Tuesday, January 21, 2025 | Blue Bugs Lessons

Lesson #3

Thank you, parents, for coming to class! Your kiddos are learning SO quickly now! I am so thrilled with their progress! Remember that our ‘sol la ti do’ pattern is played on the lower case letter solfege when playing on the bells. ‘sol’ is the big red bell and then step up from there. 

Please be on time to pick up your kiddos! It’s very cold outside now, so please be prompt. 

Can't Bug Me!
It's fabulous how we are learning to ‘read’ bug rhythms from pictures - we mixed up the order of our bugs and they still clapped them correctly! That means that they are internalizing the rhythm of each bug. Fantastic progress!

Bill Grogan's Goat
Today we introduced a silly story about Bill Grogan's goat. If this tale seems strange to your child, check out this funny YouTube video, which tells a longer story about the goat, including where he goes when he rides on the train and what he gets to eat when he meets the queen!

Grab a basketball and use the Let's Play Music bugs to PLAY a game with the ball after you watch this video!

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, January 16, 2025 | Yellow Arrows Lessons

Lesson #2

This week we learned the fingering for the BLUE chord in the left hand! Now you can put your blue stickers on your piano for the left hand. They go on notes C-F-A. Stress correct fingering of 5-2-1. Feel free to write the finger numbers in permanent marker on the stickers. See "Making Musicians" below! Here's a picture of what your stickers should now look like on your keyboard: 

Notice that there are no stickers for the right hand. We don't need those musical training wheels anymore, so if you still have them, please remove them!

Celebrate Connection

A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Sing and act out Robin Hood with your child, even better, as a family!
• Find intervals on the keyboard with mini marshmallows, toy cars, Legos, etc.
• Have your parent sing while you play, the trade places. Now both sing together!

Music Alphabet   
“The first 3 notes just happen to be Do Re Mi!” Maria got it right teaching the von Trap children the solfege before note names. Now that our students can sing, play, and sight read notes through solfege, and keyboard geography is solid, we are getting ready to label all of the white keys on the piano. This begins with the music alphabet! The music alphabet includes the 1st seven notes of the English Alphabet except that it starts on the Letter C and after G comes letter A. The first 7 notes just happen to be C D E F G A B!  
  
Block and Broken   
Playing music is like reading a book. We start at the left side of the page and move our eyes to the right. When the note changes, so do our fingers. Help guide this song while sitting on the left of your child and pointing to the notes in each measure. Once your child is comfortable playing the song, practice making sure each measure gets 3 steady beats. Feel free to sing, “RED-2-3; DO (count 1) MI (count 2) SOL (count 3). BLUE-2-3; DO FA LA,” etc…This will help your student understand how to read the music and work towards playing this song with a steady beat.   
   
Snowflakes are Falling   
Brrr it’s cold outside! Warm up inside your home by playing this ostinato on the tone bells. Sing starting on Re, “Snowflakes are falling, falling very gently”. Then play La, Sol, Fa, Mi for “down, down, down, down”. Keep singing the lyrics then repeating this DOWN pattern until you’re feeling toasty inside and finish the song by playing a final DOWN on the Re bell. Try it in a round as a family around the fire with the music!

Who Am I? I’m the SPIDEY BLUE CHORD!

Spin a chord of fun playing the Left Hand Blue Chord with fingers 5-2-1. It also looks like ASL for "I LOVE YOU"! Just remember how much you love playing the blue chord with your left hand! Just don't forget to play the chord with bubble hands...this is ONLY to help you remember which fingers to use, not the shape you make while playing the blue chord!

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 :)

Wednesday, January 15, 2025 | Pink Piggies Lessons

Lesson #2

Some more reserved children are hesitant to participate fully in class. Parents can encourage participation (though never force/bribe) by simply engaging in and enjoying class activities themselves, and listening to the music at home. In doing so you are demonstrating how fun music can be and inviting your child to participate in a safe, non-threatening way.

Next week we'll sing these songs in class, so please listen to them at home:

• Name, Name, What's Your Name?
• Let's Count Our Money
• Picaflor
• In My Class I Have Some Bells
• Fiddle-I-Fee
• Palo Palo
• Uno, Dos, Tres
• Polly Wolly Doodle
• This Little Piggy

The voice is a child’s first instrument and, like any other instrument, it’s skills can be developed and mastered through practice. Sound Beginnings utilizes ‘Echo Edie’ to train the voice through meaningful vocal play. Echo Edie experiences are designed to help children extend their vocal range, match pitch, learn to sing in tune, feel the beat, and repeat rhythms.

