The PIGATE Calendar of Events page got a facelift!

The PIGATE Blog, Calendar of Events page got a facelift today; it now includes a display that looks like this:

A three-calendar mash-up in Agenda view

The piggy-pink listings on white backgrounds are from the PIGATE Events calendar, for which our own Taishi Kaneko became a co-moderator yesterday. The other calendar co-moderators are Tomomi Nishioka and Joseph Tomei.

Welcome aboard, Taishi! We're also looking forward to your debut as a new blog contributor.

The blue text listings are from a JALT NanKyu calendar that also appears in a similar calendar display on the NanKyu website, where the JALT member in the spotlight today is PIGATE's fearless leader, Nobuyuki Takaki! Congratulations to Nobuyuki for a perfect attendance record at PIGATE meetings for oh-so-many years.

The brownish listings on white backgrounds, as you've probably guessed, represent traditional and observed holidays in Japan. Though the image you see above is only a snapshot, clicking on the colored listings on the PIGATE Calendar of Events page will display whatever event details currently are available.

As always, if you have any concerns, questions, or suggestions with regard to posts on The PIGATE Blog, please do not hesitate to spell them out in comments on the posts, or to voice them at an upcoming PIGATE gathering.

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Music for children: Online resources

Image source: Pixabay
Creative Commons CC0

At present, this post is a work in progress inspired by Prof. Yoneoka's presentation of Hap Palmer's music for children at the PIGATE gathering 9 January 2016. 

The songs Prof. Yoneoka played and the activities she led to accompany them reminded me of another musician I'd met years ago in British Columbia, Canada, named Matt Maxwell.

Sort of like Santa, I'm making a list and checking it twice. It would be a pleasure to hear of other resources like these:

Maxwell, Matt

How C'est l'Halloween songwriter Matt Maxwell wrote the ...

'C'est l'Halloween': the story behind the greatest French ...

Palmer, Hap

Educational Children's Song (YouTube channel)

iTunes Preview

WatchKnowLearn.org

English as Second Language

Subcategories

...

Wee Sing: Learning through Music (YouTube channel)

If you know of any similar resources, please spell them out in comments on this post, and I'll be happy to look them up and add them to this growing list.

The PIGATE Blog and kindred sites–rites of passage

It has been a remarkable and stimulating yet tumultuous year.

The JALT NanKyu Chapter's Blogger blog passed away on Dec. 5th at the early age of one year, two months, and 14 published posts. So I've removed its RSS feed from The PIGATE Blog sidebar and replaced it with a new RSS feed from JALT NanKyu's recently established website. 

That removal followed on the heels of a similar removal of the disused NanKyu Chapter's Google calendar from The PIGATE Blog Calendar of Events page display and its replacement with a generic Japanese holiday calendar feed.

Previously invisible in The PIGATE Blog sidebar, but now growing slowly, is a list of cross-links to Other PIGATE Favo(u)rites. There now are two links there to sites from which feeds don't seem to be available (8-(:

1. PIGATE on Facebook (a closed group), and
2. JALT NanKyu Chapter on Facebook (no longer a closed group).

If you have any other favo(u)rite sites that you'd like to share publicly on The PIGATE Blog, either as RSS feeds or cross-links, please shout them out in comments [on this post]–OR, better yet, volunteer to lend a hand in fostering The PIGATE Blog, which was a year and 33 published posts old on Sunday, Dec. 13!

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New Year's resolution worksheets

Looking for a worksheet that you might adopt and adapt for collecting New Year's resolutions, or one simply to serve as inspiration for various sorts of resolutions–if not this year, then maybe next? Check this one out!

Image source: http://blogs.scholastic.com/files/resolution-1.pdf

You'll find a couple more if you read on.