Are you for real?

My son Adam who is turning 5 in April this year is down with a very bad throat infection, coupled with high fever. Naturally, he has to take medicine to control the fever. Being sick and cranky, he is not the most cooperative patient at the moment. The mere mention of medicine will cause him to collapsed in a pool of tears and whinyness ( I know, no such word but you know what I mean!)

Anyway, last Saturday at 3am, he was burning up so I woke him up to give him paracetemol. He started wailing and protesting. Then he asked me a very strange question. Can I scratched your chin?

Huh? Scratched my chin? Well OK....if that makes you happy.

So he reached out and gave my chin a tickle and then said....OK, you are for real! You are not a mean person in disguise!

Then only it occurred to me what he was doing. He thought I was wearing a mask and was checking by scratching my chin to see whether there is indeed a mask!

Either I looked so frightening in the middle of the night or I was being so 'mean' to him that caused a overactive imaginative burning up boy to think that the lady lying next to him in his bedroom is a mean witch pretending to be his mummy!

Cities! Lesson 13

Hi all, hope you had a good week. We are already at Lesson 13. As I mentioned in class, I will be contacting some of you soon to discuss about your child's graduation to the next level. The last few lessons of this semester, I will be doing mostly review activities. This is a way to reinforce the musical concepts, and at the same time provide me the opportunity to observe how your child has progress this term.

Lesson 13, I will be concentrating of Rhythm. We will go through the songs that have of different rhythm pattern and playing steady beat with with bilateral and alternate movements using the resonator bars.

The songs we will be using are I got a letter this morning, Sorida, Down Our Street ( book), Walk to the Cobbler Shop, Hippity Hop to the Barber Shop, Down to the Baker's Shop and Sing your way Home.


You know, initially I thought this semester's lessons will be a difficult for the children to grasp, the concept of city life, and jobs....I was a bit concerned the younger ones will have difficulty understanding. But, we overcame the hurdle! I can see all the kids participating and understanding and most importantly, learning and having fun. So again, I am mighty proud of your children!

Thank you mums and dads for being so supportive. I truly appreciate it.

I see you all in class. Ciao....

Cities! Lesson 12

Hi folks, hope you had a good week. My kids went back to school this week, all three of them so it's peace and quiet in the house....alas! well, at least in the morning before Adam finishes kindy at noon. Most of you would have read the newsletter, about the music school moving to a new location. Most people naturally don't like changes but there are some changes that are for good and I believe this change of location is a good one. It is a more conducive and cosy environment. I know some parents will miss the convenience of shopping in the mall but look at it this way....we are helping you save money! :-) Seriously, when you come and have a look at the new place, I think you will give it a thumbs up!

I hope you have been reading the lesson plans that I faithfully prepare and write down each week. Actually looking at my site meter, there are people all over the world reading this blog and I know some of the Kindermusik sites have also linked this blog to theirs. It's really nice to know that people who are like minded are benefitting from this.

The kids had great fun writing and mailing their real letters last week. Hope that the letters have arrived in your post box this week and the kids get a thrill receiving their own letters. Do let me know!

Back to the lesson plan this week. It's already Lesson 12! I know I keep on saying this but time really do zoom pass so quickly.

We will introduce a new book today, Down Our Street. In this book, the kids will be introduced to people who lives in the city and the different jobs they have. The focus of this activity is musical ( as they learn the rhythmic phrases) and dramatic ( with hand movements) enactment as we go through the book. I quote:

Musical and dramatic enactment of a story is one way to expand children's creative experiences by bringing together elements of guided imagery, music and movement, and the visual arts. Creative enactment is an important process for developing self-awareness and self-expression. Through it you and your children can expand the imagination, develop skills in body movement, gesture, and practice verbal and nonverbal communication.

- The Creative Arts: A Process Approach for Teachers and Children, 2nd Ed, by Linda Carol Edwards

We are going visiting to three different shops this week; the cobbler, the baker and the barber. As we stop at each shop, we will be learning about what they do and learning the rhythm of the rap, the roll and the snip! Each of these song: Walk to the Cobbler's Shop, Down to the Baker's Shop, and Hippity Hop to the Barber Shop - are new to the kids so we will be taking our time to sing and understand what we are singing.

Last week I introduced the concept of accelerando ( going faster) to the kids as we Pass the Shoe to each other as we sit in a circle. We will repeat this activity again this week to reinforce the concept.

