Wednesday, September 25, 2024 | Bridge Lessons

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 | Brown Teddy Bears Lessons

Lesson #5

Have you found your child replicating a class activity or song at home? Wonderful! Reinforce his/her learning by participating in the activity together (sing along, play the game, etc.) These songs and games your child is learning in class will open up additional teaching and bonding opportunities at home.

Next week we'll sing these in class:

• The Four Seasons
• Here is the Beehive
• Snowman
• Echo Edie
• Major Scale
• Little Boy Blue
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
• Rocky Mountain
• Mulberry Bush
• Grizzly Bear
• Flight of the Bumblebee
• Lavender's Blue

The younger the child, the smaller the vocal range is for singing. Echo Edie helps students hear, experience, and explore high sounds in their “head voice” as opposed to their natural, speaking “chest voice” . Through vocal play, Echo Edie will help to extend your child's vocal range, learn to sing in tune, match pitch, feel the beat, and repeat rhythms.

By echoing Edie with high voices, your children are discovering their head voice (or upper vocal range), which is so important for learning to sing in tune!

Life skills, such as doing chores around the house, or taking care of our bodies, are an important part of preschool education. Singing about these routines makes them more fun.

Optional home fun activity: Cut out the Little Boy Blue cards on page 27 in your workbook    
(Remember, these activities are optional but can be a great bonding experience to do with your child during the week.)  

Here's a video of our new class story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? read aloud!

Sound Beginnings is education through musical play! It prepares children for success in Kindergarten and Let’s Play Music. Sound beginnings provides research-based elements that stimulate growth in the areas particularly crucial to the development of the young child. These elements make up the foundation of the Sound Beginnings curriculum.  Here is just one:
	Our classes teach intelligent listening and understanding of classical form in a fun and interactive way. Each semester we study the timbre (tam'-ber) of various instruments and our 'smart moves' dances involve the whole body in an enjoyable, classical music experience.

Have a musical day!  
-Ms. Bethany :)

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 | Purple Magic Lessons

Lesson #5

Thank you for coming to class this week! It is so fun to have you in class with us!

Tuition is due this week and is $280 for the Purple Magic semester. You can pay via Zelle using my phone number (preferred, so I don't have to pay Venmo transaction fees). Zelle is a way to transfer money from your bank account to my bank account without needing to wait or pay extra fees. It's easy to set up through your bank and even easier to use once it has been set up. You could pay via Venmo @musikandme if you really can't set up Zelle. If you need to make monthly payments, rather than paying for the semester, it will be $75/month. (You will save $20 by paying for the semester up front!) 

Next week is our first "Showtime" week! Rather than take up time in class, I'd like for you to send me a Marco Polo video of your child playing at home. This week's song is "Bounce and Roll". I will be assessing that they understand the skills being taught within that repertoire piece. I never give "grades", this is just to help me get an idea of each child's individual progress on a song, their playing ability, and will also help me identify any "problem" spots that might need a little attention.   
     
Celebrate Connection

• Play a different pattern each day for our "Let's Play Music" song and have your parent guess which one it is... then switch and have the parent play and child guess which pattern it is!
• Parent can use "V-fingers" when pointing to songs with different parts on the treble and bass clefs. Be sure you are sitting on the left side so your fingers don't cover up the music that is coming up. You can have your child do the V-fingers while you play as well!

Need some fun practice ideas? Log in to your Student Portal and download "Practice Fun Cards"!

Let's Play Music
Be sure your child is playing all five patterns. A different one each day is fine if it's a review, but if they haven't been doing it, they should play all five patterns every day. 

Caterpillar Cousins
Remember that playing in parallel motion is not easy! This piece is not meant to be played quickly, but the focus should be on technique. Your child should be playing it with proper form (bubble hands) and play as evenly as possible, with "laser beam eyes" on the music.

Say It, Then Play It
Using the purple flashcards, the student may play this game at home by saying the note they see, then playing it on the keyboard as quickly as possible. Keep in mind, this is a complex two-step decoding process: they see where the note is on the staff so they know what letter it is, then they have to transfer that knowledge to the keyboard. This is the process of learning to read music!

Magic Keys
This song is a multi-tasker! It helps us understand key signatures and chord theory, plus gives us the opportunity to practice our scales and cadences while self accompanying. Wow! Now that's complete musicianship! Check out this blog post! We will not actually play this for several weeks, but it is before lesson 9 (when parents are in class again) so it was demonstrated in class. This is a concept that will continue to sink in as the kids play the songs. They don’t need to understand it now. Remember, experience precedes learning. They experience the key signature by playing in it. Learning the words is the most important thing for now.

Cadences
When If your child is really struggling to reach the A-flat in the blue chord, have them drop the middle note and only play the C and A-flat. This will be easier for them to reach while still working toward playing the full chord. 

Bounce and Roll
Since this is one of the first songs where left and right hand have independent rhythms, it is a good one to use "V" fingers while pointing in the book. This pointing technique helps the child to read the notes and line them up vertically with his eyes to understand what notes are played simultaneously and what notes are played alone. You can also use a highlighter to draw a vertical line through notes played simultaneously.

A Royal Problem
We learn so much from studying classical music. Understanding how music is put together will help us when we compose our own songs next semester!

