Week of December 2nd, 2013

LISTENING AND RESPONDING:

Our reactions to different pieces of music

Today in music class, students responded to four different pieces of music and drew pictures to correspond with their thoughts/feelings/interpretations of the pieces that were presented to them! If you child is 2 or older, than you make have noticed a drawing in their cubbie or mailbox coming home today! Two year old students drew and responded only to Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" (see the video below), but three years and up took home a piece of paper that contained four numbered squares. It looked like this:

Here are songs they listened to that corresponded with the numbers! :) (Click to listen!)

1.  King Sunny Suku Suku Bam Bam (African Juju music)

2. Celtic Dance: The Gneevguillia Reel

3. Duke Ellington: Take the A Train

4. Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies

Younger students enjoyed dancing to the music with scarves and also rocking, bouncing and moving songs. Our two's and under also enjoyed reading this book, which I "sang" to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle!

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QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT TODAY:

1. Which music was your favorite today? (Feel free to review the music links above with your child!)

2. Can you tell me about the picture you drew? (For children ages two and up)

3. Can you show me how to wrap a baby? (Many classes enjoyed watching me sing a swaddling song with a baby doll today!)

Week of August 19th, 2013

DICE DANCING!

We had a fun and educational time this morning as we explored both music genre and creative movements associated with different types of music!

For older age groups, we started with some discussion about genre. Check out the awesome web that I made with the school age class below--I was so impressed with their knowledge about music genres! From heavy metal to swing dance, the children already had a colorful range of musical knowledge and type. From there, we listened to some examples that I brought to class that included everything from Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" to Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies"!

Next came a fun game where we associated a certain song number with a roll of the dice. Children performed solo as well as in groups, and improvised creative movement to correspond with the music that was associated with the number they rolled on the die. Check out the awesome results below and ask your child what their favorite style of music does. Maybe they will show you some of their fancy dance moves! :D

Week of December 26th, 2011

All about the ballet!

The children really enjoyed learning about the ballet today and listening to some classical Tchaikovsky pieces from the Nutcracker Suite! Boys and girls alike were fascinated to watch a few clips from the Royal Opera Ballet "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" and the Russian company Kirov performing another group scene in the Nutcracker Ballet. We also enjoyed trying a little French vocabulary (being that the first ballet was in France) and learned some ballet moves like plié, grand-plié and piroutte!

Check out the video of the schoolagers creating their own ballet company to "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" and also the video we watched in class today! Twos through School Agers also had a coloring page with ballet facts to take home. Ask your child about what they saw!

Also, my apologies for the blog and music class being late. Unfortunately I was ill last Tuesday! Hope everyone had a lovely holiday!

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