Thursday, December 5, 2024 | Green Turtle Shells Lessons

Lesson #13

Thank you, parents, for coming to class this week! You are an integral part of your child's music education!
      
If you are paying monthly, final tuition is due this week.

Just so you know, Station Day is coming up on Lesson 15. That is also a parent day! A circuit of musical stations will be set up for the kids to rotate through. Each station will review the skills and concepts taught in class. One of the stations will be an 'interview' with me to show you how much your student has accomplished this fall!
      
Just a sneak peak at some of the musical skills and concepts that have been taught during Green Turtle Shells:
      
Skills:

1. Keyboard posture, hand & finger placement
2. Clapping & counting 4 count rhythms using rhythm cards
3. Playing steps and skips from notation
4. Playing primary chords with RH without looking at hand
5. Playing intervals of a 2nd, 3rd, & 4th
6. Playing individual fingers (SFMRD)

Concepts:    

1. Identifying middle C
2. Identifying C & F by playing on keyboard
3. Demonstrates knowledge of finger numbers
4. Identifying bug rhythms
5. Distinguishing steps & skips on staff
6. Identifying primary chords by notation
7. Identifying intervals by notation
8. Identifying melodic patterns by notation

Celebrate Connection      
A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Make up a song for 5 minutes at the beginning or end of practice time
• Have a digital piano or keyboard at home? Change the "voice" for every song you play.
• After you've finished all your songs, roll a die and have chocolate chips, raisins, tiny marshmallows, etc. according to the number rolled.

Blue Sky  
Every time the word BLUE is said in this song we play a Blue Chord. Can you make up your own song with the Red, Blue, and Yellow Chord? Every time you or your child sings the color, play the corresponding chord! Check for correct fingerings!  
      
Primary Chord Transitions  
Transitioning between the primary chords should now be somewhat mastered by the RH. Enjoy playing “The Fabulous 5”: a fun game to help your student reinforce chord transitions! Invite your student to play the red and blue chord 5 times back and forth, back and forth (or the red to yellow whatever they need the most to work on.) The only catch is it has to be perfect! No mistakes whatsoever. If they mess up they get to start over. Once they can do this 5 times in a row perfectly, they get a HIGH 5 from you with oodles of fabulous praise!

REMINDER: It is crucial that your child is using correct finger numbers on the chords. The numbers next to the chords in the book are the ones to use without exception!

Bubble Hands    
This is an invaluable exercise. It reviews finger numbers, and strengthens fingers as well as promotes independent finger movement. Remember that as the children play chords and single notes, they most likely will not be able to keep a bubble hand. This is the ideal – the goal to work toward. As long as the child can form bubble hand in C position, we are on the path toward the goal.

Bonus Songs    
The appendix of the student songbook contains Frosty the Snowman and Silent Night. We won't play these in class at all, but once the chord transitions are mastered, these songs are so fun and easy to play. They are a great review over the holidays.

Brown Jug    
The Brown Jug game is another fun activity to play at home with a parent or whole family. You just need a playground ball and a little bit of room to roll and catch. It is easier at first to chant "roll, catch" and then begin the song. This is a great way to emphasize how the hands and body must keep the beat while making music! The kids have to be able to predict how hard to roll the ball so that it reaches the person on the beat. This same skill is required when playing a chord on the beat because they have to predict when to lift their hand so that it comes back down right on time.    
   
Can't Bug Me: Rhythm Ensemble    
The games we play with our percussion instruments help us practice sight reading rhythms, but just as importantly, they help us practice ensemble skills. It takes practice to come in all together, to keep a steady beat internally to stay together, to keep up with the group even when we make mistakes, and to listen to each other to sound like one. WOW!

Harmony Happenings
Our journey to learn harmony started last year singing a repeating pattern alongside a melody (Ding dong in Hear How the Bells). Then we sang in a round (3 Blind Mice). This year we’ve worked on a counter melody or two melodies sung on top of each other (Horsey Horsey). Then we introduced a 4-part counter melody (Solfege Seafriends). This week we sang Solfege Seafriends in a true canon, which is like singing 4 different melodies in a round. It's pretty tricky, but such a good exercise! Enjoy these arrangements of the famous Pachelbel’s Canon on piano and with a string ensemble.


  

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, December 4, 2024 | Bridge Lessons

Wednesday, December 4, 2024 | Brown Teddy Bears Lessons

Lesson #13

Has your child found a favorite activity from this semester that they insist on doing again and again? What might appear repetitive and monotonous to adults is actually a powerful learning experience for the young child. Their innate desire for repetition is their brain’s instinctive way of helping them master skills and concepts.

Instrument day is coming up soon! Each family will have the opportunity to share an instrument with the class. You can even bring something homemade! Anything that makes sound will be fine! :) If you play an instrument (especially if it's one of our semester instruments), we'd love for you to bring and demonstrate it for us! You are welcome to invite someone else to class if they would like to come do a short little instrument performance for us! I'll also have some instruments to demonstrate and the kids will have the opportunity to play some of them! Please let me know what you will bring, just to help me with planning.

