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 :)