Music at home-The highs and lows of it

 This week our lesson focus was all about levels in movement.  So much of life is experienced without exploring the extremes of high and low.  Stretching outside of the normal range of movement can enhance awareness of our bodies in space, coordination, balance, and creative expression through movement.  Moving high and low translates fairly easily to children of all ages.  Hands and arms can be moved high and low; babies can be lifted into the air; and movements can incorporate crouching and stretching, crawling and walking high on tip-toes. On the piano, high notes are to the far right, and low notes are to the far left. If you have a piano or other instrument at home, try playing High and low notes, and encourage your child to move in response to the music. Scarves, streamers, or pieces of ribbon (with supervision, of course) can add another dimension to this activity. And if you have one, a Slinky is great to stretch and snap back to demonstrate levels in sound AND levels in movement!

If you haven't done so yet, visit play.kindermusik.com and use the card from your home materials to download the CDs from class. While this is the same music you have on your class CDs, you will also be able to download the lyrics from all the songs and extra activities to sing, play, move and groove. As mentioned in class, these are wonderful for those cold, wet or otherwise out of sorts days when parents and kids both need a break, for babysitters who might appreciate a little extra help in finding some way to play with a child, or for visiting grandparents.

Have a wonderful week!

Music this week-Movin' and Groovin'

We sure "moved & grooved" in class this week!  Thank you all for your creative ideas and enthusiasm in class.  Have you noticed all the moving words in our songs?  "Hop Up My Baby", "Jing Jang" and "My Pony Joe" to name just a few. 

Words are simply sounds until they are associated with an object, action, experience or feeling.  Combining sounds, movement, and language, such as fast and slow, high and low, and smooth and bumpy, gives children an opportunity to make connections between the action and sounds.  When similar events and sounds are repeated together, words begin to have meaning ("The Meaning of Words." presented by Bruce Perry at the National Early Childhood Advisory Board Meeting on May 19, 2000).  

For more Family Time fun at home, enjoy fast and slow “family jams” (play-alongs) to your favorite songs using container drums.  Find ways of playing your drums fast and slow, high and low and moving to the 1-2 beat and the 1-2-3 beat. Putting beans, rice, or even cheerios inside gives a range of sound opportunities as you shake and tap.  There are a wealth of possibilities that will reveal themselves as you explore together.  

Enjoy your new home materials. I strongly suggest that you copy the CDs to your computer or make a back-up copy, as I have not yet been able to get the download from the Kindermusik cafe to work. It can be very frustrating to have a favorite CD go missing or be unplayable when your child wants it! Enjoy the books and the balls, too. The more you use the home materials, especially by listening to the recordings at home, the more your child will be able to participate in and enjoy class, and it's helpful to parents, too! 

The home activity book and game are great "rainy day activities". Don't feel that you have to do the activities in order, or do them each day or even each week as "homework". But when you need something extra to do, something fun, or when everyone is a bit out of sorts, pulling that book out and finding a good activity to share can be a life saver, especially with a cranky toddler! I've also found that the activities in home materials can be great idea starters for babysitters, visiting relatives, or when you have an extra child or two over for one reason or another.

Have a fun time taping, shaking and playing together. I look forward to seeing you next week!

Ms. Donna

Beyond the Music-Movin' and Groovin' week 1

Welcome to the family! This week in Family time, we began our exploration of everything related to movement by starting with tempo. Tempo simply means "how fast (or slow) are you going".  As children grow and develop, they learn all the ways they can move, from crawling as babies, to walking, to running, until they get to the point that you REALLY wish they'd slow down a little! So, in class we will explore both ways to go, go, go, but also ways to slow, slow, slow down a little, to relax, and to control those growing bodies, even when it's hard.

Please go to play.kindermusik.com and use your play card to download a few songs to share with your child. This will let you start listening to the music while waiting for your home materials to arrive, and will greatly increase your child's enjoyment of and participation in class.

Here are some specific songs from class today:
http://play.kindermusik.com/tracks/4264-lento-y-rapido-slowly-and-quickly/

http://play.kindermusik.com/tracks/4262-hop-up-my-baby/

http://play.kindermusik.com/tracks/3892-riding-the-rails/

And a suggested album
http://play.kindermusik.com/albums/203-zoom-e-oh/



This semester we will also be looking at a lot of different animals and the ways they move. A great purchase to have at home, and a very inexpensive one at this time of year, is a deck of animal picture cards. Target usually has these in the dollar section during the back to school season, with either drawings, photographs or both, and at $1, it's hard to beat the price. This year, along with regular animal cards, they have animal movement and sound cards, which are great, too and musical instrument cards.

My personal favorite visual cards, especially for children who are learning a second (or third) language, are the Lang o Learn picture cards. These are more than a little bit pricey, I'm afraid, at about $10 a set (I've found them as low as $6 a set at teaching stores) but the nice thing about these cards is that not only are they nice, full color photographs of animals, objects, people and the like, but that they're labeled on the back in 17 languages, with pronunciation helps.

This week we listened to a horse galloping and trotting. If you have a chance to visit Shelby Farms, you can often observe horses in action out there, or here are some examples from youtube

Horse galloping

Horse trotting (with background music)


We still have spots for a few more friends in our Friday and Saturday classes. If you know someone who is interested, please invite them to check us out at http://memphis.edu/cms/childhood.php or contact me to set up a preview class

Have fun this week making music with your child!