Next week we'll sing these in class:

• Four Seasons
• Weather Bear
• Name the Instruments
• Little Boy Blue
• It's Raining
• Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around
• The Bear Went Over the Mountain
• Going to the Zoo
• Flight of the Bumblebee
• Old Brass Wagon
• Your child's favorite activity song! Just text me to tell me what it is and I'll be sure to include it next week!

How the brain is structured and how well it functions is determined by the frequency, duration and intensity of an activity. The neural pathways in the brain ‘wire and fire’ in response to activation that occurs when a child experiences stimulation to their sensory systems. Messages in the form of electrical signals are sent along the nerve fibres from the body to the brain. The brain then sends electrical messages back along the outgoing nerve pathways to the body. The more practice the nervous system has at receiving and sending messages, the more efficiently it operates and the more effectively a child acquires a skill.

Repetition is fundamental to helping young children learn. Repeating words, actions and songs benefits memory and encourages language acquisition.

Rhyming helps the children notice and work with the sounds within words.

Optional home fun activity: Color the Teddy Bear March on page 17 in your workbook    
(Remember, these activities are optional but can be a great bonding experience to do with your child during the week.)  

Need more ideas for ways to use your rhythm sticks? Watch this video to see what else you may not have thought of!

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:
	Peek into a Sound Beginnings class and you will see skipping, crawling, dancing, and jumping! Full body movement builds large muscle strength, hand-eye coordination, aids brain-hemisphere function, and develops balance in young children.

Have a musical day!  
-Ms. Bethany :)

Tuesday, December 3, 2024 | Purple Magic Lessons

Lesson #13

Thank you parents for coming to class this week! Your ongoing support is very appreciated. Class is so much fun with you here! (Just a reminder, parents will also attend in 2 weeks on lesson #15 for Celebration Day!)

If you are paying monthly, tuition is due THIS WEEK. 

The students are coming along fabulously with their playing! If you feel that your child is struggling with something in particular, feel free to focus on that more than the things they are already good at. Just be sure to end with something they do really shine at!

Next week I'd like your child to play their favorite variation of "Twinkle Twinkle" for Showtime. OR if the would like to create their own variation, I'd love to hear it! Here is a video of a Let's Play Music graduate playing their own 'snazzy' variation of Twinkle Twinkle!

 Celebrate Connection

• Have your parent sing while you play, then trade places. Now both sing together!
• Perform a song for a neighbor or a friend!

Let's Play Music
As we do dictation and the children are writing what they hear, it is not the time to correct your children—look for the good they are doing. It will take time and lots of practice to build dictation mastery. They are not being graded by having it perfect, but the goal is that they understand just a little more than they did the time before!

Away in a Manger
This repertoire piece is a fun one - using both hands in the treble clef. It's kind of a bonus song along with Jingle Bells. We will show off that we understand the skills in class, but don't forget these fun songs and keep working on them over the semester break.

Transposing Jingle Bells (Homework)

With the holidays approaching here is a Gift-Buying Guide for Musical Kids

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, December 3, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #13

Wow, it's always so fun when parents come to class. Can you believe we only have 2 more weeks of Red Balloons?

If you are paying monthly, tuition is due this week.

When doing the soundtrack and bell practice you may at times, feel it is unessential 'busy work' and one more 'to do' for you to accomplish that day. Keep in mind each LPM activity does have a purpose and that the key to successful musicianship and smarter kids are parents willing to take the time to do small and simple things daily in a fun playful way. These activities may seem insignificant, but the final product will astound you. Stay focused on the end goal and the play practice time will seem more meaningful. 

In a Humble Manger
This is a fun song to help kids understand how to keep a steady beat. We also talked about the term lullaby.   
    
Pull Away
With this song we also participated in what a steady beat feels like and our ears heard the MI RE DO pattern! Each song helps us to internalize many facets of music.   
    
Let’s Play Music
Today our ears heard layers of sound as we sang the MI RE DO and SOL SOL DO ending to “Let’s Play Music” at the same time. Singing in harmony helps us to sing in tune and eventually sing in parts.   
    
Echo Ed
Ware teaching the children relative pitch, which is the ability to sing any pitch in relation to a given pitch. A major goal of Let’s Play Music is to develop and train the ear so the students will develop the ability to sing middle C without any musical reference and then find any other note based on its relationship to middle C.

Do, Re, Mi
YES! WE READ MUSIC THIS WEEK in our DO RE MI activity! So exciting! We are teaching our students to read by relationships, (steps, skips, leaps) not by note names. This is a more natural way to teach children to read music and it produces better sight readers because their brain isn’t bogged down with have to interpret the note names yet.
    
Great Big Red Balloon
Today we practiced visualizing the staff. In putting a note up on the staff and covering it, we let the children close their eyes and see it in their heads. Having the children close their eyes and imagine where the balloon was is accomplishing this. If they can see it in their heads, they learn to internalize the staff and where the notes sit on the staff. Staff visualization ultimately results in learning to quickly read music.

Waltz of the Flowers
Play contains repetition, which is essential to a child’s security. As musical concepts and skills are presented in a playful, joyful setting, children absorb knowledge and increase ability.

Did you know that our puppet show "Waltz of the Flowers" uses different instruments for the different themes? Here's a videothat shows some of the instruments playing the song!

Check out one of our amazing Let's Play Music graduates!

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 :)