Wednesday, January 22, 2025 | Pink Piggies Lessons

Lesson #3

All "Home Fun Activities" are optional, but if you choose to do them, please keep the materials in your tote bag and bring them to class each week. We may not use them at every lesson, but when we do, your child will be thrilled to participate with their own creations!

Be sure to listen to the class music! Next week we'll sing these songs in class:

• Ten Little Pennies
• Picaflor
• In My Class I Have Some Bells
• Little Turtle
• Fiddle-I-Fee
• March of the Toreadors
• Palo Palo
• Polly Wolly Doodle
• A Rum Sum Sum

This semester a few of our songs will help us explore the Spanish language. A recent study found that exposure to other languages had the surprising effect of making children better communicators in their own language! Exposure to other languages means exposure to different social perspectives, giving them “intensive training in perspective taking, which could make them better communicators in any language.”

Optional home fun activity: Color and cut out the Spanish counting cards on pages 31 and 33          
(Remember, these activities are optional but can be a great bonding experience to do with your child during the week.)  

How are you liking our "Fiddle-I-Fee" book? Here is a video with our class story! Feel free to sign while you sing! Here's the link to the ASL signs for the animals, if you missed it last week!

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:
	In class we experience steady beat and imitate rhythmic patterns with our voices, bodies, and through hands-on use of instruments. We incorporate Eurythmics, which is movement-based rhythm training that is perfect for toddlers!

Have a musical day!        
-Ms. Bethany :)

Tuesday, January 21, 2025 | Orange Roots Lessons

Lesson #3

I can build a triad! From any note on the staff, I just add a 3rd and a 5th. Then guess what! I can move the notes around (as long as they stay on the same letter) and the root is still the same. If the chord isn't in root position, then "the note above the gap's the root" (just listen to the song... it explains it all!). We will continue to explore this concept in the coming weeks.

In "John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith" we found that it was missing a note in the first measure in the bass clef. We decided what note we should put there by finding out what the root of the chord was in the treble clef. We wrote some of the letter names in the space between the treble and bass clefs during class, but the kids were told to finish writing them at home.

While we are only practicing the first two lines of part I in "From the New World," it would be easy to just simply 'play' it, but remember to not only sing the note names, (“e-g-g-e-d-c” etc.) but try singing the rhythm as well (“shoot-the half note” etc.) while playing it this week. Or you could even sing the counts! (1+ 2+ 3+ 4+...)

John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith

This fun song from your childhood will get us learning a new style of bass root accompanying. Once we understand this we can improvise on a two handed marching style. It also is another opportunity to feel a half cadence. This song is also another opportunity to feel a half cadence (ends on a yellow chord instead of red).

 I Can Build a Triad 

Like the song says, "Pick any note to be the root... then add a third, and add a fifth!" Now that we are learning chord structure, our skipping snakes will help us to chant and spell each of our triads. Like any language, you speak (sing) it first, and then you can learn to write it. Want to practice making your own Skipping Snakes at home? Print out the attached file and have fun with your own alphabet magnets at home!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_(music)

John Jacob

There are lots of different variations on our 'John Jacob' song. I remembered singing it as 'Schmidt' instead of 'Smith' as a kid, and instead of 'look there he goes again' we would just sing 'la la la la la la la.' It can be lots of fun to take a familiar tune and improvise in fun and crazy ways. Which way does your family like best? The  Rock'n'Roll, the Sesame Street, or the Sing a Ma Jig version??  

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, January 21, 2025 | Blue Bugs Lessons

Lesson #3

Thank you, parents, for coming to class! Your kiddos are learning SO quickly now! I am so thrilled with their progress! Remember that our ‘sol la ti do’ pattern is played on the lower case letter solfege when playing on the bells. ‘sol’ is the big red bell and then step up from there. 

Please be on time to pick up your kiddos! It’s very cold outside now, so please be prompt. 

Can't Bug Me!
It's fabulous how we are learning to ‘read’ bug rhythms from pictures - we mixed up the order of our bugs and they still clapped them correctly! That means that they are internalizing the rhythm of each bug. Fantastic progress!

