Distanced Music Class Activities

Making music spaced apart from other humans can be tricky. I believe we are made to make music together with others. Over the last year I have had the privilege of working with other music teachers to create excellent music class experiences for young children on Zoom and outside. While sometimes stressful, it has been fun to work out creative ways to help children meet musical goals while having fun!

Color Scavenger Hunt

A color scavenger hunt is fun on Zoom, outside, or distanced inside. You could change the colors to other instruments, objects, or things around the house as well.

You can adapt any song to go with this activity. Here is how I adapted Skip to my Lou for a color scavenger hunt.

“Can you find something blue, can you find something blue, can you find something blue, can you find something blue?

Show me something blue, show me something blue, show me something blue, you found something blue!”

Repeat with another color. I like to go in rainbow order, it helps me organize what I’m going to sing next. With a smaller class I like to sing what each child found on 5-1 (dominant-tonic), “(5)Mary found a blue (1) scarf.”

Large Movement

I have found quite a few songs that are fun large movement/dance songs that allow you to move and stay in a smaller area at the same time. La Marmotteuse is one of my favorites.

Stand up and bounce to the beat for the first 16 beats.

Jump, pat, pat, pat (Do 8 times) 32 beats

Strut (walk) around for 32 beats

Jump, pat, pat, pat (Do 8 times) 32 beats

Strut (walk) around for 32 beats

Jump, pat, pat, pat (Do 8 times) 48 beats

Freeze - tap your toes for the interlude

Run

Freeze

Jump, pat, pat, pat (Do 8 times) 32 beats

Strut (walk) around for 32 beats

Jump, pat, pat, pat (Do 8 times) 32 beats

Strut (walk) around for 32 beats

Stacking to the Beat

In classes where we were able to be close to each other we used to pass an egg shaker or other object around to the beat. Stacking something to the beat is a fun alternative to that activity.

Body Percussion

“Practicing body percussion can lead to improvement in three areas: Physical, as it stimulates awareness of the body, control of movement and muscular strength, coordination and balance; the Mental, as it improves concentration, memory and perception; and Socio-affective, as it helps to build egalitarian relationships and leads to a decrease in anxiety in social interactions.”

Ask children to find their head. Sing Biddy Biddy Bum Bum while patting the beat on your head.

Repeat with shoulders, knees, and toes.

Next start with keeping the beat on your head for the first phrase, move to your shoulders for the second phrase. Move to your knees for the first phrase of the second verse, and toes for the second phrase.

Lastly pat the beat on your head, shoulders, knees, toes to the macrobeat while singing and then try the same to the microbeat (subdivided, or eighth note).

Play Along

The play along is a time for children to choose an instrument to play and explore what they have learned. I intentionally choose a song that will allow children to explore a concept we have worked on in class further. Since stacking blocks to the beat was in this lesson I’m going to choose the Maple Leaf Rag as the play along. It has a great beat to stack blocks to. Any song that has a good beat can be chosen for the play along time. You may be listening to music from different cultures or genres and want to plug that back in during the play along time. This is also a great opportunity for the teacher to observe students rhythmic abilities. I allow preschool students to move in their space while playing their instruments. This helps me assess how they are moving their bodies to the beat as well.

Tippy Toe and Skating (Staccato and Legato)

Can you put a staccato and legato beat in your feet? Staccato means, “performed with each note sharply detached or separated from the others.” Legato means, “in a smooth flowing manner, without breaks between notes.” Try tip toeing around the room and then switch to keeping your feet on the floor as you move and skate. Try skating inside in your socks or on paper plates.

Here are some fun songs to try feeling both staccato and legato with.

Rock Passing and Stacking Game

Obwisana is a traditional stone passing game from Ghana. It is a fun melody to sing while passing egg shakers or rocks. If you are taking a music class on Zoom right now playing a passing game with your young child may be difficult. I found these stacking rocks and they are a lot of fun to stack while singing Obwisana! Can you stack them to the beat? How tall can you make your tower before it falls over?

Here are the wooden rocks I have. I really like them, however some of the rocks are a little small so if your child is young and still puts things in their mouth you may want to try the other brand listed below.

