Cities! Busy Places-Friendly Faces - Lesson 1

Welcome to all new parents who are reading this blog for the first time! As you can see, I have been blogging for a while now, mostly lesson plans pertaining to the Imagine That curricula. I know parents are curious to know what their kids are doing in class and I thought this is a simple way to keep you in the know ( of course it also helps me by making sure I do my lesson plan in time!)

Just a brief review of what we will be doing this semester. This is a brief summary from the teacher's guide:

People on the go, rushing everywhere - in the city! - A unit that calls us to co-create a city that is familiar, yet like no other. And a city that's really many 'cities' in one. There's a city of music - of songs, recorded works and city sounds. There's a city of imagination. There's a city of stories - of lost dogs and f0und dogs and a globe trotting photographer. A city of movement - sweeping movement, up and down the elevator movement, dance and freeze like a statue movement. A city of music with the Kindermusik Resonator Bars. A city of games - a shoe passing game, street vendor game; and a movement and matching game involving three artists, math, drum and the Puerto Rican children's game song.

There are LOADS of fun and educational musical activities up the street ( pun intended!). Bearing in mind that Lesson 1 is a new level for some kids who just graduated from Our time, and also the curricula itself being a new concept - we will take it easy the first time. It takes some time to understand what is the concept of a city. Though we are living in one, the kids many not realise what it really means - tall buildings, people everywhere, elevators and escalators, traffic lights, different kinds of transportation - these are the few things we will be touching on in lesson 1.

In the City - the focus of this song is the simple tonal melodies. Singing skills tend to develop in the following order - words, rhythm, phrases and contour. Research shows that children's repertoire should include simple tonal melodies ( bitonic, tritonic) which are close in pitch to speech - which makes singing a successful activity for the child. In this song, we are also introducing the concept of stop and go ( traffic lights) - using visual cue - through movement and instrument playing.

Here We Come A- Walking -the music focus here is singing while moving - and using the aural cue of a drum beat. What can we see while we are walking down the street? For this lesson, I am taking the opportunity to introduce various transportation and the sounds they make. We will be using the knowledge of different transportation later in the curricula.

Elevator and Escalator - the music focus here is glissando sound - a musical effect obtained by playing a rapid series of ascending or descending pitches in a continuous sliding movement. We will be using the slide whistle to demonstrate this and at the same time learning the concept of how the elevator moves up and down in a shop. IN the next lesson, we will be incorporating pretend play in this activity.

Hey Lolly - the music focus is to create new verses . I quote from Jeanne M. Machado ( Early Childhood Experiences in Language Arts):

Language abilities in three and four years olds are blooming. "Playing" with language by making new, funny words and sounds benefit children by increasing their skill in using speech creatively. Ultimately, this practice in imaginative speech strengthens the children's linguistic intelligence.

We have covered lots in the first lesson. During parent sharing time, we will be learning, through dance the rhythm of Zum Gali Gali, a song sung by the Israeli pioneers while they worked to turn the Israeli desert into fields and gardens.

Kindermusik introduced a wide variety of songs; of different genres and cultures ( we will be covering songs from India, China, France, Africa and many more in this semester).

I see you all in class. Looking forward to a starting a new musical adventure with your kids!