Toys Week 7

What a lovely time we had in class today! After building our imaginary boats we set sail in a big blue boat and thought about all the different things we could do on board. Making up new verses to songs is a wonderful way to stimulate the children's imagination and there was much hilarity in the process. The funniest thing was when I jumbled the words accidently and instead of singing "big blue boat" out came "blig boo boat". Children of this age love the silliness in word play and this play encourages and strengthens their vocal and literacy development in many ways. Not only that, but I noticed that soon everyone was singing trying to copy the silly words. Singing and giggling, what a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Our voyage took us to a little island where we found a place to camp and watch the stars. I wanted to record the singing and after we had all sang Twinkle Twinkle together some of the children wanted to sing solos. It always amazes me that so many of them are happy to sing out on their own. They all have such delicious little voices and I hope to have captured them on my less than adequate recording equipment.

So this week at home!!! If you look at the relevant pages in your book you will see that the task is to make some binoculars. In class we sing "Out here on the sea" and then sing about the things we see in the sea. There are many ideas and all of them are welcome. The children seem to think the idea of an elephant or crocodile in the sea as perfectly normal and who am I to dissuade their wonderful imaginations. Why not see where the binoculars take your imagination at home this week.

Also for next week - please being a torch with you to class. We are going to do a very special torchlight dance.

Thanks to everyone for sharing today.

Imagine That

What a wonderful time we had in class last Monday! The children really engaged in our story-telling and we had a wonderful time on our imaginary picnic. We sang a simple song about the food we were packing and each child added an item to our basket. I was amazed at how each child sang their own bit of the song. It is lovely to see the way their singing voices are developing.

Singing is a learnt skill - we develop our abilities in singing at a young age and singing in tune just like speaking another language is a skill that we can learn. Young children have a natural ability to acquire accurate pitch since they are still absorbing all the nuances of language. Speech and singing are synonymous. Singing really helps with language skills (and actually so much more!). If there is one activity we should all be doing with our young children it is singing.

This weeks' home activity is to cut out the picnic cards and sing our picnic song together. Why not extend the activity by thinking of your own favourtie picnic ingredients.

Above all sing sing sing!!!

Young Child Week 8

We had great fun in class today with the homemade percussion instruments. Some very unique creations which the children all delighted in telling us about. We used the instruments in our stormy weather composition.

Did you parents notice how well the children sang goodbye today? You may not have realised it, but everyone sang so beautifully in tune. This really excited me as not all of us were singing in tune 8 weeks ago. It proves that we can all learn pitch.

This week at home have fun with your green rhythm cards. Clap and say the patterns on each one. You could also try playing the patterns with your rhythm sticks. Can you remember how many beats on each card? I wonder if you could teach someone else in your family to play the cards.

If you missed the class this week or fancy some additional patterns to play have a look at these.

http://www.kodaly.org.au/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=19&Itemid=74

Scroll down the page to rhythm set 1 and download. You will notice that these patterns have note heads on - other than that they are the same as the ones we have been using in class. Each line has 4 beats. Remember it's 'ta' and 'ti-ti'.

Also in class this week we listened to some bird song. See what birds you can hear this week and draw your favourite to bring back to class.

Young Child - Week 7

We had enormous fun composing our own musical storm today. We spent some time sorting percusion instruments into groups; those that make long sounds and those that make short sounds. After this we were able to select the instruments we felt created the rigth sounds for our composition.

Our fun game 'Farmer, Farmer', which the children play with much enthusiasum is a very subtle ploy to encourge the children into solo singing. I have been amazed at how eagerly the children have taken to singing and have seen a marked improvement since the beginning of the semester in their pitching of the notes.

This week at home we are making percussion instruments. We have learned that a percussion instrument must be struck or shaken. The following may be of some help:
http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/specialfeature/musical_instruments/