36 PCs Wooden Sorting Stacking Balancing Stone Rocks Educational Preschool Learning Toys Large Small Building Blocks Game Stones Lightweight Puzzle Set for Kids 3 Years Old

SHUANGSHI TOY

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Panda Brothers Wooden Balancing Stones - Natural Pine Wood Rock Set, Montessori Educational Preschool Learning Sensory Toy, 20 Large Size Wooden Building Blocks Set of Stacking Stones for Kids

Panda Brothers

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Preschool Music Unit Around the World

I love experiencing music from all over the world with the preschoolers I teach. Filling your lessons with music from many countries also ensures that your students are hearing a wonderful variety of tonalities. Here are a few of my favorite songs and activities we enjoyed this past year. (Click on the song titles tofind them in the iTunes store.)

• Inany (Australia)

  • Simple body percussion is a great way to experience the beat with this song.  When that becomes easy add a closed circle clapping game or hand jive.

Music of Joy performing at SOTA, Singapore 216

Waltzing Matilda (Australia)

• This “Waltz” is in 4.  The word waltz in this song means to walk.  Try moving around to the beat.

Video of Slim sitting by a campfire singing Waltzing Matilda, interspersed with shots of a swaggie.

Waltz from Coppelia (Europe)

• Now try waltzing to this European waltz.  Can you also hear change your movements with the dynamics?

Dance of the Golden Snake (Asia - China)

• Try small movement seated, or large movement up on your feet, with scarves.  A follow the leader game like a Chinese dragon is fun. Follow the leader around the room and move up and down with the sounds you hear.

Slavonic Dances (Asia-Russia)

• This is a great instrument play along or large movement piece.  Can you change the way you move or play when the music changes from marcato to legato?

Russian Sailors Dance (Asia-Russia)

• A fun large movement activity!  How many different ways can you move your feet?  March, tip-toe, run, hop?

A Tisket A Tasket Ella Fitzgerald Jazz (North America)

• Game time.  Have the students sit in a circle.  Give each one a piece of paper to hold.  The child who is “it” will walk around the outside of the circle until they get to the words, “lost it.”  Then they will take a piece of paper from a child holding one up. The child chosen will chase the one who is “it” to see who can get back to the open spot first.  Giving each child a piece of paper to hold helps ensure everyone gets a turn. 

Star Spangled Banner (North America)

• I recommend singing this song as a focus activity.  The scholastic book has lovely pictures to accompany the song and help with understanding what you are singing about.

Star Spangled Banner

Scholastic Paperbacks

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William Tell Overture (North America)

• Use this piece to learn A,B,and C parts, and how to follow a conductor.  Choose a different movement or instrument for each part. After listening to the song for a few weeks split the class into three groups and cue each group to move or play at the appropriate time.

Funga Alafia (Africa)

• Drumming along to this song is a lot of fun.

Obwisana (Africa)

• Try a passing game.  Have the students sit in a line.  Start the egg shaker (or other object) at the beginning of the line and help the students to pass by saying, “Pick it up and put it down” to the beat.  See if you can pass it to the beat all the way down the line. When this is easy add more shakers or items to pass!

Don Alfredo Baila (South America)

• A fun focus, large movement, or play along song.

Drowsy Maggy (Europe-Ireland)

• This is a great song for a dance or play along.

La Marmotteuse (Europe/Canada)

• Jump, pat, pat, pat (repeat this for 16 beats)

Strut or walk (for 16 beats)

Continue repeating the above 32 beats until you get to the middle section of the song.  In the middle tap your toes, then run when the music gets fast. Freeze and go back to the beginning Jump, pat, pat, pat and walking until the end.

Putumayo Kids - La Mrmotteuse

Keep A Steady Beat With Star Wars

We explored steady beat and dynamics with Star Wars Imperial March today as a play along in Music Together and a listening and small movement activity at Journey Montessori. The Imperial March is in a minor key, but someone had fun changing it to a major key. Enjoy listening to the difference in the two versions of this song with your child. Pat a steady beat while you listen, and change your volume from loud to soft, and back to loud again with the music.

Drumming

I am beyond excited to begin teaching the Music Together Rhythm Kids class!  Music Together is allowing select centers to offer this new drumming class for four to eight year old children and the adults they are closest to.  The curriculum is designed to expand upon the Mixed Age classes where newborns through four year old children explore and learn music through movement, singing, and playing instruments with the adults who love them.  To give you a quick idea of how a song would develop from birth to early elementary we made a video for you to enjoy.  Check out the descriptions under the video as well.

