We are off to a great start in the three-year-old class this year. We began the year with songs that explore musical contrasts such as sound/silence (or start/stop) and loud/soft. We have explored playing instruments and large movement with these songs and more.
In addition to exploring musical contrasts we have started an introduction to instruments and their families. We read the book Zin Zin A Violin and then each week we have learned about an instrument family (percussion, strings, brass, and woodwinds). I highly recommend enjoying this Reading Rainbow video of Zin Zin A Violin with your child. See if they can tell you if the instrument is one you hit to play (percussion family), if it has strings (strings family), If you buzz into a mouthpiece to play it (brass family), or if you blow into it to play it (woodwind family).
We are already working on our Christmas songs for this year! The children will be singing parts of Angels We Have Heard on High, Away in a Manger, The Little Drummer Boy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Go Tell it on the Mountain. Did you know that the melody to Twinkle Twinkle was originally written my Mozart? See if you can sing the song along with each of the variations in the recording below.
We end every music class by singing God Is So Good together. You can incorporate this song into your daily routine as a prayer before meals or a lullaby before bedtime.
This site is set up as an ongoing blog post. Everything you see below this point was from a previous year and I will continue to move songs to the top of the post as we learn or are exposed to them in class this year.
This week we began to learn about specific instrument families. I brought a violin for the kids to see and hear and we identified members of the string family. You can tell an instrument belongs in the string family because they all have strings.
We listened for the string instruments in the Carnival of the Animals Lion movement. I didn’t tell the kids what animal the composer was thinking and they guessed first. They had good guesses like a mouse, tiger, gorilla, and dinosaur. Enjoy listening and see if you can find the different string instruments.
This semester, in addition to singing, playing instruments, and large movement, the three year olds will be learning about different instruments and the sounds they make. We began by reading the book “Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin.” One instrument is added at a time in the book so we enjoyed counting them. I encourage you to watch the book being read on the Reading Rainbow episode below so you can also hear the sounds the instruments in the book make.
We Are Marching in the Light of God and This Little Light of Mine are songs we will explore in several different ways this semester. They are lovely simple songs to sing together. The lyrics can easily be changed for a fun large movement activity. Simple change march to another activity or “this little light” to “these dancing feet” and enjoy experiencing large movement to the beat. Both of these songs have been recorded in different styles which make them engaging to play instruments along to as well.
Hey Diddle Diddle is a song based on the nursery rhyme. Exposing children to nursery rhymes helps build literacy and phonemic awareness skills. This song helps foster both literacy and rhythm skills simultaneously. Nursery rhymes all have a structure to them that should allow you to fit any one of them into this song. See what other nursery rhymes you know and can fit to the beat.
La Marmotteuse is a fun song to put the beat in our whole bodies to. Ask the kids about jumping, clapping, walking, and tapping their toes to this song. What other words do you know for walk? How does it change the way you move when you say stroll, saunter, promenade, trudge, or roam?
Music can help us be excited, move, and play and it can also help us calm down. We end each class with a calm song. Singing calm songs at home can help both adults and children relax and calm down before bed, a nap, or anytime you may need a calm moment. (Kione has a fun version of this song you can look up but since we are using it to help calm down I’m going to include a calm version here.)
