We began our year with songs that help us identify language such as colors and rhyme through music. We have also worked with identifying musical contrasts such as legato/staccato (bouncy and smooth), sound and silence (start and stop), and loud and soft.
Change how you move to match the music each time the way the theme is being played changes.
During the last few classes we have been learning several American songs. Next semester we will review the American songs and begin to explore music from around the world. I love the Scholastic books for each of the American songs we have listened to in class. The pictures help tell what the song is saying to us. Taking time to ask the kids what they see in the books and hear in the songs is a lot of fun.
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.
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.
The book Time For Bed can be sung to the tune of The Day is Now Over. It’s a sweet book about baby animals at 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.
We studied Central and South American music last week. There is more music and musical styles from each country than we could ever listen to in 30 minutes but here are the songs we enjoyed in class.
The Samba comes from Brazil has a fast tempo. We enjoyed moving and drumming to some samba music.
We also enjoyed moving to Don Alfredo Baila. This is a fun Spanish song to do a freeze dance to and learn fingers, hands, arms, and chest. It’s an adaptation of the song Juanito Cuando Baila. Enjoy learning more parts to move with that song!
Carrie Underwood sang America The Beautiful acapella at the presidential inauguration after the accompaniment track wouldn’t play. It was a fabulous performance and I highly recommend watching it. Skip to 0.45 in the video to enjoy her performance. We studied this American song in class two weeks ago and you can find more information below. The inauguration was full of patriotic American music that every American should know.
In addition to singing, moving, and playing instruments, the four year old class will be learning about music from around our world. We started this week with a variety of music from North America, specifically the United States.
Jazz music began in the United States by blending music from other cultures around the world and became popular in the early 1900’s (This kids didn’t get this background in class, they just experienced the music.) Ella Fitzgerald was a popular jazz vocalist and her version of A Tisket A Tasket is fun to listen to and play a duck duck goose style game with that we will enjoy closer to valentines day.
America The Beautiful is one of our countries songs that every American citizen should learn. Scholastic has beautiful books to go along with some of our countries songs. We sang the song together and then went through the book a second time to see what each phrase of the song was saying about our country.
Aaron Copelands was an American composer and his music can make you feel like you are out west. We jumped on our horses and galloped, cantered, and jumped to the beat to Copelands Hoe Down.
One of the most famous American ragtime pieces is Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. We enjoyed exploring all of the ways we could move egg shakers to the beat of this song.
In addition to music around the world we are always enjoying some Christian songs as well. This week we danced to This Little Light of Mine. It’s easy to change this song to include ways we can move as well (These dancing feet of mine).
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.
