Weathers Lesson 14, 15 and 16

Hi mums and dads, hope you are enjoying this two weeks of school holidays with your kiddoes. I've been busy, running the kindermusik holiday camp which some of the IT kids attended. On the personal front, hubby and son number 2 came back after a 10 day mission trip to Nepal. It was an enlightening and inspiring experience for them. Last night, i sat down and viewed almost 1000 photos of their trip! Daughter number 1 joined the Relay for Life ( an event organised by the National Cancer Society in support of cancer patients) last weekend and it was a great experience for her too. She walked through the night - from 6pm on saturday to 10am on sunday! - at Bukit Jalil Stadium.

Back to lesson plan - the next three last class of Weathers - we will be reveiwing what we have done throughout this curricula. This week we will be reviewing acitivities and songs all related to animals - bunnies, farm animals, dolphins, horses etc. We will also be reviewing the four different themes within the curricula - sun, rain, wind and storm.

I strongly encourage you to go to the website : www.kindermusik.com - and read about Toys for those to remain in Imagine That level and Young Child for those who are graduating. Of course, any questions, please feel free to ask me.

I'll see you in class, bye!

Weathers Lesson 13

Hello everyone, another week has gone by and we are at lesson 13 of Weathers - a few weeks left before the end of semester. I think I have managed to talk to most of you about your child's progress and the plan for next semester. Some of the kids will be graduating to another level, and some will continue with another curricula of Imagine That called Toys. If you do have any questions, please stay back after class and we can spend some time discussing your thoughts and any concern you have. I must reiterate how proud and amazed I am about every single kid in the class. It has been a real pleasure to teach kids like this, and let me tell you I've had my share of hairy experiences with wild kids!

Coming back to the lesson for this week, we will continue with our snow adventure with 'getting dressed' for playing in the snow. Of course, clumsy and forgetful teacher here gets all her boots and hats and mittens in the wrong places and has to be corrected by the kids!

We will do our Jolly Snowman walk and dance again, an activity the kids enjoyed. There were some who felt a bit embarassed when I put them on the spot and asked how a fat, jolly snowman might dance. Some were more spontaneous, some just stared at me loss for ideas! Hopefully this week, with a repeat of this activity, the kids will warm up to the idea of giving me suggestions on how a snowman might move in the snow.

Jingle Bell Symphony, a piece of music that exhibits heavy, ponderous parts, and light, airy parts - we will move and dance in this activity - how do our bodies move in a heavy way, how do we move in a light, airy way? Apart from learning to listen to the dynamics of the music, the kids also learn to be creative in their body movements. We will then repeat this song, this time using instruments to represent the light or heavy sounds.

We were introduced to the handbells last week, and this week the kids will learn about the harp through the song Snowflakes - how the music is produced and the difference between the timbre of the harp and the handbells. We have also been listening to Snowflakes on the glockenspiel. Introducing the kids to different instruments and talking about the sounds of these instruments creates an awareness of different instruments and the sounds they make.

Since we are at the few last lessons of Weathers, we will start doing some review activities from the earlier lesssons. We will start with using the Weggis Song and review the concepts of legato and staccato. Please remember to bring the rainshakers as we will be using it for this activity.

Righty ho, I'll see you all in class this week. Ciao!

Weathers Lesson 12

Hello all, another week has passed. Time REALLY FLIES. We are already at Lesson 12 of Weathers...coming to an end soon and doesn't it just feel like yesterday we started Lesson 1? Looking back, we have come a long way and I must say I am mighty proud of the kids. I have taught many kids, and have had my share of hairy experiences of teaching the wild ones but this bunch of IT kids are just terrific, sincerely from my heart. It is really a joy to teach them week after week and see them absorbing the various activities we do in class. I have learnt through them to be a better educator as well so it has certainly been a rewarding experience for me.

We continue with our snow adventure this week. Snowflakes is a song that has beautiful tonality and we will be using the song to sing and just enjoy the melody and also to let the kids feel the sensation of snow falling on their bodies. I promise you this will be a hit with the kids!

After that, we will be having a snowball play - a chant with creative movement. Again, this is another example of guided pretend play where the kids are introduced to the possibility of using objects and movements as symbols, and thus developing cognitive skills. Many children, especially now with the influence of television and computer, don't know how to do this on their own and we as adults have to show the way by interacting and playing with them.

How does it feel like when we are walking in the snow with snow boots? This activity's focus is learning balance. Balance ability improves as children learn to use internal and external cues to help them remain upright. The internal cues comes from muscles and joints. The external cues are primarily visual ( The joy of movement, by Sandra R. Curtis)

We are going to be introduced to the handbells by doing some listening to musical snow. Handbells characteristically are struck from the inside of the clapper, thus producing a ringing sound, the pitch being relative to the size of the bell. This activity integrates a few domains of development - language ( discussing, describing), cognitive ( remembering, recognizing), musical ( introduction of music instrument), physical ( hearing and singing) and emotional ( feeling the beauty of the music)

Next, snow play would not be complete without building a snowman right? The music focus here is pretend play with singing and movement. This is one of my favourite activity in Weathers curricula and it involves the kids pretending to be fat jolly snowman and to move and dance like one. Watch out what happens in the end when the sun shines down on us!

