Cities! Lesson 3

Hi folks, hope you are having a good week. Can't believe it's already the month of November. Very soon it's Christmas and there, another year gone. I celebrated my 42nd (YES!) last week. Felt very blessed by family and friends as they celebrated the day with me.

Anyway, lesson 3. We are still taking it slowly as I continue to gradually introduce the concept of city life and what we can see and experience in the city. Last week we talked and sang about different jobs that people do in the city and this week we will combine what we learn in Lesson 1 and 2 - modes of transport and different jobs one can find in the city.

In the City - last week we used the rhythm sticks for this song. This week we are going to learn sign language! I quote from the Teacher's guide:

Sign language is considered the 'unvoiced language" and is easily learned. Signing can:

- help children attend more easily - requires eye contact.
- make language active; children are active participant in the learning process.
- foster self-esteem - gives children more control in expressing themselves.

Here we come a walking - a very versatile song which we can use different modes to teach musical concepts. This week we will use the drums as we play to the beat of walking, running, tip toeing, stomping, jumping etc. We are learning to concepts of fast and slow, loud and soft while we 'walk' around the city with different feet!

Elevator and Escalator - we had fun with this activity as we learn about how we go up and down in the elevator in the shopping mall as we shop for different things. The children get to visually understand to concepts of going up and down in the elevator. This week we are going to use the glockenspiel as we explore glissando. Children will become less inhibited about their singing voices when when vocal play such as this ( using a broad vocal range by producing a glissando sound) is naturally integrated with pretend play.

A new activity this week....The Broom Man. A little bit about the song : it is a street cry, a song sung by a vendor to attract customers. This song was collected by J. Rosamond Johnson, an African-American man who began playing the piano at four and went to become a composer, conductor and Brocdway performer. We will be learning the song, and learning what does the broom man do...while adding the element of composing...what does a rag man do? what about a window cleaner man?

We will also do a spot of music listening: Traffic Jammers. The focus here is to listen with a purpose; a city sound hunt as we try to find with our ears as many different city sounds as possible.

Lastly, we will have an active listening activity - an exercise that introduces the concept of timbre, which is a word that describes the difference among sounds. Listening to differences in timbre, the tone quality or tone color of various musical instruments, allows children to learn to attend to relevant sounds and match these sounds to a specific instrument. Activities in which children identify, compare and analyze sound qualities of instruments help children develop auditory discrimination skills.

Parent Sharing time - a chance of us to dance to a jazzy number as we explore various body movements! See you in class.....