Optional home fun activity: Color the bells on page 9 of your workbook         
(Remember, these activities are optional but can be a great bonding experience to do with your child during the week.)  

Here is a video that you can play your maracas along with! (The link starts at the beginning of the play-along song, but you can start the video at the beginning if you want to see the brief introduction to maracas!)

I made a sign language video for the animals in the "Fiddle-I-Fee" book! Check it out!

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:
	Sound Beginnings channels the young voice into beautiful, in-tune singing by providing proper vocal modeling in the correct range. Solfege hand signs teach pitch relationships; the minor 3rd (SOL-MI) pattern is used to develop in-tune singing and pitch matching.

Have a musical day!       
-Ms. Bethany :)

Tuesday, January 14, 2025 | Orange Roots Lessons

Lesson #2

We're beginning a fun new way to celebrate how fast the kids know their note flashcards. It's called the "In a Flash Club" and the kids get to compete against their own best time for how fast they can go over all their PURPLE NOTE FLASHCARDS. There's a place in the homework each week where the kids are supposed to time themselves for how long it takes. This only needs to be done 3 times each week, not every practice. We will record their best time on a card in class so they can see how much better they get each week! The kids will also get "fish food" stickers to put in their fishbowl (in the back of their homework book) for each time they do "In a Flash" and "Say It, Then Play It" as part of their homework. They can earn up to 5 stickers each week. Let's get those bowls so full of fish food that we can't even see the fish!

We also began counting rhythms (very simple ones) today. If you would like to print out some practice counting pages for home, you can download them from your student portal. (If you don't know how to access that, please just let me know.) You can either cut each card apart, or you can randomly pick one for your child to clap and count. Just know this is completely optional and have fun with it! 

Echo Edison
The newest member of our Echo family has arrived. He is Echo Ed and Echo Edna’s grandfather! He doesn't like when he gets echoed though. He likes to ask musical questions and have the kids give him musical answers. He will not only help us learn technique and play finger exercises in 5 keys, but is the vehicle for helping us create our compositions this semester!  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_composition  
   
Cadence Blues 
Cadence Blues is actually ONLY printed in the key of C in your songbooks, but on your CD you have the 'Blues' in other keys. While playing in the key of F or G, you still have to read the song written in the key of C. That's right! Your little musician will be transposing! Woot woot! Be sure to keep the CD player near the keyboard to make practicing fun!  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition_(music)  
   
Monsters 
The new puppet show is entitled Monsters. However, the real name of the puppet show is Montagues and Capulets, also known as Dance of the Knights and is from the ballet 'Romeo and Juliet' composed by Sergei Prokofiev. This puppet show is similar to many of our past puppet shows--it follows the ABA formula that composers love! But the themes are layered on top of each other, and we will further develop our ear training to distinguish the individual layers of sound.

Musicians definitely have a sense of humor! Check out this fun video of a trick played on an orchestra conductor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oipg71dSem0

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, January 14, 2025 | Blue Bugs Lessons

Lesson #2

Once again, we had a great week. I just love my 1st year students! They are smart and so fun. Just a reminder parents come next week with tote bags, bells, and home fun activity books! Also, the home fun activity goes with whatever lesson # we JUST DID in class. So this week the kids will do #2.Thank you for helping them each week!

If you haven't yet, check out this virtual escape room: 
https://escaperoomlpm.wixsite.com/magicallamp 
This is a great review for what we learned in Red Balloons. If they are struggling with any of the concepts, this will help you identify them and work with them. Or ask me for help if needed!

The kids are very used to me by now and I hope, feel quite comfortable. I am starting to watch them more closely and can see that you parents are doing such a great job helping them. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for making their education a priority. If you’re child isn’t quite singing on pitch yet, don’t despair, it will come. One of the best ways to get them to hear it is to have them sing. That is why in class I keep telling them to sing with me. Even if they aren’t right on they should sing, sing, sing. As nonsensical as it sounds, singing out loud is one of the keys to hearing it inside.

Bug Rhythms
The song “Can’t Bug Me” is the foundational song for counting our rhythms. We'll be using these bugs for the rest of the curriculum. This will become second nature very quickly! Have fun clapping to your bug cards!

Meet the Blue Bugs... enjoy reading about why we use rhythm syllables in Let's Play Music.

(If you check out this link and you like the "food language" chart in the middle, just know that I've created a game with that! I'll share it in a few weeks, after the kids are more familiar with the rhythms.)

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 :)