Music at home- Play the black keys!

The piano has a really, really nice feature. While most of us remember accidentals and black keys from piano lessons with fear and trembling, if you play JUST the black keys, you've found a pentatonic scale. And many, many common melodies are solely pentatonic. The example above is from the website http://www.pentatonika.net/-which is a website focused JUST on pentatonic melodies and contains a wealth of songs. Chances are high that one of your child's favorites is playable on the black keys-so sing, play, and try to figure it out! You'll be developing your child's musical ear, their attention and concentration skills, and developing a feeling of accomplishment at the same time.


Other activities from this week:
Practice locating lines and spaces on the staff, and counting from the bottom-first line, 2nd line, first space, and so on. This is a helpful skill in later music reading.

Practice making and reading 4 count rhythms using the quarter note (ta) and the quarter rest (shh) symbols. The song "I like to play the sticks" is designed for this task.

Have fun!

Music this week-Jumping Beans

We had a wonderful week moving and jumping and playing and singing together! Welcome to our Lipman families and to Kenneth and Kiersten at PAC!

Keyboard skills-This week we explored the black and white keys of the piano by finding groups of 2 and 3 black keys and exploring these. As Kenneth showed us, you can play many songs using just the black keys, including the start of Amazing Grace. This is because the black keys fall in the pentatonic scale, which is commonly used in children's music and folk music, and is a great place to begin piano exploration. If you have a piano or keyboard at home, consider trying it this week!

Music theory-We also worked with the quarter note and quarter rest symbols, Ta and Shh, making and reading rhythms, exploring an imaginary rainforest,  and practicing moving and freezing. Your child took home four rhythm cards which can be cut apart to make quarter notes, quarter rests, and two eighth notes (we haven't introduced this last symbol in class, but we'll get there). Try having your child make a pattern of four note and rest cards and read them by tapping, clapping, or using Ta and Shh.

Theme exploration-Our theme for this first unit is the music of Latin America, and we explored several songs from various Latin American countries, including working on some Spanish vocabulary. The children were thrilled to share their prior knowledge with the group.

To continue this, here is a printable book in Spanish
http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/Spanish_Teacher_Version_At_the_Farm.pdf

and in English

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/Teacher_Version_28_-_At_the_Farm.pdf

Some of you who registered early received home materials today. If you registered later, your home materials have been ordered, but have not yet arrived. We will get you these as soon as possible. If you did get home materials today, I suggest copying or backing up the CD to your computer or Mp3 player. The more you listen to the CD (in the car is often a wonderful place for this) the more your child will be able to participate in and enjoy class, and it always seems that the CD that is most liked and used is the one that vanishes or is damaged beyond repair. Your home materials also include a home activity guide with a story to share, activities to do, and a panpipes instrument to explore.

Have a great week and enjoy making music together!

What a great use for old crayons

http://momscraftyspace.blogspot.com/2011/08/melted-crayon-art-tutorial.html

This seems like a great back to school art project-and a great way to recycle crayons!

Beyond the music-Jumping Beans week 1

Welcome to another great Kindermusik semester as we begin exploring Latin American music, learn a little piano, a little music reading, and even a little Spanish in our Jumping Beans unit!

Today we learned quarter notes and quarter rests, put them together to make different rhythm patterns, and played these patterns on the piano. We also started to explore the keyboard, finding black keys, white keys, and patterns of black and white keys. We went into the rainforest to see what we saw, danced to Latin American music, and played a part of a melody on a mallet percussion instrument. 

We don't have home materials yet, so please go to play.kindermusik.com and use the digital download card you received in class to download some songs to listen to this week. You might pick ones from class that you especially liked, so that you'll have a digital copy when your home CD arrives, or pick a few others that are good additions to your collection.


Here are some suggestions from class today.

Corre Burriquito
La Cucaracha
Move and Freeze
Mama Paquita


For back to school fun, I also like this album.
I'm the teacher


We still have space for a few more friends in this class and in our Kindermusik classes on Friday and Saturday for younger children as well. If you know of anyone who is interested, please encourage them to come visit us! For more information, they can see http://memphis.edu/cms/childhood.php or contact me

Until next week, have fun making music with kids!

Ms. Donna

More picnic play

We had a wonderful music picnic today! Here are some more activities to continue the play at home:
Picnic playset. Great cutting and imaginative play practice for your child!
http://awondertime.go.com/resources/pdf/create-and-play/cutting-pages/picnic-play.pdf


A perfect picnic-visual discrimination activity
http://www.tlsbooks.com/aperfectpicnic.pdf

A whole lot of wonderful picnic activities

http://stepbystepcc.com/picnic.html

Use these along with the songs from our picnic! These are downloadable from http://play.kindermusik.com and here  are all the links!


This is just a taste of what you get in a Kindermusik class. Not only do you get the activities in class each week, all designed for your child's age and developmental level, but at home activities as well to take and use and have fun with in your home materials. For these early years, Kindermusik is truly the best choice.

Call 901-678-4244 or visit http://music.memphis.edu/cms/ to register today!

Sing to read, read to sing!

I had a wonderful storytime today at the Booksellers at Laurelwood, and in it I used a couple of Sing and Read storybooks. These are a wonderful addition to any home library. As a child "reads" books where the words are familiar, they are developing foundational literacy skills and working towards actual, independent reading. Furthermore, often these books become favorites, read again and again, giving the young child the reinforcement they need. You can find these books at any bookstore and many teaching stores. If your child gets Scholastic book orders through their preschool or child care program, they are often included there as well.

And, of course, literature selections are included in every set of kindermusik home materials.

Join us this Saturday at our Kindermusik Open House and Storytime at the University of Memphis, Park Avenue campus, building 2. We'll be exploring instruments, finding out more about the program, and just plain having fun!