Imagine That - SWIS Lesson Plan 4

Children of Imagine That age enjoy and thrive on pretend play. " Play is the most important thing in a child's life," says Karen Miller, consultant to the Kindermusik International Creative Team and author of Ages and Stages and The Outside Play and Learning Book. Early childhood researchers and theorist agree that play is significant in the development of children physically, socially, emotionally and cognitively.

In today's lesson there are several activities that involve pretend play, such as My Tree House and In My Pocket. We will also be introducing our first book Can You Find Me? which is a riddle book which contains verbal and visual cues. Finding an answer through a series of questions and clues encourages thinkings skills needed for problem solving.

We will also be doing a humming activity. Humming has two specific benefits. Humming over a period of time increases the strength of the acoustic spectrum, which affects the quality of the singing voice. Also, an extended period of time of humming increases the carrying power of the voice, resulting in more volume with less effort.

We will also be listening to Tricky Trails where the children will be introduce to the music that has three movement pathways - zig zag, curved and circle. Movement activities that involve pathways help children develop skills used in writing and copying and even map reading!! ( maybe the dads and mums can do with a bit of help in the map reading area too, hehe!)

Lastly, I would like to include this quote by Sue Bredekamp and Carol Copple in Developmentally Approriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs : Among the key tasts of early childhood educators is supporting children's developing sense of self.....It is an environment of encouragement and genuine respect that children are able to develop confidence and competence, not by being told how worderful or special they are but by being given chances to take initiative, experience success in perfroming difficult tasks and figure things out for themselves.

SWIS Lesson Plan 3

This week we will be concentrating on developing and highlighting the listening ear of your child.

We will strive to improve your child’s listening abilities through Music Listening activities. This week we will listen to “Silly Slides,” a recording that contains glissando sounds. The children will be asked to identify the sounds of different instruments (clarinet, trombone, slide whistle) playing glissandos. Listening discrimination is a valuable skill, one that can lead to the ability to make choices, to understand sound, and to appreciate beauty of sound.

We will also be listening to "This Old Man", a recording that contains sounds of trombone, piano, drum and bass. The kids will be encourage to listen to the different instruments and we will be discussing the different ways of producing sounds on these instruments.

The children will also be asked to identify the various rhythm pattern on a drum, ie walking, running, jumping, tip toeing and skipping. They will get a chance to listen and imitate the rhythm pattern with their hands, just be using their ears to listen ( I will beat the rhythm with the drum hidden behind a box!)

We will be introducing a new song, "Everything is just fine". Again, I will be using this song as a tool for the children to listen and discern the lyrics of the song. We will move and play instruments to this song, according to the various parts of the song.

We continue with the story of Josh and Katie using the sound effects of the slide whistle. Again, this is training the ear to discern the different ways a slide whistle can produce sounds and how we can use the sounds to relate to real life situations, in this case the different playground equipment...the swing, see saw and slide.

Lastly, the slide whistle. We will continue with the learning of graphic notation.

While listening to your Home CDs, ask your child simple questions such as “Do you hear a man singing or a child singing?,” “Is that music fast or slow?,” or “Do you recognize any instruments that are playing?” Encourage listening for preferences by asking such questions as “Do you like the sound of that song?,” or even “Why do you like that song?” It is never too early to start talking with your child about her preferences, encouraging her to make comparisons and talk about distinctions.

Imagine That - SWIS Lesson Plan 2

1. Hello, How do you do?

For this lesson, I will be using instruments to play hello to each other. We will be playing to steady beat and as well as other creative options suggested by the kids. This is a way to encourage creativeness and to think 'out of the box'. Again, this promotes self esteem and confidence in one's ability to suggest ideas. No wrong or right way of playing as long as the kids can label the movements and tell me what it is. Share with you something cute. Last week, when we were playing rhythm sticks to "This Old Man", one kid rolled the sticks on the floor and he called it the 'roti canai' movement! The kids loved it, and later when I asked them for 'roti canai' movement, they all remembered and we all have a good laugh over it. To me, this is part of what a Kindermusik class is all about. Fun and laughter, freedom to give ideas and know that it will be accepted and acknowledged by your peers and teacher.

2. What do we do when we all go out?
This week, we will be doing some basic composing. I will be asking the kids to tell me what they can 'see' when we all go out, rather than 'do' - so what do we see when we all go out? To enhance learning and to make it relevant to the theme of park, I will be introducing creatures that we can see at the park - grasshopper, ants, ladybird, bird.....and moving to them. Hopping like a grasshopper, crawling like an ant... The development of body awareness in children this age is very important.