  Babies would experience this song through feeling the beat on their parents lap, kicking their legs, hearing others sing, and holding and watching the beat in the maracas.

Toddlers may add walking or stomping their feet to the beat, singing parts of the song in tune, and more exploration with the maracas.

Preschool children may be able to sing the full song in tune, keep a steady beat in their bodies and on the maracas, and add new ways to play the maracas or move.

Early elementary school children can take improvising new verses and playing instruments purposefully to the next level.  They can follow where to play on the drum to make the desired sound.  They can also add rhythm patterns on the instrument they are playing as well as verbally.  

Start and Stop Music Games to Make Your Day Easier

A toddler's job is to toddle, walk, and run.  Every day they are working on these fun new large motor skills they have acquired.  While you were probably thrilled when your little one took their first steps, you may now be chasing them and attempting to keep them out of trouble most of the time.  

All of that movement is purposeful, and can be guided.  You can use music to alter the quick speed your child may typically be moving at.  Young children love moving quickly.  Start at the speed they want to move at and then slow it down.  Change your movement to a stomp, march, skip, or large jump.  This simple trick change a terrible shopping trip into a controllable one for you and your little one.  Sing one of your favorite songs and to help guide your little ones movement while you shop.  Ridin' in the Car is as great song for such an activity from this Music Together collection.  You can easily change the words ridin' in the car to marchin' through the store.  You can also switch from duple to triple meter and watch the change in movement that takes place.  (If you are in my Music Together or preschool class we will work on this later in the session).  

Ridin' in the Car is also on Music Together's Family Favorite's CD.  Click the link below to get it!

Family Favorites

Music Together

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Start and stop music games are also a favorite of mine.  They can be a lifesaver with a toddler as well.  The game is as simple as it sounds.  You start and then stop!  If you are singing and moving to  Ridin' in the Car then you simply make the car screech to a halt.  This can be quite helpful if your child wants to go fast all the time!  Spin and Stop also is a great song to use from this Music Together collection.  You can change spin to any action you desire.  Run and stop, dance and stop, march and stop, etc.  Spin and Stop is also available on the Family Favorites CD linked above.  

I urge you to find a few start and stop songs that you and your child love so you can pull them out when you need to ease a hard day.  

Music and the Olympics (Music/Movement Lesson for Preschool and Elementary School)

Aly Raisman's floor routine was choreographed to the the Russian Sailors Dance by Reinhold Gliere.  I love using this piece of music to move to and explore musical contrasts with when I'm teaching music.  The songs theme keeps coming back and is easy to identify, but the style changes.  In preschool music classes (and even upper elementary) we have fun identifying the musical contrasts, and discussing and acting out ways to move based on what the music sounds like.  

Moving to music with your children will help them develop a good sense of rhythm.  Model how to put the beat in your feet.  Mirror your child's movement ideas as well.

If you missed it, enjoy watching gymnast Aly Raisman's floor routine here.  

Here is a way to move to to Russian Sailors Dance in your music class:

Beginning - 0:19  Wiggle, warm up

0:19-0:56 - Half note, large steps, like a monster, sneaky

0:57-1:14 - Legato, smooth, skating, ballet

1:15-1:29- Staccato, quarter notes, light, fairies, happy

1:30-1:40 Marcato, accented, quarter notes, powerful, excited

1:41-1:57 Half notes, powerful, marcato

1:58-2:13 Eighth notes, staccato, sneaky, light

2:15-2:23 sixteenth notes, Allegro, excited, speedy 

2:24-end choose what beat to feel, half note, quarter note, eighth note, there's a lot going on now.  I like to end with a lot of wiggling, similar to how we began.

If you have older students you can have them identify the instruments being played and more musical terms associated with each part of the music.  Make sure you ask kids of any age what they think the music sounds like.  Don't just give them all of your answers and be done.  Kids come up with some awesome ideas.

Successfully Having A Lightsaber Duel to the Beat with Preschoolers

The preschoolers I teach music to have been learning musical concepts with the Imperial March from Star Wars.  We have been discussing which characters theme the music is for (Darth Vader), experiencing dynamics, and keeping a steady beat.

The Imperial March is great for studying dynamic contrast.  The popular theme is loud and strong, contrasted by a gentle quiet part.  You can hear the theme come back quietly, then louder.  We began by listening for the theme and patting or stomping to the beat when we heard it.

