Weathers Lesson 8

Hello How do you do? It's good to write to you :-)

I hope you all had a good week. My two older kids ( Amanda and Alex) have been on their Easter break for three weeks and the house has been a bit chaotic to say the least! Adam my youngest will be turning 4 this Saturday. Amanda turned 15 last Sunday. So, it has been a series of birthday parties and more to come. I am side tracking here....

We are moving to a interesting part of the curricula - STORMY weather! I know some kids are fearful of storm sounds so we are going to introduce it gradually and gently. I'm going to bring in my favourite puppet ( yes, we'll have a short puppet show!) to introduce the sounds of storm and more importantly, the dynamics in the musical storm ( excerpt from Beethoven Symphony No. 6)

Wild Storm, an activity that focuses on concept learning : through a variety of steady bet experience children will begin to generalize the concept of steady beat. Likewise playing an instrument in more than one way helps children begin to generalize the concept of timbre. This activity also allows for the formulation of the understanding of 'storm' and its components ( such as lightning)

How can we move the scarves to staccato and legato? We will have a chance to find out how creative the kids are. We have been moving our feet, playing instruments, tapping different body parts - this week, we are going to use the scarves and see how we can move them in a bumpy or smooth manner. I am sure I will be pleasantly surprise by the creativeness of the kids!

Let everyone clap hands with me - this activity provides opportunity for pre-ensemble skill development. Listening for the approriate entrance, timing the participation, accomplishing the rhythmic playing or saying of the words with other performers and controlling the ending of the playing are all skills requires to perform in an ensemble.

Parent note: There are times when I don't have enough time to do all I planned in the lesson plan but rest assured I will include it in other lessons. Sometimes I add in activities while teaching because the opportunity arises and therefore the lesson plan is not always followed 100%.

For parent sharing time this week, this will be a chance for you to observe how well your kids have understood the different concepts of rain,wind and storm - the sounds and musical concepts that are related to each element. We are going to end by doing a very interesting activity which I know the kids will have lots of fun doing and I am sure parents too ( if you let down your guard!)