey twang of the mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and the occasional tambourine or rain stick, Songs for Fall is a veritable celebration of togetherness and sound. Children learn to hoot like the wise old owl and splash around like a fish, dance on their tiptoes, and play outdoor games together. The album is bursting with creative possibilities. Like each seasonal collection, Songs for Fall nurtures discovery and the innate love of music and play that the Little Folkies curriculum was built to uplift. 

Developed by Eide (artist name: Rainy Eyes) and co-founded in 2009 with Joshua Smith, the Little Folkies curriculum features a joyful treasury of original and traditional folk songs to inspire singing and movement. Eide has written over 46 original songs for young children and adapted a number of traditional songs for Little Folkies. The 4-CD physical set anthologizes this music in an interactive songbook that is intended for parents to use at home to sing and play the songs with their children. The book comes with lyrics, chords and instructions to play along with each song, and each song also comes with a special movement or an activity. It also includes artwork designed by old-time, country-folk, and early roots musician Pharis Romero and illustrated by Amelia Heron. The full seasonal collection and accompanying songbook will be available in September 2025. 

In a typical Little Folkies classroom, young children dance and sing, learn wooden instruments, and engage with hand movement and rhythmic play. Interacting with music at a young age is deeply generative for young children, who gain self-confidence, develop their coordination as well as fine and gross motor skills, and improve focus and memory in the process. Little Folkies nurtures our deep-down connection to music using fun and gentle songs that teach children about the world around them.

Eide describes this essential connection below: 

"Music is at the core of our being. No matter our level of experience, all of us enjoy making music and are capable of singing. Because children are naturally musical, we may nurture and strengthen their musical abilities from an early age. These early positive experiences may create not only deep bonds that last a lifetime, but may also help children become confident music-makers as they blossom. 

Some of my earliest childhood memories are sitting on the living-room floor in my mother’s lap with our big book of children’s songs. Already at the age of one, I knew the songs in the book based on the illustrations. 

I flipped through the book and picked out songs for my mother to sing. She sang with the voice she had; it didn't matter that she wasn't a trained singer. The memories of sitting on her lap, listening to her voice, and feeling her warmth and vibrations forever put a mark on me strongly connecting me to music and singing from an early age. 

I wish this same experience on all the little music-makers out there. I hope this book [and album] will help parents give their children the joy of making music in their first years of life."

 

Watch this space for more information on Smithsonian Folkways’s upcoming Little Folkies releases. 

More information on Little Folkies classes in your community: www.littlefolkies.com 

Little Folkies creator Irena Eide's music: Rainy Eyes

About Smithsonian Folkways:

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the "National Museum of Sound," makes available close to 60,000 tracks in physical and digital format as the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian, with a reach of 80 million people per year. A division of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the non-profit label is dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among people through the documentation, preservation, production and dissemination of sound. Its mission is the legacy of Moses Asch, who founded Folkways Records in 1948 to document "people's music" from around the world. For more information about Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, visit folkways.si.edu.

 

For more information on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Follow Smithsonian Folkways:

Official website: folkways.si.edu

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For more information on Smithsonian Folkways visit folkways.si.edu or contact Hannah Schwartz (hschwartz@shorefire.com)