I came across some great lesson plan ideas to use pool noodles or boomwhackers as lightsabers  and have the kids keep the beat with them in a duel while listening to the music.  I love boomwhackers so I decided to try the activity.

First we reviewed listening to the music and identifying the theme and dynamic contrasts.  For preschoolers I don't go into a big explanation of all of that, we just experience it.  The music is playing as they come into class.  They know to sit down in their spot, listen, watch what I am doing (patting, moving, stomping, etc), and mimic what I am doing.  During the theme I would stomp to the beat, when the music was quiet I would pretend to be small and hide.

The next task was to set us up for success for the duel!  I told the kids we were going to be part of a Jedi training and each time they could complete a task they would get a new, more exciting one.  The more you get into this, the more they will buy into it, and that makes it fun!

First we kept the beat with our hands.  We would pat the floor and raise them up.  I said out loud "down, up" to the beat I wanted them keeping as well.

After accomplishing that task they each received a boomwhacker and kept the beat on the floor with it the same way, down up.  I kept guiding them and let them play with this while I was passing all of the boomwhackers out.

Now it was time to get us all keeping the beat together.  I showed them the ready position (holding the boomwhacker in front of them but not playing it).  When they heard Darth Vader's theme they kept the beat.  But when the music was quiet and smooth they put their lightsabers back into the ready position.  Again, really add a lot of drama when presenting this and it makes it fun.

Lastly, we were ready for a duel to the beat!  I stood face to face with one of the students, and instead of keeping the beat on the floor we had the boomwhackers meet in the middle and hit on the beat.  I verbally cued this with, "in, out" as we played.  The student who played with me had then completed her training and could train another student, while I also trained a new one.  (I trained students who were strong with the force, beat, first and had them train students who were just learning).  Soon we were all keeping the beat with a lightsaber duel to the Imperial March theme, and freezing in our ready positions when the music was quiet to look for danger before dueling again!

Studying Star Wars Music With Preschoolers

Star Wars is so popular, why not study it in preschool.  Even if the kids haven't seen the movies, most of them are familiar with the music.  A great article about the music in the Force Awakens is Seven Things We Learned About Star Wars The Force Awakens From it's Music.  The article goes through each of the themes associated with the main characters.

We typically study pitched instruments and add in Carnival of the Animals or Peter and the Wolf during the second semester in preschool.  Last year we studied the music from Peter Pan the  musical and movie.  Here is how we will branch out and study instruments through star wars music this year.

I start every class with listening.  As the kids come into music we have something new we are listening to, and quietly moving to in our spots or patting the beat to.  To introduce Star Wars we listened to the Imperial March as the kids entered the class and kept the beat in our bodies.  We also sang the Star Wars version of A Ram Sam Sam.

A Jabba the Hutt, A Jabba the Hutt, A Luke Skywalker, and a Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, Darth Vader, A Luke Skywalker and a Jabba the Hutt.

In the lessons to come we will listen to the theme music for each character and explore keeping the beat in some fun ways.  One fun post I found had a lesson on keeping a steady beat light saber fight with pool noodles or boomwhackers while listening to the Imperial March.  This will be a reward at the end of a class!  

We will also try a small part of the Imperial March and the Star Wars theme on boomwhackers.  There are free printables for these on Teachers Pay Teachers and Preschool Prodigies.  

Odd Meter Elephant Chicken Chicken

I didn't care much for odd meters until I started teaching early childhood music.  Once I became a Music Together teacher, and realized you could improvise crazy things in odd meters, then I began to love them!

There is a silly chant in 7/8 in the current Music Together collection.  Its a great opportunity to improvise with silly sounds.  The 7/8 pattern is 3 beats + 2 beats + 2 beats, or elephant chicken chicken.  Elephant is a three syllable word and chicken is two.  To get 7 beats you need one elephant and two chickens!  You can also make elephant and chicken sounds to play with odd meter.  

What other animal combinations can you come up with to make 7 beats?  Mix a three syllable animal with a two syllable animal.

Three syllable animals

Antelope
Chimpanzee
Crocodile                 Bumble Bee
Wolverine                Killer Whale
Flamingo                 Oscelot
Octopus                   Buffalo

Two Syllable Animals

Baboon, Rabbit, Raptor, Dragon, Llama, Cheetah, Penguin, Puppy, Dolphin, Rhino, Falcon, Eagle, Monkey, Donkey, Beaver, Tiger, Lion, Walrus, Hedgehog, Lizard, Bunny, Kitten, Pigeon, Woodchuck, Toucan, Turtle, Turkey, Lobster

Learning Musical Contrasts through Ice Skating

One of my favorite activities is playing with staccato and legato musical contrasts with the Skating song from Charlie Brown.  All you need is the music (the link's below), and some paper plates.  

