Toys I Make, Trips I Take

Hello everyone! We are back in business! We welcome a new semester, a new class with the promise of new relationships and enriching experiences for both me and for the families in class. Some of the kids have moved up to Young Child, and the rest have continued with Imagine That. We welcome new families into the class and before I share the lesson plan, I would just like to share with the new parents the emotional profile of a three and four year old children:

-may experience separation anxiety
- are learning how to take turns, occasionally finding it difficult
- are learning to make friends
- enjoy being independent and doing things on their own but become easily frustrated if problems arise
- seek frequent approval from adults
- love make believe
- are proud of accomplishments
- experience mood changes
- are aware, perhaps protective, of their personal space.

Righty ho...now that we have got that out of the way, let's see what we have in store for first lesson. We are going to take an adventure into a make believe Toy Shop with the toymaker and meet all the different toys he created this week - the jack in the box, the ball, and the drum.

Let us see how creative the kids are at giving me ideas of different things they may encounter at a toy shop and how these toys move. How do we chug like a choo choo train? How do we fly like a kite? How do we snarl and move like a dinosaur?

We are going to do some music listening to the Jack in the Box jumps up. The 'special sounds' in this recording are fun to listen to and they hold the attention of kids. This listening activity, comprised of 'special sounds" in the context of a larger piece of music, challenges the kids to begin to develop music listening skills. Music listening skills involve comprehending, categorizing, describing, evaluating and comparing. We are going to use our hands and our bodies to mimic the movements of Jack in the Box.

Play, Play, Play is a song that has a simple tonal melody that helps develop singing skills, one of many Kindermusik songs that are specially selected to enable kids to sing sucessfully.

Keep the Ball A-Rolling is a French Canadian River song. Although we sing only part of the song in class, the entire song ( including one verse in French) is on the Home CD.

My Drum is a chant that focus on loud and quiet - which is known as dynamics. Dynamics are important to the expressive power of music. The children will be able to learn about opposing concepts of loud and quiet through experience with vocal play as well as through listening.

Actual drum play will be experienced during parent sharing time. We have a special friend who is going to make his appearance now and then throughout the semester....Bobo, the clown! Bobo is going to teach us a special song which we will be able to play our Kindermusik drums to during parent sharing time. And of course, for first class, we must have a circle dance. This dance emphasizes the importance of people of all ages singing and dancing together. Children and parents experience an emotional and social bonding, a sense of belonging and a nurturing environment. Creating a sense of community is an important goal of all Kindermusik classes.

Mums and dads, those of you who have collected your materials last week, please bring it to class this week as I would like to have the opportunity to orientate you on the use.

I'll see you in class then....Cheerio!