3. Grasshopper Park Story
For this lesson, I plan to incorporate the slide whistle as sound effects in the story. See Saw ( up and down pitch), swing ( sliding sound) and slide ( gradually going up as in climbing up the ladder and then sliding down). This is the expose the kids to the different ways of playing and making sounds with the slide whistle. Interactive story telling incorporates a variety of experience..singing, speaking and playing with vocal sounds.

4. Grasshopper Park Medley.
This is an instrumental movement piece. The kids will be encouraged to listen and recognize the three different segments - swing, slide and see saw and move to the approriate section. This is to develop analytical listening skills.

5. Ha, Ha This a Way
We will be using drums to beat to the different rhythms of walking, running and jumping. Last week, we moved to the cue of the drum. This week, every kid will have a chance to play on one drum each and to show me how they can drum to running, walking and jumping.

6. Parent Sharing Time
We will continue to explore the slide whistle ( by using the Do as I'm Doing song) and I will be introducing graphical notation which is a simple visual method for the kids to learn how to blow the whistle. Will be teaching the long and short sounds this week.

7. Everbody wave and sing goodbye

Imagine That - SWIS Lesson Plan 1

See What I Saw (SWIS) – Lesson 1

Lesson Outline:

1. Hello, how do you do?
For the new parents, the hello song is a ritual. It is a chance for the kids to warm up, and also for the educator ( that is me!) to observe their personality and their ability to sing the words and whether they are singing in the right pitch.


2. This Old Man
In this activity, I will be using the rhythm sticks to develop steady beat through imitation.The kids will be encouraged to imitate me by playing the sticks in various ways while keeping to a steady beat. The most fundamental property of music is beat, the underlying repeating pulse. Playing an instrument to a steady beat helps develop a sense of time and the ability to organize and coordinate movements within time.

3. On Our Way
By using the drum, specific signal such as walking, running, jumping and ready stop will be played and the kids will be asked to listen and focus on the signal, understand the meaning of the signal and then transfer the meaning to a self controlled action.

4. What Shall We do?
The focus of this activity is pretend play. The kids will be invited to talk about what they might do in the park and we will be translating their ideas into pretend play. Using the kids’ contribution develops self esteem and also honed leadership skills.

5. Grasshopper Park Story
The focus of this activity is literacy development and play, which promotes understanding and acceptance of others and provide safe boundaries to examine who one is and who one wants to be. We will be learning the songs of seesaw, swinging and slide down.

6. Do As I’m Doing
This is a follow the leader activity. Kids are encouraged to observe and respond to a steady beat motion, and sustain attention by staying with a motion for a length of time. It also promotes understanding in following guidelines of the activity.

7. Parent Sharing Time
Demonstrating the use of the slide whistle – long and short sounds, high and low pitch. Introducing up and down movements in relation to the high and low pitch.

8. Ha, Ha, This a Way
Using the high and low pitch of the slide whistle, we will be moving up and down to the cue of the whistle.

9. Everybody Wave and Sing Goodbye
Circle time goodbye song.

TextTwist HiScore

Just about the only PC game I play is TextTwist. This evening I had a fantastic run and got most of the word sets correct. My high-score so far (the game is still on!) is 459,920 - THREE times higher than my previous high.

Unfortunately, this score did not register on the Yahoo Game server, so I am stuck with my old score as far as my online buddies on Yahoo IM can see.

In order to preserve this moment of achievement, ManHon helped capture the screen of my score. I insert is here as a matter of public record :-) Not a great score compare to the all time highs on Yahoo, but an achievement I am proud of nevertheless. I deserve this little thrill after sitting on my bump for over 4 hours.

I shall keep you updated of my score along the way. If I keep up this streak, this story may end up as long as War and Peace :-) Wish me well !!

Dedicated Toilet for Pilots?

Alex posted something really funny on his blog. Rather than repeating it here, why don't you go there to read/listen to it.

Ascending Angkor Wat

This is a short clip showing manhon and kids (including adam - with the help of Sokun, our guide). climbing the peak of AngkorWat. If it looks scary to you on video, I assure you it was many times more scary watching them climb. There is no room for mistake. Result could be fatal.

There were no steps, unlike organised Singapore, and the path was nothing more than rocks, stone, sand and tree roots. Every step you take is a careful one, one misstep and you could end up injuring your foot or worse, tumbling down the rocky trail. That’s not even the worst part. When you fall, you are sure to bring down more than one person with you because it was just so crowded.

- said survivor of similar climb

The climb down was even more nerve wrecking. I'm just glad we are all home safely together without injury!