Week 6
We introduced the brass family of instruments today (trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba). All of the instruments in the brass family have a mouthpiece you buzz into to make sound. I brought my trumpet and trombone along so everyone could see what the instruments look like and hear how they sound. I play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on each instrument I bring in so the kids can focus on hearing the different sound each instrument makes. We listened to the Canadian Brass version of Angels We Have Heard on High so we could hear what the whole brass family of instruments sounds like together!
We danced to La Marmotteuse today. The dance involves jumping, clapping, strutting (like a chicken), balancing to tap your toes, and a little running!
Week 5
The threes learned about the string family of instruments this week. The string instruments are easy to identify because they all have strings! I brought a violin to class for everyone to see and hear. We also listened for the sound of the violin in the song The Taylor and the Mouse and then enjoyed moving at different tempos with the song. The Tailor and the Mouse is 300 year old British folk song so there are a lot of recordings (including a fun Animaniacs version for anyone who may remember that show). Here’s the version we used in class and one of my favorite YouTube videos of it that shows more string instruments being played.
Week 4
We are continuing to work on learning routine and following musical cues. We added the rocketship chant this week. The vocal play in this chant helps children learn the difference between their singing or speaking voice and their screaming voice.
We learned about the percussion family this week. Percussion instruments are all instruments that need to be hit or struck to make their sound. Did you know there are two groups of percussion instruments, pitched and non-pitched? We identified pitched instruments by saying they'd sing "La La La" and non-pitched goes "boom" or "crash." We got to play resonator bells this week which are pitched percussion instruments in addition to all of the non-pitched percussion instruments we enjoy weekly.
Week 3
Everyone enjoyed Two Little Kitty Cats this week. It was a fun review song for the threes and fours and a new start and stop song for the twos! This song is a great opportunity to work on singing voices instead of screaming. Cats can’t scream, they meow, so while we run we meow on the tonic and dominant notes from the song. The older classes also pounced and prowled.
The three year olds are starting to learn about different instruments! Today we watched Zin Zin A Violin be read. This is a fantastic instrument and counting book but I love watching the book be read because the instrument sounds have been added.
Week 2
I like to start each class with listening. All of the classes listened to a few of Mozart’s Twinkle Variations today. We figured out that we were hearing a piano play and that it was a song most of us knew. (Some of the older kids identified it as A,B,C which is also correct. Twinkle Twinkle, the alphabet song, and Baa Baa Black Sheep are all the same melody!) We sang Twinkle and felt the beat in our bodies with two of the variations. Can you sing the melody along with the variation? (Hint: sing the first line twice to make it fit. “Twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are. Twinkle twinkle little start how I wonder what you are.)
The three year olds are reviewing some of the same movement and instrument play and stop work as the twos but will soon add learning about and listening for different instruments from all of the instrument families (percussion, brass, woodwinds, and strings). Today we added a color hunt and talked about mixing colors some with the song Me, You, We. Instead of singing me, you, and we, we sang red, blue, and purple or red, yellow, and orange, etc.
Week 1
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.
This is a fun recording of the song. We didn't use a recording in class so we could put in whatever movements we wanted, elongate the stop, and my version ends with a flop instead of another stop. We had a great time moving to the beat, freezing, and falling down.
We played instruments to this fun version of This Little Light of Mine!
We enjoyed running, flying, freezing, and moving to Sandpiper as well. Again, we enjoyed this song without the recording so we had more time to freeze but it's a great recording to enjoy at home. My own children have always loved this song and still sing it when we see sandpipers at the beach!
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.)
