Screech!

This article is taken from Reader's Digest July 2007 issue.

Want to improve your child's brain power and memory? Enrol them in music lessons from as young age as possible. Brain tests conducted on a group of kids be researchers from Canada's Mc Master Institute for Music and the Mind show that early musical training improves memory and IQ - and results can be seen in four years old in as little as four months. Two groups of children aged four to six were studied. One group was given music lessons and the other was not. When brain scans were conducted afterwards, it appeared that the children with musical training generated more sophisticated responses, their brain processing system worked faster and general memory capacity increased.

Thought you would be interested to know this...

Cities! Lesson 9

Hi folks, boy....these few weeks are just whizzing past......before I know it another day gone, another week ago and very soon another year gone! Towards the end of the year, I know some of you have gone on holidays and things are rather quiet at the music school. Anyhow, classes are still on right till the end of the year.....

We are going to sing Hello this week with our drums playing hello rather than us singing the word 'hello'. The focus of this activity is audiation: which means the ability to hear music when no musical sound is present. When you audiate, you have internalized music and are 'thinking' music.

We will continue with There's a little drum activity, still using the drums and practicing steady beat, exploring various movements we can play with the drum and again at the end, using the same song to focus on audiation. This time we will play the word 'drum' rather than sing it.

We are going to introduce the Three Artists Matching Game which is a complex game that involves listening, counting, moving and pretend play. This week we will start slowly by just learning about the artists and moving like them to the song San Sereni ( which was introduce last week when we explore different movements of people with different jobs) using different props like scarves to represent ballet dancer, stick for guitarist and bells for painter.

Then we will zoom to a country far away call China where we will listen to a song call Kang Ding City and allow the kids the opportunity to do some analytical listening: such as who is singing? did you hear instruments? Was the music slow, fast, did it change? There is a story to this song ( thanks to mum-in-law for translating it to me!) and I will explain it to the kids. This is one of the beauty of Kindermusik program. The children gets to listen and appreciate songs from all over the world. We have so far listen and learn about a french song ( Bonjour) and a song from Zimbabwe ( Sorida)

I'm sure we all remember the statue game we played last the week before while we Walk All Around? This week we will be doing it in class with mummy and daddy's help and let's see how well we have learn to pose and stay still!

During parent sharing time, we will be teaching the mums and dads the rhythm of Sorida as we move together as partners. Lastly, with Christmas around the corner, of course I will have a Christmas surprise for you all......which you will see when you come to class!

For those that are away, a blessed Christmas....

Cities! Lesson 8

Hiya folks, enjoyed the photos? The internet at my house was down for the past four days and I was getting cranky because I wanted so much to post those photos.

This is going to be a brief lesson plan this week. I have tonnes of of mails to reply to!

We will be learning a new song this week Sorida. I quote:

"Sorida" is a term of greeting in Shona, a language spoken in Zimbabwe. Children in Zimbabwe participate in games that are inspired by (or actually based on) traditional rhythm patterns which are used by adult ensembles. This song offers the children the opportunity to learn cross-rhythms, where the child sings in one rhythm and uses another in the motions. While this song is a lot of fun, in Africa it serves as a training ground for musical and social skills which later will be essential as youth seeks to become a full member of the society.

Let Your Voice Be Heard! Songs from Ghana and Zimbabwe ( 1997)

Using hand motions, we will learn the rhythm of this African greeting. At the same time we are developing our fine motor skills - which skills are important such as putting together a simple puzzle, painting, or stringing beads.

We will be learning about different occupation and explore the characteristic movements involved in particular type of work as we pretend to 'work' like the chosen person while playing and moving to San Sereni.

San Sereni is a singing game popular with young children in Puerto Rico. In the original game, the children form a circle around one child. This child plays the part of San Sereni and pantomines the action and sounds of the shoemaker, carpenter etc.


Here we come a walking - down the sidewalk as we go zig zagging, jumping over puddles and going over bridge as we explore the city in our class. Children get the opportunity to move in different pathways and develop eye and body coordination.

Remember your resonator bars this week. We will be playing to Steeple Bells as we learn how to play the bars with alternate hand movements, just like a tolling bell. Sorry for this brief note. More next week I promise! See you in class.

Photos from Class ( Cities!)

My cutie pies!

Haha...can you spot the pressed down statue?

Such an angel....

Can I take this statue home?


How cute can he get!

A happy statue!

Another cute statue....

Oops...some runaway statues!

Look how good the little statues are....

Statues in class

A mum and son statue.....


My cutie pies!