Alright, parent sharing time - we will be playing an ensemble and moving to Snowflakes. Ensemble is a group of musicians, instrumentalists and/or singers, who perform together. This is basically what we are doing - the children get to play and enjoy music in a social environment and learn to take turns and to accept each other's ability.

Righty ho....I'll see you all this week. Have to go take care of my brood and save them from watching to much TV! Haha

Weathers Lesson 11

Hi all, I had an interesting day today. I attended a one day course on play therapy - which is basically using toys to bring out hurts and issues that have traumatized children. Interestingly, I found some comparisons with what we do in Imagine That curricula. I quote from Ellen Galinsky and Judy David in The Preschool Years:

- Play fosters a positive self concept
- Play promotes language development
- Play stimulates thinking and problem solving
- Play enables children to understand the world
- Play is a forum for children to express and resolve their feelings
- Play enhances creativity
- Play develops social skills and social thinking

Guided pretend play is one of the elements in Imagine That curricula and children these days, living in a society that gives less and less opportunity for play as we put more emphasis on academic, need to have this freedom to just play! Birds fly, fish swim, and children play!

We are going to go skating today as the weather turns colder....it is time to put on our ice skates and skate on a pretend pond to the music of Skater's Waltz. This kind of pretend play allows children to practice separating objects from their real life uses, developing abstract thinking. How would a ice pond feel like? How do we move while we skate? How does our feet move when it is on a slippery surface?

After our slippery adventure on ice, we will have some down time where we relax and rock to a steady beat while we listen to another version of Jingle Bells. It's important for the children to be aware of the different versions of the same song and move in response to the cue of the music.

Time to exercise our voices and tongues after a relaxing time of rocking! The musical focus here is vocal development as we sing All the Day Long in various syllables ( ba, boo, la etc) to the mirror. In this activity the children are led to concentrate on a specific phoneme and to discover how it sounds and feels when spoken in isolation. Looking in the mirror helps support their understanding of the articulation of these sounds.

After this let's dance to the same song in a circle without mums and dads and see what creative ideas on movements we can come up with! I know these children will have plenty of of good ideas that I might not even thought of!

How would one dance to the jazzy version of Jingle Bells? Again, the children are made aware of the different versions of a same song...an education in different genres of music. Mums and dads, we are going jiving again this week so put on your dancing shoes! If time permits, we might just do a spot of skating with the children too!

Let's also see how we can sing, rock and dance to our Goodbye song!

Weathers Lesson 10

Hi all, hope you had a good week, especially as we have a two day break in the middle of the week! I know some of you took off on Monday as well and had a good long break. Well, we are back for another week of class and we have lots of planned activities to do! This week, we are going to do lots of singing and speaking - we are going to concentrate on training vocal development and developing the confidence of singing in a group and deriving pleasure of being in a community and accepting each other.

We are going to have another special guest this week that will come alive in class with a little bit of help with my hand ;-) and he is going to explore with the kids the different ways we can greet hello to each other, from hands to legs to head....

We have a new book to share with you too. It is about three little kittens who love to play outside. One day while they were out playing, the weather started to change from a sunny day to a rainy day.......We are going to enjoy singing and reading together as a group and at the same time, getting to understand the words of the song we sing.

This will be followed by analyzing the music of Funiculi, Funicula....who is singing, what are they singing, is it a high or low voice? is it a happy or sad song? All this is part of training the kids to have an analytical listening ear when they listen to a piece of music.

After the happy singing, we will have a cold wind attack! When Cold Winds Blow where we will enjoy some pretend play with scarves and dim lights and feel how it is like when we are blown by the cold wind.

While we are feeling cold and maybe even miserable because of the weather, what is the best thing to do? Have a campfire and dance around the fire while we chase the blues away with This little light of mine. We are going to explore how to beat steady beat with using a torchlight!

Now that we are feeling warmer with the fire, we can sing snow song - this song is a very familiar song that the kids will be able to sing with much gusto!

Singing is a child's most direct form of musical experience. Singing does not need any external aid or media; it lets children as well as adults be responsible for the production of the music. In a sense, when we sing, we become the music. This immediacy is becoming less and less available in other musical experiences, in which the music is performed for us by professional musicians or is mediated by electronic means.

Songworks l, by Peggy D. Bennet and Douglas Bartholomew

The origin of Jingle Bells, composed by James Pierpont was first sung during the Thanksgiving season. Though it is often associated with the Christmas season, it is actually not about Christmas. Rather it is about wintertime fun!

