Thursday, February 27, 2025 | Yellow Arrows Lessons

Lesson #8

Parents come next week, tuition is due, and it's SPIRIT MONTH! (See separate email with details.) 

1st Year Registration & Enrollment
If you have a child you want to go through 1st year and aren't on my waiting list, or you know someone who wants to do Let's Play Music, email back and let me know their name and email address so they can get registered ASAP. After next week I'll open registration up to the general public.

Enrollment for next fall begins this SATURDAY at NOON!

Please go to https://musikandme.com/Registration-LPM-return for instructions of how to enroll your student and purchase their 3rd year materials. There is a $20 registration fee, but you won't need to pay it if you register by March 28th! (You can earn 10 extra tickets by registering before March 15th!) My 3rd Year classes will be Thursdays at 4:00pm and 5:30pm. Please let me know if these times won't work for you and we'll discuss solutions. I can possibly adjust this if necessary, but please register as soon as you can.

Celebrate Connection

A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Alpha-frogger:
  Pretend each alphabet foam piece is a tiny frog. Have your child choose an alphabet frog, then hop it across the keyboard helping froggie find all keys of that letter. These frogs don't croak- each time the "frog" lands on one of her special lily pads, sing the letter (on pitch!).
  
  
• Hiss:
  Place one letter on the keyboard as a starter snake. Each player takes turns drawing a letter and checking to see if they can add it to the head or the tail with baby steps to make the snake longer. If not, start a new snake somewhere else on the keyboard. Anytime someone makes a snake with 8 or more segments, they get to remove it from the keyboard and keep the points (1 per segment)! Play until the pieces run out. It's pretty cool if you are able to join 2 snakes by drawing the missing link between them, and win a really long snake! You might enjoy non-piano Hiss, too.
  
  
• Silly Songs:
  Have your child draw out 5-10 alphabet notes and line them up along the music stand. With her right hand in C position, play each note with the finger touching that key. If the note is a B, slide the thumb down to yellow position to reach it; if the note is an A, slide the hand into blue position to reach it. This might be a wacky song, or it might be something cool. If you like the tune, play it again!

Oh, When the Saints & Lullaby and Goodnight
D-O-W-N and that’s the DOWN-BEAT! The downbeat is the strong beat that tells us when to begin playing a song. Sometimes the downbeat is on the first word of a song, sometimes it is not. Ask your child what word the DOWNBEAT is on in both of these songs!

Tinga Layo:
Our toe-tapping donkey, dances a shaky, stylized rhythm called CALYPSO. See if you can hear this fun rhythm while singing along!  

I am Robin Hood
It’s duet time! While your child plays the melody, you or a sibling can clap or pat drumbeats on lap in a repeated slug pattern. Then switch! Once your child is confidant playing the melody by themselves, invite them to pat their own leg while playing. Impressive harmony!

When listening to Don't Put Your Trash encourage your child to do the actions to the part he hears during the harmony. It is also creative to change up the lyrics especially when encouraging chores: Don't put your SOCKS (insert any noun) in my BEDROOM (insert any place) my bedroom's full!

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 :)