Skating

Fantasy Records

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Scatter the paper plates around on the floor.  Tip toe around the plates (staccato, detached movement) during the descending eighth note patterns in the song.  Then jump on the the plates, keep your feet down and skate (smooth, connected legato movement) during the dotted half note section.  These two parts are about 4 measures long and alternate back and forth.  Then there is a fun, jazzy middle section to the song where you can jump off your plates and show off your dance moves.  The alternating eighth note and dotted half note sections come back at the end.  End with the staccato tip toe phrases, and legato dotted half note skating.  

Soundtrack: A Charlie Brown Christmas Version: Starbucks Exclusive Artist: Vince Guaraldi Trio Composer: Charles Wesley, Felix Mendelssohn Producer: Timothy Jones Drums: Colin Bailey Bass: Monty Budwig Mastering: George Horn Piano: Vince Guaraldi Track Name: Skating Track Number: 07 ~ Merry Christmas!

Tip toe music 0:08 - 0:11

skating music 0:11-0:15

Jazzy dance section 0:57

Fall Songs With Preschoolers

I love teaching preschool music.  The musical activities 3-5 year old kids can accomplish never cease to amaze me.  We have been working on some basic, but very important concepts this Fall.

Audiation

Audiation is the ability to hear music, melody and rhythm, in your head.  We have been singing Bingo to work on audiation.  Each time you sing a verse in Bingo you take away one letter, clap on that one while thinking it in your head, and then sing the remaining letters.  The kids are doing great with this!  We have used

this schoolastic book

along with the song.

Sing And Read: B-i-n-g-o! (Sing and Read Storybook)

Scholastic

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Dynamics and Tempo

In the Hall of the Mountain King is a fun song to work on dynamics and tempo with.  It starts quiet and slow then speeds up and gets louder through out the song.  We start each music class by listening to a song then talking about it.  That might sound boring, but we act out the song with small movements while we listen and work on steady beat and it's a great experience.  Little kids can come up with some great answers about what they hear.  If you haven't ever asked your kids about what all they hear when they listen to music you should.  It's a fun conversation.  We used the song as a play along at the end of class.  The students have to play the instruments quietly when the song is quiet and get to get louder and faster with it!  Here is a video to enjoy with the song, and a cartoon about the music.

We read the book Gobble Gobble Crash to talk about dynamics.  The silly turkeys are loud and soft in the book.

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Gobble-Gobble Crash, a Barnyard Counting Bash

By Julie Stiegemeyer

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Watching for Cues and Songs With Parts

We worked on a Fall chant that has four different parts.  I divided the class into four groups and each group had a part.  After they learned to do their part they had to watch me to cue them, and only perform their part when they were cued!  They got so good at it that each group got to pick out a non-pitch percussion instrument (shakers, maracas, cymbals, drums) to accompany their part this week.

Steady Beat

We work on keeping a steady beat in our bodies and with instruments all the time.  We are also working on keeping a steady beat as a group with an egg shaker passing game.  The game will be part of the song I've Been Workin' on the Railroad.  

Ukulele

I've been bringing my ukulele to class each week and accompanying at least one song on it.  It is a fun, simple instrument to learn.  I created a free online class so you can learn to play some preschool songs at home!  

.

Dad's Have an Amazing Musical Gift to Give

When children hear both male and female voices with regularity they develop a bilingual singing voice in their head (can process both voices).  Children who do not have regular exposure to an adult male voice will grumble instead of sing when trying to sing along with a man, or jump an octave above a mans falsetto voice when trying to sing along.

Dads, you have have a wonderful musical gift to give your kids.  You do not have to sing well.  Just sing.  Sing in the register that feels most comfortable for you.  Sing while doing something you enjoy with your child.  You will help develop your child's musical ear and musical disposition!

Peter Pan

We had a great time playing with some of the music from the play Peter Pan today at Journey Montessori!  We identified which character went with each piece of music we listened to and then did a fun activity to go along with the song.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ugh-a-wug/id189104724?i=189107503&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Song- Ugh-A-Wug

Characters- Indians and Peter Pan

Activity - Ostinato (repeated pattern) on the drums.  Drum, rest, drum clap, drum clap, rest, rest, rest.