As you can guess, we are moving to the 'winter' part of the curricula, with lots of snow, skating, snow fights etc! I can say for cetain we are going to have lots of fun learning and exploring this part of the curricula!

Parent sharing time: This week we are going to concentrate on finger movements using the song Lirum Larum. Learning to control finger movements is important and necessary for fine motor skills required for holding a pencil, using scissors, buttoning a shirt or playing a keyboard or a string instrument ( both instruments which the kids will be expose to in the next level Young Child in the Kindermusik Programme) Activities that focus on the ability to isolate and manipulate one finger at a time are excellent preparation for that.

Weathers Lesson 9

Hi all, as I am sitting here writing, the weather outside is NOT sunny! It is raining cats and dogs, it's 5pm in the evening on a working day and I am sure there will be many people sitting in their cars stuck in traffic! Actually the weather lately has been just like what we are talking and singing about in class - so the kids have no problem envisioning rain and thunder and storm eh?

Wasn't the parent sharing time a blast last week? Thank you for being so sporting!

This week, we are going to review all the sign language that we have been learning for the past few weeks. In fact we will 'sign' our hello song! Will try to get the kids to sing in their heads while we sign using ASL for rain, wind, rainbow etc.

What instrument can we use to make the musical wind sound? We have been using the slide whistle for the past two weeks, this week we will examine the use of glockespiel and talk about the musical concept of glissando ( a musical effect obtained by playing a rapid series of ascending or descending pitches in a continuous sliding movement)

We are going to do some music listening ( Funiculi, Funicula) and explore how to analyse music - what it means? who is singing? The focus here is to discriminate between hearing and listening.

Hearing is a process involving nerves and muscles that reach adult efficiency by age four or five. Listening is a learned behaviour, a mental process that is concerned with hearing, attending, discriminating, understanding and remembering. It can be improved with practice.

( Early Childhood Experiences in Language by Jeanne M. Machado)

Last week we explored the dynamics of an excerpt from Beethoven symphony no. 6 using the puppet Ernie and this week we will see how the dynamics look like ( remember relationship between sound and symbol). If time permits, we will get each kid to draw what they hear. This music explores a large range of dynamics, from very quiet to very loud. Just as an artist may use contrasting colours to prove expression, many composers of classical music use dynamics to provide contrast.

Will be introducing a new song All the Day long and using this song to introduce different rhythm pattern. We will be using hand movements and instruments to bring awareness of the different rhythm pattern in different parts of the song. If time permits, we will also try doing the song in an ensemble .

Parent sharing time: will give you a hint. We will do a synchronized dance and analyse the musical form of a song through this dance.

Hope to see you all in class....

Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary

Hi all,

Just want to share with you a terrific place we found in Pahang recently. Kuala Gandah is about 2 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur - off the Karak Highway. Turn off at Lancang, then after the toll, turn right and just drive straight till you see the sign for the Elephant Sanctuary. The program starts at 1pm with a video show by National Geographic on how elephants are relocated from their original habitat as theses areas are being used up by people for planting crops etc. Then at 2pm, elephants are taken out ( adult and baby, the baby elephants are so so cute - like Dumbo!) and we get to feed them with fruits upclose. My kids had a wild time...we can either put the food on near their trunk and they will scoop it up or put it straight into their mouths and you'll get to feel their tongues!

Then we get the ride the elephants around the sanctuary, of course there will be trainers walking along side with each elephant. Then the fun part - you will get the bathe the elephants and bathe with the elephants in the river. Now this is not for the squeamish.....the river is not that super clean and there will be elephant poo floating about ( yes...poo poo) but it is really a chance for a lifetime. The elephants are smart. They will carry a load of people on their backs and then dunked them in the river! of course my hubby and kids are not the squeamish type unlike yours truly here so they got dunked and had a whale of a time. Adam was standing in the river when a poo floated right in his path. Hubby managed to carry him out of the way just in time while mummy was screaming her head off!

We never knew of a place like this in Malaysia and it is FREE! You can of course give a donation. Go, I highly recomend it. If you can find time to go on a weekday even better because it won't be so crowded with tourist.

Nearby, there is a place called Deerland. Worth visiting as well. The kids get to feed deers ( one deer stepped on my foot in its haste to get fed...OUCH!), ostriches ( do you know they eat petai plants?), bears ( yes...the bears are tame and the kids fed them Milo from a bottle!) and even kancil ( mousedeer). You don't get this experience in a zoo and the entrance fee is just 5 rgt!

It's a nice day outing....two hours each way....highly recomended....bring sunlotion, change of clothes ( there is shower facilities at elephant sanctuary), have lunch first before going as there is a small gerai selling food that may not be too appealing to the kids.

Want to know more....? Call me or email....