Bill Grogan's Goat
Today we introduced a silly story about Bill Grogan's goat. If this tale seems strange to your child, check out this funny YouTube video, which tells a longer story about the goat, including where he goes when he rides on the train and what he gets to eat when he meets the queen!

Grab a basketball and use the Let's Play Music bugs to PLAY a game with the ball after you watch this video!

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, January 16, 2025 | Yellow Arrows Lessons

Lesson #2

This week we learned the fingering for the BLUE chord in the left hand! Now you can put your blue stickers on your piano for the left hand. They go on notes C-F-A. Stress correct fingering of 5-2-1. Feel free to write the finger numbers in permanent marker on the stickers. See "Making Musicians" below! Here's a picture of what your stickers should now look like on your keyboard: 

Notice that there are no stickers for the right hand. We don't need those musical training wheels anymore, so if you still have them, please remove them!

Celebrate Connection

A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Sing and act out Robin Hood with your child, even better, as a family!
• Find intervals on the keyboard with mini marshmallows, toy cars, Legos, etc.
• Have your parent sing while you play, the trade places. Now both sing together!

Music Alphabet   
“The first 3 notes just happen to be Do Re Mi!” Maria got it right teaching the von Trap children the solfege before note names. Now that our students can sing, play, and sight read notes through solfege, and keyboard geography is solid, we are getting ready to label all of the white keys on the piano. This begins with the music alphabet! The music alphabet includes the 1st seven notes of the English Alphabet except that it starts on the Letter C and after G comes letter A. The first 7 notes just happen to be C D E F G A B!  
  
Block and Broken   
Playing music is like reading a book. We start at the left side of the page and move our eyes to the right. When the note changes, so do our fingers. Help guide this song while sitting on the left of your child and pointing to the notes in each measure. Once your child is comfortable playing the song, practice making sure each measure gets 3 steady beats. Feel free to sing, “RED-2-3; DO (count 1) MI (count 2) SOL (count 3). BLUE-2-3; DO FA LA,” etc…This will help your student understand how to read the music and work towards playing this song with a steady beat.   
   
Snowflakes are Falling   
Brrr it’s cold outside! Warm up inside your home by playing this ostinato on the tone bells. Sing starting on Re, “Snowflakes are falling, falling very gently”. Then play La, Sol, Fa, Mi for “down, down, down, down”. Keep singing the lyrics then repeating this DOWN pattern until you’re feeling toasty inside and finish the song by playing a final DOWN on the Re bell. Try it in a round as a family around the fire with the music!

Who Am I? I’m the SPIDEY BLUE CHORD!

Spin a chord of fun playing the Left Hand Blue Chord with fingers 5-2-1. It also looks like ASL for "I LOVE YOU"! Just remember how much you love playing the blue chord with your left hand! Just don't forget to play the chord with bubble hands...this is ONLY to help you remember which fingers to use, not the shape you make while playing the blue chord!

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, January 15, 2025 | Pink Piggies Lessons

Lesson #2

Some more reserved children are hesitant to participate fully in class. Parents can encourage participation (though never force/bribe) by simply engaging in and enjoying class activities themselves, and listening to the music at home. In doing so you are demonstrating how fun music can be and inviting your child to participate in a safe, non-threatening way.

Next week we'll sing these songs in class, so please listen to them at home:

• Name, Name, What's Your Name?
• Let's Count Our Money
• Picaflor
• In My Class I Have Some Bells
• Fiddle-I-Fee
• Palo Palo
• Uno, Dos, Tres
• Polly Wolly Doodle
• This Little Piggy

The voice is a child’s first instrument and, like any other instrument, it’s skills can be developed and mastered through practice. Sound Beginnings utilizes ‘Echo Edie’ to train the voice through meaningful vocal play. Echo Edie experiences are designed to help children extend their vocal range, match pitch, learn to sing in tune, feel the beat, and repeat rhythms.

Optional home fun activity: Color the bells on page 9 of your workbook         
(Remember, these activities are optional but can be a great bonding experience to do with your child during the week.)  

Here is a video that you can play your maracas along with! (The link starts at the beginning of the play-along song, but you can start the video at the beginning if you want to see the brief introduction to maracas!)

I made a sign language video for the animals in the "Fiddle-I-Fee" book! Check it out!

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 :)