Scratch My Back
When a cadence pattern doesn't make it back 'home' to a red chord, it gets stuck halfway on a yellow chord. This fun activity helps us not only hear, but 'feel' an unresolved half cadence with our whole body! 

Everyone did a great job pointing out flat, sharps and naturals on their quiet keyboards in class this week. Here's an online version that you and your student can play at home (or on the go) any time, and here's a little 'accidental' humor for you this week.
  

Now that we have 'unbanded' all of the Treble Clef notes in our flashcards, you and your child will enjoy this Treble Clef parody of Taylor Swift's I Knew You Were Trouble!

Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)

Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #5

Thanks for coming this week! YOU are a vital part of your child’s music education. :) Please continue to listen to the music at home (or in your car!) so that the children are familiar with the songs. It makes class time so much more productive and fun if the children already know the music!

Just a reminder, if you are paying monthly, tuition ($70) is due this week. You can scan the QR code on the right with your banking app or use my phone number to pay via Zelle. You can still pay with Venmo, but it charges me transaction fees.
    
You’ll notice that the bulk of new concepts and skills are presented on Parent days. We want you to see how the activities are done so that you’ll know just what to do at home. If ever you have questions however, feel free to contact me.   
   
Student behavior - I feel so lucky to be teaching such amazing students! You have brilliant, eager students that are so receptive at this age. I love teaching them and can't wait to see them next week.

Need some fun practice ideas? Log in to your Student Portal and download "Practice Fun Cards"!

We had a lot of new stuff we learned this week! Below are a few highlighted activities and their purpose.

May There Always Be Me
We taught the kids to feel their heartbeat and introduced the concept of keeping a steady beat. This is important when you're teaching a child to internally feel the value of notes.   

A-Hunting We Will Go    
We identified the MI RE DO pattern and sang it independently. The solfege patterns are important in training the ear. All the patterns we will learn in Let's Play Music have a strong cadence pull to DO. When the ear hears these patterns over and over again they aurally can start predicting where the music is heading. Patterning plays a major role in the construction of music.

Chords in Pieces
We actually read music today! Well, our eyes followed a chord map, and we sang the broken chords. I'm feeling so smart....yeah! The chord map is there to guide the eyes to see the color as their ears hear the chord in the music and their finger points on the beat to each chord. This eye-ear connection will train the ear to associate the sound of each chord with its color.

 
Ding Dong, Ding Dong
Correctly imitate pitches is important in learning to sing in tune, which puts us on a path to becoming a complete musician.

The Staff (Great Big Red Balloon)
It was so fun to identify the 5 lines and 4 spaces on the staff today!! We are taking time to let the kids visually familiarize themselves with the single staff. We used our Red Balloon song to accomplish this! This activity helps the children begin to visualize the staff, which will help them gain a feel for staff relationships.

We LOVE having our parents come to class on parent day. It was so much fun singing our lullaby and rocking back and forth feeling the steady beat of the music. Music is healing and can help us feel emotions. Music is powerful and every child needs music in their life. And not just for the reasons and benefits we normally think of as music educators.
    
Read Carson's story and witness how the power of music aided in healing a traumatic event in his young life.

Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)

Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)

Thursday, September 19, 2024 | Green Turtle Shells Lessons

Lesson #4

Next week parents attend and tuition is due for those of you paying monthly! You can scan the QR code to the right in your banking app to pay via Zelle (or just use my phone number).

When you come next week, you can make class especially great by arriving a few minutes early to get your child settled at the keyboard, and throughout class encourage your child, praise them for the wonderful progress their little hands have made (hugs, DO bonks, high 5's, etc.), participate in all of the activities, and HAVE FUN!!!

Celebrate Connection  

A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Roll one die (dice) and play Kit Kat Keyboard or Old Paint that many times
• Sing along while you play Old Paint in a British or Australian (like Bluey!) accent
• Run across the room and give your Mom or Dad a hug or a high five (or hip bump) after you finish each song 

White Keys 
This week we reviewed anchor notes C & F in class with the 2nd verse of Kit Kat Keyboard. Play a quick game of “Show Me a _______” (LOW F, HIGH C or a MIDDLE C, etc.). This will help cement these white anchor notes as well as review keyboard geography!

Red Chord
Do you want to build a snowman? This year, a red chord will always be stacked up nice and neat like a snowman with two stacks of 3rds. Enjoy drawing rounded snowmen for the theory this week!

Old Paint
Now that we know how to read and play a red chord we get to play our favorite Old Paint! When you sing together exaggerate that down beat: good BYE, old PAINT, I'm LEAV-ing Chey-ENNE. Mix it up singing in a cowboy voice, an opera voice, in a video for grandma! SING ALONG as your child accompanies you both feeling the steady beat and hearing beautiful harmonies all at once!

Our first puppet show this year has been renamed “Spring Bees” for the sake of Let's Play Music's story line. However, its real name is "Spring" and is from a set of four violin concertos called, The Four Seasons composed by Antonio Vivaldi. What is your child’s favorite character? Can they hear the loud (forte) and soft (piano) within the themes? Which themes are major and which ones are minor? Have you made the puppets yet? Please let me know if you have any questions about how to download it. The kids LOVE being able to do the puppet shows at home so they can be ALL the characters!

Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)

Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)