For parent sharing time, we will be dancing to a American fiddler tune called All Around the Town. Let me share with you about this song:

All Around the Town is an American fiddler tune. American square dance tunes, as played by fiddlers who have learned them by ear, have a distinctive type of rhythm. They differ from the jigs, reels and hornpipes of other countries. Most of the American tunes have a definite ending and repeat. The same class of dance tunes in other countries, especially Scotland and Ireland, play round and round ad libitum, or to the end of the dance.

- Traditional Music Of America by Ira W.Ford

Righty ho....I'll see you in class. Bye....

Cities! Lesson 11

Hello, hello, hello.....today is the 1st day of the year 2008. May this new year bring good health and much joy to all of you. Hope you all had a good holiday over Christmas and New Year. We as a family had a good time eating, catching up with old friends ( from all over the world!), and more eating coz the Christmas and New Year parties continue till this weekend! My kids don't start school till next Monday so we are all still in zombie mode in the Shiew household.

But full speed ahead for our music lessons. All classes are resumed and hope attendance of students will picked up too.

We have been practicing playing our resonator bars with one hands, alternate hands and both hands ( bilateral). This week we are going to review again the progress of each child as we sing and play our hello song while we play the bars with both hands in a steady beat. A bilateral movement is simultaneous movement of corresponding body parts, such as two hands or two feet.

We introduced the song Roll that Ball last week. This week, after becoming acquainted to the rhythm of the song, we will use our bodies and then later drums to move and to tap to the first beat of the verse. Learning all the different rhythms of the different songs from Cities these past few weeks develop awareness of the children to the varied rhythm patterns in songs. We will continue to do this right up to the last lesson.

The new song this week is I got a letter this Morning. Musically, this song is sung in a minor key which is not too common in children's music so it's good to expose them and also to encourage them to sing. We will also be learning about the postman and what he does in context with occupation of people in the city. It's going to be fun as the kids will get to mail their own 'letters'!

We will continue learning about jobs people do when we introduce Mr Cobbler to the kids, and learn the rhythm of how he raps his hammer when he mends shoes for little feet! And talking about mending shoe, we are going to have a Pass the Shoe singing game while we learn the concept of accelerando ( becoming faster)

Lastly, we will be taking a walk, run, tiptoe and maybe even flying around the city ( Here we come a walking) as we spot what other jobs that people do in the city. Children inherently love to move about and we use this to our advantage as we instruments to represent 'walking', 'running' and 'flying'. So we are using our eyes, our ears and our bodies ( integrated learning) when we participate in this activity.

Parent sharing time: I have put off this activity Mirror Dancing till later in the semester as I am concern it might be too difficult for the kids. This activity, as the title suggests, involves mirroring. The kids ( with your help) are going to be my mirror image. This activity encourages the kids to imitate and be aware of their bodies, and also to exhibit self control as we move in response to the music. Let's give this activity a go this week and fingers crossed!

See you all in class....

Cities! Lesson 10

Hi folks, a blessed CHRISTmas to you all. It's now 11:30pm on the 25th of December. Writing out my lesson plan to you folks on Christmas day! :-) It has been a hectic and fun filled few days for the whole family. And the flurry of activities will continue till next week so I thought I better get this out before I run out of time.

Since attendance has been up and down these past two weeks, I have decided not to do too many new activities this week. Instead, I will repeat some of the old activities that the kids found challenging.

In the Three Artist Matching Game last week, the kids did great with associating the pictures of the artists to the movements they performed using props. This week we will make it more challenging and complicated by adding a drum cue. I quote from the teacher's guide:

This activity provides a rich opportunity for integrated learning. In this one activity children are asked to count, recognize counting visually and aurally ( what does 'three' looks like in dots? what does "three" sound like on the drum) and then make decisions based on what they see and hear, using their skill at classifying objects. ( which artist does "two" represent?) Additionally the children's creativity is enhanced when they explore a variety of movements related to the artists.

A new activity we will be doing this week is Roll that Ball. The kids will be made aware of phrasing ( the end of one line in a song) as we roll a ball to each other while seated in a group. After we master that, we will have each child trying out phrasing holding and moving their ball at the end of each phrase. I will demonstrate this concept during our Goodbye song to give you an idea of what I am talking about.

The other activities are using the songs Sorida, Apples and Bananas and Steeple Bells. We will be using different instruments and props to reinforce the different rhythms of these songs.

Parent sharing time: we will be doing a rather challenging activity using hoops. The kids will be learning about a family of instruments and at the same time, developing their listening skills as they learn to move when they hear a rhythm stick cue. This is an activity that requires much self control and a certain amount of focus so it will be interesting to see how the kids will perform this for the first time.

Hope to see you all in class this week. Take care.....

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....