Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Cities! Lesson 4

Hi folks, hope you are all having a good week. Mine has been filled with too many activities....the stress of living in a big city - three kids plus a dog, and a hubby who just started a new business! There doesn't seem to be enough time in a day for all I planned to do. I received a message from a dear friend today who told me that she is reflecting on this past year and thinking of next year's resolutions.....hah! I told her I am still in the midst of living out this year's resolutions and not being very successful at that!

Lesson 4...we are going to start with some music listening : where has my little dog gone? The important thing here is to discern the words of the song - we are learning to listen with a purpose - is the dog little or big? what about his ears? etc. We are going to tie in this song with a book about a lost dog in the city - this is to link the meaning of 'lost dog', especially for the younger ones in the class who may not appreciate what it a 'lost dog' means.

The next activity focus on speaking and singing voice. I quote from the teacher's guide:

Children may not be able to hear or understand between the speaking and singing voice. By experiencing a wide range of vocal possibilities, the child learns to differentiate between his speaking and singing voices. Playing with speech as well as with simple melodies helps the child develop both singing and speech skills.

We will do this with Pretzels of Sale, where we learn about how we can make different voices with our voice box.

Apples and Bananas, this week we will introduce this song, with emphasis on the rhythm pattern of the song. We will be using the castanets as we beat to the rhythm of eat, eat, eat as we follow this song as a playalong.

Learning to stop and pose....we will be using Walk All Around this next two weeks to introduce this concept of freeze and pose ( like a statue). This week we will be introducing this song, seated down and using the rhythm sticks as our legs as we walk, pose, run, pose, tiptoe and pose.

Lastly, Zum Gali Gali, the song we danced to in the first week, we will be using instruments this week to play along to a steady beat with various steady beat movement.

Parent sharing time: please remember the bring the resonator bars to class next week.

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