Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | Bridge Lessons

Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | Brown Teddy Bears Lessons

Lesson #9

Sound Beginnings believes all children are musical by nature, but need some guidance to refine their natural interest into skill and develop the musician already present within each child. By participating in class, listening to the CDs at home, and encouraging your children to explore music, you are growing a musician!

Next week we'll sing these in class:

• The Four Seasons
• In My Class I Have Some Bells
• Here is the Beehive
• Snowman
• Down By the Bay
• A Tisket, A Tasket
• Baby Bumblebee
• March
• Old Brass Wagon
• You Are My Sunshine

Sound Beginnings encourages children to express themselves, try new things, and enjoy the world of make believe! Dancing expressively to classical music, exploring with instruments, and dramatizing stories help develop children’s natural desire to be creative. Creativity builds confidence in children and helps develop problem-solving skills that carry into adulthood.

In our ABC Song, the "unvoiced" sounds do not have a vowel sound attached. Pronouncing these sounds correctly will help your children as they start to sound out words they are reading.

Dramatizing a story through a song improves language development and develops a child's understanding of themselves and the world around them.

Optional home fun activity: Color the Flight of the Bumblebee dance on page 16 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 about Vivaldi, who wrote 4 violin concertos named "The Four Seasons".

Here's a videowith the music to "The Four Seasons" and a fun animation that you can watch or just put on in the background and appreciate! Better yet, go ahead and dance to it! It's 40 minutes long, and it's so beautiful! Enjoy!

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, October 29, 2024 | Purple Magic Lessons

Lesson #9

It was fun having you in class this week! Thank you for coming! The children really enjoy parent days! Tuition is due for those that didn't pay for the semester up front. 

Please Marco Polo your child playing the Showtime song "Halloween Night" so we can spend class time doing more fun things!

We are teaching the children to transpose, which means to read notes in one key and play them in another. This is difficult for most people, but since we have spent so much time on note relationships (steps, skips, leaps, intervals and chords) it comes more easily to our Let’s Play Music students. Also, remember that this concept will sink in as the children continue to play songs and exercises in various keys. As they play and sing “Magic Keys,” they will come to understand why F is DO and C is SOL. We are also teaching the children to improvise, which is adding more than just what is written in the music. Next semester, we will do more of this.

We have a new puppet show! Your puppets are printed in the back of your book, so please encourage your child to color, cut out, and use them! Also, they are in the Student Portal on www.musikandme.com, if  you need to reprint them!

Celebrate Connection

• Have parent sing while child plays, then switch places! Now both sing together!
• Name that tune! Child closes eyes and parent plays the first notes of a song... in how few notes can the child name a song?

Let's Play Music
Wait a minute? This song isn't new! Using a song that our ears and fingers are VERY familiar with is a perfect stepping stone for being able to transpose. That's just a fancy word for reading notes in one key and playing in another. And it's kind of a big deal!! All the background in solfege, intervals, and skips and steps makes transposing super easy. We’ll have many more chances to transpose it this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition_(music)
   
Magic Keys
We are teaching the children to transpose, which means to read notes in one key and play them in another. This is difficult for most people, but since we have spent so much time on note relationships (steps, skips, leaps, intervals and chords) it comes more easily to our Let’s Play Music students. This concept will sink in as the children continue to play songs and exercises in various keys. As they play and sing “Magic Keys,” they will come to understand why F is DO and C is SOL.

Halloween Night
We played something in class that wasn't written in the book! That is called "improvising" and it is a wonderful skill to have. We'll do more of this next semester! 

Kitty Casket
Yep, you probably already guessed it. Similar to our 'Scratch My Back' game, this helps us feel that unresolved half cadence with our whole bodies! But, this time we will have the opportunity to play it with our hands as well. 

Song of Joy
We have listened to this piece a lot in class, and hopefully, they are listening to it at home, too, because we are modeling. This is a method of teaching that plays the full piece over and over so that the sound gets in the students’ ear and they will hear the full orchestration when they play it on the piano. This is a step up from audiation, which is simply hearing the music in the head. Remind your child to imagine what it sounds like as they play it. Remember, Beethoven heard it in his head, too. 

Now that we have introduced the spaces in the bass clef, you will appreciate this educational parody of Meghan Trainor's music "All About That Bass" that reinforces the notes of the bass clef in a fun way! 

