Week of May 17th, 2011

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE

Today in music we learned an old gospel bible song about David

and Goliath! We enjoyed reading the story of David from our children's bible, "The Beginner's Bible". The kids learned all about Goliath and King Saul, and David the shepard volunteering to fight Goliath. We also learned about

shepards, and harps! I brough zithers and psaltries to class and we passed them around

while discussing how David might have played his harp. This song (posted above) lent itself well to movement, so I created some song movements based on a rebus chart. Rebus, meaning actions depicted by picture, was a handy way for us to remember what movements to perform throughout the song. Schoolagers took this one step further and created their own rebus charts for familiar songs. We had fun guessing which songs were represented with the rebus pictures they had made. Please enjoy watching the video below with "Little David, Play on Your Harp" taken in the two's room this morning. I've also attached a few pictures, including the rebus chart for movement. Thanks for joining us on the music blog and we'll see you next week!

MOM AND DAD CONNECT

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I found this fun folky blues version of "Little David" by an artist name Chris Bryant. Enjoy!

Week of July 26th, 2010

Zithers and Psaltries

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE

This week in music class we explored the sounds of the zither, or psaltery. Zithers and Psalteries come in many shapes and sizes. Today, we explored two of them. The strings (which are stretched evenly over the soundboard and acoustic hole) are all tightened to different pitches. Most of these wooden instruments are trapezoidal, but some are also circular, triangular or wing shaped. Our zithers are both trapezoidal and wing shaped.

To make sound, you can use a pick or fingers and strum one or more strings gently across the soundboard. Some music can even be read by sliding the paper right underneath!

COAST GUARD KID'S PARADE:
It's our last school age practice for the parade!

Reminder! Grand Haven Coast Guard Kids Parade is Saturday! Please meet us at Joyful Noise at 9:30 a.m. if you would like to decorate a bike or prepare for the parade! We will be going to the county parking lot at 10:00 to ride bikes and march with songflutes along the parade route. Friends may pass out candy if they like, and afterward we will be serving cookies and punch at the center!

View the Joyful Noise Events page HERE.

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MOM AND DAD CONNECT: Want to learn more about our lessons this week?

Watch a neat zither video on Youtube!