Songs - Hooks Tarantella and Hooks Waltz

Characters - Captain Hook and the Pirates

Activity - Bounce up and down to feel the duple feel of the Tarantella and Waltz to feel the triple feel of the waltz.

Captain Hook gets some neat songs.  He has a Tango, which is a Spanish dance, a Tarantella, which is a duple meter Italian folk song, and a Waltz which is an Austrian triple meter song.

Song - I Won't Grow Up

Characters - Peter Pan and the Lost Boys

Activity - Call and response.

I Recommend

I have always loved Jumpstart Music.  I used the game some when I taught public school a little bit and my own kids have enjoyed it a lot.  It is a preschool/elementary school game computer game that works on musical concepts.  You can adjust the level.  You go through music land and complete rhythm, melody, and instrument identification games to collect points.  I highly recommend it for anyone learning basic musical grammar!

Play back the correct rhythm

Find the bad notes

Play back the correct melody

What's Heard Can't Be Unheard

I had another fun morning teaching music classes this week.  I told one class I wish I could bottle up the amazing musical developments I get to see the kids make in class and share it with the whole world.

We used this version of Lukey's Boat for a play along.

In a Music Together class the lullaby follows the instrument play along.  This particular play along song is fun and upbeat and it can take your body a little bit to make a big switch from Lukey's Boat to Brahms Lullaby.  I enjoyed watching one little girl continue to internalize the beat from Lukey's Boat well into the lullaby, then change gears and sing Brahms Lullaby while still enjoying to spin in the middle of the group.

Another child in one of my classes likes the Music Together recording of Brahms Lullaby.  It has a bell sound at the beginning.  If you know this lullaby, simply reading the name of it may make your brain think of the tune.  But as soon as we begin to sing the song the little by mentioned knows he would like to hear the version on the recording instead.  If he had never heard the recording he wouldn't know any different.  The point being that once we are exposed to something we can never be unexposed to it.  We might forget, but chances are when we hear it again we will quickly remember.  I can enjoy Brahms Lullaby in different ways, but I can't disassociate the music with the title now that I've heard it and know what it is.

If the title doesn't prompt your memory you can listen here.

 As a mom, and a teacher, I think this power is amazing and scary at the same time.  It makes me realize that I really have to watch what I expose my children to.  Once they hear it it can't be unheard.  They can make decisions about how to approach it, but it can't be unheard.  I want to fill their heads with good!

The Classical Conversations curriculum we use for homeschooling puts many of the facts the children need to learn to music.  I am continually amazed at how they can recall a whole history facts with names and dates by me singing a few simple notes to prompt them.

 This is not one of my kids, but she is a perfect example of how singing helps memorization and what kids are capable of.  Start singing all sorts of wonderful things with your kids while they are little.  Chances are they will soak it all up and amaze you!

If you want to see how more about the power of music and memory go to YouTube and search "music therapy nursing home" and see how elderly people remember and react to familiar music.

Wouldn't the World Be A Better Place If...

when one person started clapping others joined in and created something beautiful.

I love that my job is to cultivate this kind of creativity!

What We've Been Up To At Journey Montessori

I love teaching for Journey Montessori and it's because of the atmosphere that Director Laura Self has built for the school.  The kids who attend school there are truly fun to teach.  If you have met me before you know I never really grew up and I like to teach through playing.  The rule when the kids get an instrument in their hands is to try it out first.  Who wants to get an instrument and hold it still?  We play, make some crazy noise, and then focus that into a purposeful beat and change it into making some music!

During the first semester we work on keeping a steady beat (but I never really tell the kids that, to them I think we are just playing with music).  We do not put rhythm patterns in our hands or feet, only steady beats on eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes, whole notes.  This is the same way we learn in Music Together.  We will never put the rhythm of a song in our bodies in Music Together class.  Keeping the beat in your bodies and the rhythm in your voice is essential in basic rhythmic development.  

By the second semester we begin to move into putting rhythms in our hands and feet as well as our voices.  Some children will still need to work on keeping a steady beat in their bodies too.  This is an area you can help them with at home.  Play your favorite music and find as many ways you can think of to keep a beat to it (clap, pat, stomp, play on pots and pans).  In class we are beginning by simply clapping the syllables of our names in time in a song.  Not all of us have the same number of syllables in our names, but in the song we are using we need to fit each name into the same amount of space.  Again, an easy activity to play with at home as well.  