I've added the Skaters Coloring book for you to download, if you wish. Log in at www.musikandme.com and you can download, print and let your child color the characters as you discuss their favorite part about the puppet show! (Can you hear the characters that you are coloring?) Cut them out to make your own puppets!

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, October 29, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #9

Let your kids have fun coloring your new puppet show pages! You can download them from your student portal. Please let me know if you have trouble logging in! No parents in class next week.
   
The kids are doing great! Parents, thank you for being so consistent and supportive to your kiddos. You help me, as the teacher, to add another layer of knowledge each week because you have so nicely cemented the previous week’s concepts and skills. Keep up the good work! Your kids will thank you for this. You’re creating smarties!

Tuition is due today if you are paying monthly. If you can use Zelle, it will save me from paying Venmo fees (just use my phone number), but you are still welcome to pay that way if you want.

Hear How the Bells
When a child is introduced to harmonious sounds of music, a physical and emotional reaction. Harmony is an excellent stimulation which increases brain activity musically and academically.

Baby Step, Leap
We sing, dance, and notate on the staff board a step and a leap when we sing this song. The students are subconsciously learning intervals. In the second year, we will bring this knowledge to their conscious mind by labeling the steps and skips.
   
Waltz of the Flowers
Today I performed our new puppet show for the whole class! This activity helps train our ears to hear patterns and how music is put together. We call this classical form. Research shows that emotions are actually vibrations felt within the body. Music is also a vibration. Music helps us process our emotions by feeling them more deeply and more profoundly. As you come to class with your child, your shared emotional processing will lead to a greater connection, trust, and bond.
   
Echo Ed
We used Echo Ed to give the children a chance to independently imitate a melodic pattern. Singing develops the ear too!
   
Ooooo Halloween
Ooooo Halloween allows us to hear in our heads (audiate) the beats that aren’t played aloud. This activity subconsciously teaches the students how to feel a steady beat and anticipate the beat. It's so fun!

Click here to watch this video and learn interesting facts about the composer of the song Waltz of the Flowers! 

 

Also, I've added the Waltz of the Flowers Coloring book for you to download. Log in at www.musikandme.com and you can download and print these two pages out and let your child color the characters as you discuss their favorite part about the puppet show! (Don't forget to listen to the music while coloring!)

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, October 24, 2024 | Green Turtle Shells Lessons

Lesson #1

Next week is PARENT WEEK 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).

The children will be coloring in their piano books! It's completely acceptable and we will color more in class!   
    
Celebrate Connection   
A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Play the first measure of a song, *piano* and the next measure *forte*, the next measure *piano*, and the next, *forte*, etc.
• Video record (or voice record) a song and send it to your LPM teacher (or Grandparent!).
• Have parent sing words while child plays.

Primary Chords Song
Do you want to build more snowmen? Combinations of intervals build chords. We will use ‘snowmen’ to teach the 3 common shapes of chords throughout the 2nd year of Let’s Play Music.
    
A ROUND snowman shape represents the Red Chord built with two stacks of 3rds.
A TOP-HEAVY shape represents the Blue Chord built with a 4th on the bottom and a 3rd on the top.
A BOTTOM-HEAVY shape represents the YELLOW Chord built with a 3rd on the bottom and a 4th on the top.

We can find melodic patterns in many songs! In your Student Portal, download the melodic pattern flashcards to become pros at hearing, singing, signing, AND playing them! Here are the patterns in some of the songs we are learning this semester.
    
Sol-Fa-Mi-Re-Do: Dings in Firetruck, end of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, end of Bunny's Birdhouse
    
Mi-Re-Do: Solfege Seafriends: end of octopus line, end of Farmer in the Dell, end of Sally Go Round the Sun
    
Sol-Sol-Do: Solfege Seafriends: end of whale line
    
Sol-La-Ti-Do: Say, Say Oh Playmate: ending

I have added the SFMRD pattern cards to the student download portal. It's called "SFMRD_addition". You can add those to your first set of cards from last year.

If you didn't downloaded those yet, just download the one called "5_melodic_patterns_game". It will have all 5 melodic patterns in one file.

Play "Memory" with them. ANY cards that have the same pattern are considered a match (see photo for examples of matching cards). Have your child sing and/or sign each pattern as the cards are turned over, even if it's your turn! Or just mix them around face-up and see how quickly you can pair them with each other. Then do it again and see if you can beat your time!

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 :)