Cities! Lesson 7

Hello folks.....I survived the one week of Vacation Bible School though some of you might have notice that my voice was a bit hoarse towards to end of last week. Well, the busyness continues with other Christmas projects for church and my own family. I told a friend that this year I plan to have a peaceful and quiet Christmas.....I hope...because it really has been too hectic these past few months for me. I really want to spend some time reflecting and looking into myself...and just center myself again after being tossed all over for too long.

I start with a quote:

Hungarian composer, folk music collector, and music educator Zoltan Kodaly has an important influence on the world of music education. He considered the voice to be the major instrument, and thought singing should therefore be the focus of much of early music education. His research led him to develop an approach that involves the organized presentation of pitches to develop the ear and singing voice. Bitonic ( sol -mi), tritonic ( sol -mi-la), tetratonic (sol-mi-la-do) and pentatonic(sol-mi-la-do-re) melodies are presented in sequence in Kindermusik Imagine That! to help children develop an awareness of intervals as the tonal building blocks of music.

1, 2, 3, Click! is a song that has a tetratonic melody. We will be singing to this song while we have fun taking photos of ourselves!

We will also be introducing the book Razupazu Toto for the first time. Razapazu travels around the world and takes photos of different types of artists. This book is a beautiful book as we get to learn about different cities, how they look like and what type of artists are there and what is involved in his or her work ( the book ties with the the activity before - 1,2,3, Click!)

We will reinforce Bonjour Mes Amis this week using the drum and mallets as we strike hello in french with our friends. Again we will tie this activity with Razupazu.

We will be introducing an assortment of metal instruments while playing to There's a little bell and at the same time learning about dynamics ( loud and quiet) and tempo ( slow and fast).

I quote again:

When children distinguish between a prominent ( foreground) sound and background sounds, they are practicing analytical listening.

The focus of the next activity is that - analytical listening - while we listen to the Tolling Bell. We will be talking about how the bell moves to a steady beat...using th metronome. Then we will move our bodies little and big tolling bells. This is an introduction to the kids on how to play using alternate hands on the resonator bars next week.

Parent sharing time: a time of parents and kids to shine as we pose like statues and get our photos taken! That's all I will reveal. Come see for yourself! I see you in class this week. Ciao!

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.

Cities! Lesson 5

Hello again....it has been another eventful week for me and it will get even more exciting by this weekend and the whole of next week. I will be helping out at Vacation Bible School next week at my church. We are going to have about 300 kids congregating at the church for 5 days from 8:30am - 12:45 pm! I will be helping out in the craft station, helping the kids while they have fun cutting, pasting and hopefully making some wonderful crafts. Hopefully I will survive but if you dont see my blog next week, you know I am just super busy with this.

Anyway lesson 5....We are going to start off with My Bike, a rhythmic chant accompanied by sign language (ASL) and various hand movements as we learn the different functions of a bicycle. It will be done as an echo....which means the kids learn to imitate and listen to me before it's their turn to chant the words. We will be signing the word 'bicycle' and 'listen'.

We learn about our speaking and singing voice with Pretzels for Sale last week. This week we will be playing a singing game with the song. I quote from Song Play: A Collection of Playful Songs for Children, by Peggy Bennet:

By participating in singing games, children develop social skills that prepare them for adulthood, including:

-taking turns and waiting for turns,
- working cooperatively,
- observing and accepting others' ideas,
- gaining skills and confidence in being a leaden and a follower and
- watching, listening to and speaking to one another.

This activity will reinforce what we learn last week about our singing voice an gives each child a chance to sing solo.

The next activity focuses on auditory discrimination, by using the City Square Listening Game. Practicing auditory discrimination by listening to a series of sound collages and differentiating among various sounds allows the children to gain experience using different types of attention. These attention skills are necessary for later success in speech perception and reading. ( excerpt from Teacher's Guide)

- focused attention - concentration on a single task.
- sustained attention - concentration on a task over an extended period over time.
- shifted attention - moving between tasks while holding in mind task instructions and manipulating information.
- divided attention - performing tow or more tasks concurrently.

Introducing a new song, 1, 2, 3 Click! a song about taking pictures while we move around the city. Since this is the first time we are doing this song, we will be just singing and introducing the concept of photo taking in this lesson. I will explain more about the musicality of this song next week.

We will also be reinforcing the rhythm of Jing Jang as the kids take turns playing the rhythm on the glockenspiel.

Parent sharing time, we will be playing a variety of percussion instruments to Hey Lolly while we take turns playing different instruments to the unique rhythm of this song.

I see you in class this week.....