Thursday, March 6, 2025 | Yellow Arrows Lessons

Lesson #9

Thank you, parents, for coming to class! We enjoy having you here and bonding with your child. What a gift you are giving them!

SPIRIT WEEK IS UNDERWAY! Let me know if you need any substitutions for any of the squares. You can find the BINGO worksheet in the Online Resources section of your Student Portal if you are logged in. As a reminder, some of the drawing prizes are some instruments and an MP3 player that you can put your class music on! 

One of the items on the checklist is to leave a Google review. I'm striving for a 5 star rating. If you don't plan to give me 5 stars, please talk to me BEFORE you post a review so I can address any issues you may have. Unfortunately, negative feedback has much more impact than positive feedback does, so please give me the chance to earn 5 stars if I'm not already there. Thanks! Here is the link to post a review on Google: https://g.page/musikandmebethany/review?gm

Registration is now open for current students! 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.

Tuition is due for those who didn't pay for the entire semester up front. 

Celebrate Connection

A few ideas to make the alphabet pieces game more playful!

• Super Skippers:
  Your child draws out an alphabet letter and places it on the keyboard as a 'starter'. Next, she chooses another piece and checks to see if it can make a skip up or a skip down from the starter. If not, discard it and player 2 gets a turn to play (player 2 should start her skipping chain on a different octave from player 1). Keep taking turns until someone makes a chain, by adding skips at the top or bottom, that is 7 letters long and wins!
• Parking Lot Cars:
  Draw a letter from the lot and park your car on the white key "parking space" that matches. Works great with cars like these from the learning shop. Keep going until you run out of cars (or whatever counters you have).
• Cowboys and Indians:
  Start one tiny plastic character (ANY tiny plastic figures you have will do: Pokemon, animals, cowboys, princesses, etc.) at one end of the keyboard on a white key, and another at the other end. Draw a tile out and move the low guy up to that key. Draw another tile and move the high guy down to that key. Keep going until they meet (and battle, or shake hands, or whatever you pretend!) 

Bug Scale
We can now play UP the C Major Scale with our RH! Place the RH in C position and play with fingers 1-2-3 (CDE) then POP UNDER with the thumb to make a new bubble and continue playing with fingers 1-2-3-4-5 (FGABC). Choose your favorite BUG to practice this new skill. One way to remind where to pop is to insert POP with the bug like this: Butterfly, Butterfly, Butterfly, POPPERfly, Butterfly, etc. As always, we try to make our technique drills so fun that the kids don't even notice they are getting practice!
      
A Warm Welcome to Middle B and Middle D
The 5 anchor notes used in 2nd year include the members of the “C” family: Treble C, Middle C, and Bass C and the Middle Friends including Middle B who is B-elow Middle C and Middle D who is Down under the first line on the staff.
      
How to Skip
We will master all of our middle anchor notes with this song: Middle B, Middle C, Middle D. Use the same 3 fingers for the entire song: 1-3-5. Simply move your thumb to the appropriate starting note. Sing "C-skip-skip-skip, D-skip-skip" etc. emphasizing each anchor note. This is where the practice of seeing and playing those middle anchor notes connect!
      
I am Robin Hood
If your child can play each hand of "I am Robin Hood" comfortably, they are ready to put both hands together! Isolate 1 or 2 measures at a time to have a successful experience, then continue to add 1-2 measures until they can play the entire song with confidence! While practicing with your child, you can guide their eyes by pointing note by note with V fingers. Hooray for Hands Together!

March of the Gnomes
What did you think of our new puppet show? I've attached the new puppet show as well as put it in the student download portal.

C Major Scale Right Hand Ascending

How instinctive is your child getting with their keyboard geography playing the Alphabet Pieces Game? Time your child for 1 minute and see how many pieces they can put on the piano. Your student will treasure this craft and game idea as they continue to solidify all of the notes on the keyboard!

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 :)