The first volume of Wilma Ellersiek's wonderful seasonal gesture games, fingerplays, and songs in the mood of the fifth. A companion to Giving Love, Bringing Joy. This book includes 32 songs and gesture games, inspired by nature and the children themselves, designed to lead teachers, parents and children into joyful participation with nature. Margret Costanini's introduction outlines the educational basis of example and imitation behind this work. Craft directions and a biography of Wilma Ellersiek are also included. There is a companion CD (sold separately) which also includes the songs for the Autumn and Winter book.

These simple Christmas plays in rhyming verse, with music, lyrics and directions for movement, are ideal for kindergarten and other early years settings up to the age of six or seven. The easy-to-follow plays build on well-known nativity stories to create a joyful and memorable Christmas experience for educators, parents and children alike. The book presents a basic 'core' version of each play, with plenty of optional additions for older children. It also contains tips for creating props and simple costumes. An invaluable tool for anyone keen to celebrate the nativity creatively with the children in their care. *We are hoping to produce a musical CD to accompany this book in 2015.*

A second volume of Wilma Ellersiek's wonderful seasonal gesture games, fingerplays, and songs in the mood of the fifth. This collection completes the cycle of games for the course of the year, following on from 'Gesture Games for Spring and Summer'. Dramatic changes in nature take place in the fall, as the summer's fruit matures and is ready for harvest, the trees change their color and the first frost touches plants and flowers around us. In the moving and touching games of this book we can experience the blowing of the autumn wind, the fog hanging in the air and the earth getting ready for winter. The companion CD (sold separately) also includes songs from the Spring and Summer book.

This is a book of gentle, loving games and songs that incorporate the healing, enlivening qualities of gesture, touch, and movement. It will be an invaluable resource for parents, kindergarten and nursery teachers, homeschoolers, or anyone with an interest in keeping in touch with the kingdom of childhood. These games and lullabies are imbued with the idea that loving contact with children helps them to establish a careful, nurturing relation with plants, animals, people and things in their surroundings, and movement leads them to a keen awareness of their important place in all of it. A companion CD, also called Giving Love, Bringing Joy, is available (sold separately).

Children love these games for the pure joy of movement. In their dancing rhythms adults, also, will find that the active involvement of the hands with the tongue revives the whole human being. In a series of happy games for the dancing, playing hand the movements of hands, fists, thumbs and pointers fit to the spoken word in poetry and song. They stimulate the speech center in the child's brain and promote speech development. A second group of games portrays animal games. These are magical, as they transform us into snail, bunny, pony and many other creatures. They lead us to the wellspring of the joy of existence and active participation in the world around us.