First semester we worked on identifying different voices; singing, speaking, whispering, shouting, and how to get a good singing voice out.  Because it was the Star Spangled Banners 200th birthday we learned to sing it and what the words mean.  This is not a typical song to expect small children to sing.  The vocal range needed is not what little voices are expected to sing, but the kids were so excited to learn it and sing it!   We used this book by Scholastic to study the song.  You can find it on

Amazon

.

We also accomplished singing the African Noelle in two parts at the same time in December.  You can find a lot of versions of that song on

Amazon

too.  I was so proud of the kids for being able to hold their own simple part!

This semester we will build on those amazing tonal accomplishments as well as take a look at instruments and what families they belong to.  Up until now we have only looked at non-pitched percussion instruments (sticks, shakers, wood block, etc.).  This semester we will explore the ones that make different pitches, like our voices do.  We will use the book

Zin Zin A Violin

and The

Carnival of the Animals

for this quest. 

All In One Place

For awhile I was great about sharing what we were doing in Music Together and at Journey Montessori on here weekly.  I was also sharing homeschooling ideas on a homeschool blog for families in our Classical Conversations group.  At some point I began to sorely neglect all things blogging.  I think it will be easier to keep up with it if I share it all in one place.

The name of the blog will stay the same because music doesn't stop when we walk out of the music classroom.  The homeschool curriculum we have chosen teaches history, science, math, timeline, English grammar, and Latin all to music.  I'm continually amazed at how quickly my children are able to memorize facts, dates, places, and translations simply by singing them.  I'm so glad we gave them a good musical foundation at an early age so they can now use their ability to sing and keep a beat to aid in learning anything.  If you have not given your child a good musical foundation to build on yet its OK!

Music is an amazing gift we are all given.  Some people are born with slightly higher musical ability, but we all have musical ability.  The ability to understand and make music can be shown on a bell curve.  This means that only a few people have an exceptionally high or low ability.  Most of us are perfectly able, we just have to be taught.  I've found the same is true with math and science, I'm not as bad as I though, I just needed to be taught properly!  You are never too old to learn the basic musical concepts of pitch and rhythm, and once you have those concepts down you can use those abilities to aid in learning so many other subjects.  My daughters are using duple meter to learn trotting in their horseback riding lessons right now.

I will tag my future posts with Music Together, Journey Montessori, or Classical Conversations.  These are the three programs I teach with/for.  Below is a brief description of each so you can read more about each program if you would like.

Music Together is an early childhood parent/child music class for children ages birth-5 and the adults who take care of them (Mommy, Daddy, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, Nanny's, etc).  Children learn musical concepts through playing with their adults.  They are exposed to a huge variety of meters and tonalities so they can fully develop tonal and rhythmic ability.  A child can reach basic music competence (singing full songs in tune and keeping a steady beat by themselves) as early as age three, but there is no set age.  If adults have not been properly exposed to music they may still be working on reaching basic music competence, this is were I am with math!
I teach with the Music Together of Charlotte group.  I am blessed to work with such a talented group of music teachers!

Journey Montessori is an amazing preschool for three and four year old children in Charlotte.  I have been blessed to be their music teacher since they opened.  I teach one music class a week to the 20 preschool children enrolled there.  We work on basic music skills in the first semester, how to sing properly and how to keep a steady beat in our bodies and on non-pitched percussion instruments, through lots of fun songs from around the world.  In the second semester we begin more complex skills of putting rhythms in our bodies, we explore musical instruments and their families, and learn Peter and the Wolf or Carnival of the Animals songs.  The children accomplished learning how to sing a simple African song in two parts in December!

Classical Converstaions is a private Christian home-school group for children age 4 through high-school.  Students go to school one day a week and a tutor presents the material to be learned at home that week.  Elementary students also enjoy doing science experiments, art projects, playing music and review games together during their school day.  I am a tutor for the abecedarian class in the Fort Mill-Regent Park group.  Abecedarian means new learners, I have 4, 5 and 6 year old students in my class.  Having a good, set curriculum for my children and being able to go to school once a week with other amazing homeschool families is a wonderful experience for our family.  We love our classmates and my husband and I have learned so much ourselves in teaching our children!