Buttons & Figs

On this episode we get to wordplay with Dirk, a talking chipmunk! Which means we're sailing our sieve to talk with Kenny Curtis, host, DJ, and animal wrangler for his radio show, The Animal Farm, which airs on Sirius XM Channel 78, Kids Place Live. You'll get to hear about the talking animals on Kenny's radio show, a bit of history about satellite radio, and learn about some of the music and podcast projects he works on. You'll also hear from some Buttons & Figs kids who have a few animal suggestions for Kenny's Animal Farm...not to mention a few interrupting animal jokes, because it's always fun to yell into a microphone!

Starring Buttons & Figs kids: Alex, Brooklyn, Evelyn, Georgia and Noah

To tune in and listen to Kenny Curtis be sure to check out:

Sirius XM Kids Place Live https://www.siriusxm.com/channels/kids-place-live

Nat Geo Kids Greeking Out podcast https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/zeus-the-mighty/topic/podcast

The Ten News podcast https://www.thetennews.com/

Connections made by Sugar Mountain PR http://sugarmountainpr.com/blog/

In celebration of National Poetry Month we have a special guest - Phoenix's Youth Poet Laureate Annika Clark! In this episode we talk with Annika about how she came to be the youth poet laureate of Phoenix, how she fell in love with poetry, and what inspires her to write poetry...but best of all, you get to hear a poem she wrote for her little sister, titled "For Grace". She also shares the poetry prompt that inspired her to write the poem, so you can write a poem for someone special too!

If you'd like to hear more about the Phoenix Youth Poetry Program, visit CYAZ.org. If you'd like to start a youth poetry program, visit UrbanWordNYC.org. And if you'd like to read and learn about poets visit poetryfoundation.org

You can also follow Phoenix Youth Poets on Instagram at @phxyouthpoetlaureateprogram

Interview captured on Zoom,

SFX from Zapsplat and Garageband

Happy National Poetry Month! We love listening, reading and writing poetry during April and we hope you do too! Here's a poem I wrote, hope you'll say it along with me, it's called, Pails of Shoeshine.

You can find the words on our YouTube channel so you can Say-a-Long Verse with me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN1KmnzEa8I&t=30s

Pails of Shoeshine written by Pamela Rogers

Ukulele by Pamela Rogers

Beats created with LOC's Citizen DJ and Garageband

Epic Encore: Once again...Nonsense appeared to be on a collision course with reason...presenting Buttons & Figs and the Oyster Actors on the Air in The War of the Fools. It was on this day, April 1st, in which weird happenings began to happen. Reporters began to report reportable events, reportable strange happenings, reportable odd sightings - a meat shower, a weird alphabet song, odd creatures sailing in a sieve making demands...what if it were all true?! Featuring voices from the pod-o-sphere, including The Past & The Curious, Composer Dad, and What If World. Tune in to Buttons & Figs to find out what the reporters are reporting this April Fool’s day. btw...does anyone have any stilton cheese?! Take care out there.

Do you like to say the words, Activity Books? Do you like all the puzzles and games found in Activity Books? Then you'll love comedy musician Mike Phirman's new album titled, "Activity Books". In this episode you'll get to hear one of the songs from his new EP, "Word Search/Vacuum", featuring the voice of Weird Al Yankovich, and you'll get to hear our funny and fabulous interview with Mike about how he became famous and about his unfortunate experience with a vacuum. A few of our Buttons & Figs kids were inspired to create their own word search activity after listening to this fabulous album.

You can learn more about Mike Phirman's work and find all the ways to purchase the Activity Books EP at https://mikephirman.com/

Thanks for this episodes go out to Buttons & Figs kids Olivia, Sophia and friends, Beth Blenz-Clucas at Sugar Mountain PR, librarian intern Anna Ferguson and comedy musician Mike Phirman.

Word Search/Vacuum and song excerpts from the Activity Books album used with permission from the artist.

Sound FX from Zapsplat

Do you know the rhyme Miss Mary Mack?! If so, then we have a silly, fun, joyful nonsense challenge! In this episode you'll learn a bit about the rhyme Miss Mary Mack, hear Buttons & Figs kid Chloe sing the rhyme AND make up a nonsense version of her own...and of course, we hope her wordplay will inspire YOU to make up your own version too!

And IF you don't know this rhyme, then this is as good of time as any to learn it, grab a jump rope...and play!

Credits:

wordplay by chloe, age 9

music by pamela rogers

Inspiration:

"Let's Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin and Turn It Out! Games Songs and Stories from an African American Childhood" by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney - https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780375870880

Do you love animals at the zoo...us too! For this episode we were inspired by Ogden Nash's "Zoo", a collection of silly animal verse, illustrated by Etienne Delessert. We invited kids at the Velma Teague Library to read some of Ogden Nash's poems and write some of their own. You'll learn a bit about Ogden Nash, hear a few of his poems, and hear original poems about a panda, a bee, a sheep and more! We'll also tell you how we went about our wordplay, so you can play our way by writing some silly animal verse of your own!

Thanks to:

Greg Kinder and Janet Llyod with Glendale Public Library, Velma Teague Branch - who welcomed us in to read, write and play before Covid took it all away!

Zapslat for their SFX

Anna Ferguson our Library Intern from the UofA - who has some wonderful book recommends!

Visit www.buttonsandfigs.com to see the original writing from the kid on this episode

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a Word Ghost were to capture me and a bunch of Buttons & Figs kids after we fell through a portal along with a bunch of other friends, like horses, chickens and Scooby-Doo? Us too! In this episode you get to hear a tale from the land of Wacky Woo, Woo, Woo, spun from the imaginations of the first ever group of online writers for Buttons & Figs. During our online class we played with alliteration, rhyming verse, word rhythms then for our last class, we each wrote a chapter that I’ve woven into a story...sort of.

This episode features original nonsense stories written by: C.J., Cruz, Maddy, Noah, Olivia, Piper, and Silver - kids ages 7 to 11.

If you want to write some nonsense too...be sure to check out our friends at Storyseedspodcast.com. They have an excellent podcast for kids all about writing and they have a new activity book chalk filled with great ideas to get you started.

The class was supported and co-taught by Tamara Fromm, sfx by Zapsplat, audio enginnering by Blaise Collins and hosted and produced by Pamela Rogers.

Thanks for listening to me and you and you and me.

Happy Thanksgiving from Buttons & Figs! On this WWW episode your challenge is to figure out which word doesn't belong. Play four rounds of Thanksgiving Thesaurus by listening to a list of words that mean similar things, in other words, synonyms...but one of the words in the list doesn't belong. And of course, there is a trick round, just because.

Have a Happy, Joyful, Peaceful, Merry, Jubilant Thanksgiving.

be safe. be kind. be playful.

visit www.buttonsandfigs.com and look for more Wacky Wordplay Wednesdays

written by Pamela Rogers

audio produced by Pamela Rogers

SFX from Zapsplat

Have you Heards of Verbs?! On this Wacky Wordplay we share 4 limericks by Edward Lear and YOU are to listen for how many VERBS you HEARDS! You say that's nonsense? I say a verbs a verb, that's what I heard! GO PLAY!

visit www.buttonsandfigs.com and look for Wacky Wordplay Wednesdays to see this wordplay written out to share in class or at home.

a little wordplay each day goes a long way!

written by Pamela Rogers

audio produced by Pamela Rogers

SFX from Zapsplat