Cities! Lesson 6

Hello folks....its latish in the night but I wanted to blog this week's lesson before I get caught up with preparation of Vacation Bible School again. The past two days have been fun, but tiring. I am sure I echo the sentiments of the 100 plus helpers we have helping out in church.

Good news to share....Pat our principal delivered a baby girl last thursday! She is now resting at home, both mum and baby are fine. I haven't visited her yet, but I'm sure the baby is a cutie pie. I love babies....( but three is enough for me!)

OK, a short note...this week we will be hearing and singing a new French song, Bonjour, Mes Amis. ( which means hello my friends) I quote from the teacher's guide:

Hearing and singing songs in a non-native language gives children the opportunity to hear and explore making phonemes, or sound patterns, not found in their native language. Exposure to these phonemes may give children an increased ability to learn foreign languages later in life.

We will also be using this song to develop a keen listening ear by playing the triangle when we hear the word Bonjour. This provides an opportunity for the kids to focus and listen out to the words of the song.

Last week I introduced the chant My Bike. We used hand gestures to represent the different parts of the chant. This week we will be taking turns and using instruments to beep and ring and pedal as we go through the now more familiar chant. This is preparation for ensemble playing as well as the kids listen and wait their turn to play their parts in the chant.

We are fine musicians - we did this during parent sharing time in Lesson 4 and this week we will allow the kids to do it independently without mums and dads helping them. This activity is usually a favourite with the children and most of them responds and focus well, which is a skill we want to develop with children this age. Of course we mustn't forget the obvious benefit which is introducing different timbre of sounds to the children.

This week we will visit the different shops in the city and see what we can eat and buy as we sing to I like to eat apple and bananas. Again, this is a way to train them in basic composing as well as widening vocabulary as they learn about different objects in the shops.

Zum Gali Gali, a song which beat is slower than the kids are used to, emphasizing on the whole beat. We will use the rhythm stick this week to go through various motions, all the time training the kids to play to the right beat.

Parent sharing time: we will use the resonator bars this week and play to Jing Jang, getting the kids use to play bilateral , and then with one hand, and then with the other hand. This is just the first and the simplest activity using the bars. We will play with the bars as we go along further in the semester.