Week of April 18th, 2011

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE

What a blast we had pretending to "karaoke" with a microphone today! The kids really enjoyed passing around the mic and hearing their amplified voices.
We also played with different settings and effects. Some of our children are natural born performers and others prefer to watch, but they all giggled and love listening to the audio tracks that I recorded afterwards.

Check out the fun downloads below!

Eddy (Four's room) singing ABC's
Jack (Three's room) singing happy birthday to Zoe

Week of April 11th, 2011

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE It was a rhythmatic day today in music class as we explored hand drums, rhythms and even African storytelling! As some of you might remember from the email announcement or music calendar, we are having a hand drum assembly this week at Joyful Noise for our music students. Eric Durkee, a talented hand drummer from the Grand Haven area, will be demonstrating his drumming skills for the children on Friday, April 15th, at 4:00 p.m.

IMPORTANT: Our assembly location has changed due to a large funeral that will be taking place at First Presbyterian Church on Friday. We will be moving the assembly location to the J.N. Rec Room!

Our lessons today about different drums and styles tie in directly with the exposure we will be getting to hand drums at the end of the week:

VOCABULARY: We learned about three basic drums, the "djembe", mini-congas and bongos! I also illustrated for the children the way that you can generally achieve three different tones or sounds with a hand drum head. We had a blast freeze dancing and playing movement games to the drum beat!

SCHOOL AGE MUSIC AND LITERACY: The school age class took the drumming concepts even farther with a lesson that incorporated African drum storytelling. We watched some African drummers and a short film on African storytelling (both listed as resources below) and then we experimented with all of the hand drums available at JN. Each child constructed a story with whatever drum they chose, and we then illustrated and recorded those stories on paper. Afterwards, we joined in a "storytelling circle" so that students could share both the audio and written or oral version of their story. The kids did an absolutely phenomenal job with this! MMMMM

A RAINY DAY TUNE

DOWNLOAD THE MP3 HERE:

"There's Nothin' Wrong With A Rainy Day"

There's nothin' wrong with a rainy day

Everything needs water, and that's ok!

There's nothin' wrong with a rainy day!

It's not a bad day...it's just wet!

(whistle tune)

MOM AND DAD CONNECT

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Check out these neat Youtube videos on basic djembe technique and African storytelling!

Week of March 28th, 2010

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE

It was so fun to use the triangles today to talk about shapes and "vibration", that magical music word. In our classes today we discussed the importance of holding the triangle by the string so that it properly resonates. We also played a very fun game pretending to be baby pigs sleeping and getting called to the trough by a farmer yelling "Sooeeey!" with his "mealtime triangle".

INFANT CLASS

Beyond exploring the triangle, we had fun with these "bouncing" or "lap" songs today: "Bumpin' up and down in my little red wagon" and "Mommy Go Round the sun". Check out the video below!

SCHOOL AGE

The schoolagers really used their creative literary brains today as we did a visualization exercise in music today. Using the sounds of the triangles, we closed our eyes to conceptualize an image, time or place, or object that the triangle sound reminded us of. We then drew these concepts and made a book, discussing and sharing them in circle time. See the video below!

MOM AND DAD CONNECT
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Fun Homeade Triangle Instrument on Sprout Online!

Week of March 21st, 2011

INFANTS THROUGH TODDLERS

It was so fun using our slide whistles today in music class! This fun instrument uses a metal slider to create "sliding" notes! Our whistles cover one full octave of notes in the key of B flat. We had so much fun singing songs and doing activities with our whistles including:

-"Elevator and Escalator" (Children made their bodies move up and down as they moved the slide whistle in and out)

-"Five Green And Speckled Frogs" (Children made the slide whistle go down in pitch to signify the frog jumping in to the pond)

-School age children experimented with slide whistle sounds and we graphed the results through a line graph, which we then related to a sound wave!

Check out the pictures and video below of our fun day!
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MISS AMANDA HAVING FUN WITH THE TODDLER CLASS!

ILLUSTRATING "SOUND WAVES" WITH THE SCHOOL AGE CLASS

SCHOOLAGERS "ELEVATOR and ESCALATOR"

FOUR YEAR OLD CLASS "Five Green And Speckled Frogs"


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MOM AND DAD CONNECT

The slide whistles we used today are available on MusiciansFriend.com!

Week of March 14th, 2011

INFANT THROUGH

SCHOOL AGE

Today we learned about Celtic music and the traditional handdrum, the "Bodhran". The tool resembling a two sided mallot that you see to the left is called a "topper". Using a series of wrists

twists, brush like effects and taps along the outside of the frame, a traditional Celtic beat is kept. I wish that we had been able to use an actual Bodhran for class today but I wasn't able to locate one. We did, however, have alot of fun coloring a picture of this special drum and we also watched this video of a very talented bodhran player!

The infants enjoyed hearing songs with the drum and guitar today!

We also explored the idea of 3/4 time signatures, which are most common in Celtic or Irish music. Often in music class, our favorite songs are in a time signature of 4/4, or four beats to a measure. This is the most standard time signature and very common. To practice, I used a hand drum and the children chanted "ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three" with an emphasis on beat one.

An easy Irish example of a 3/4 time signature is "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean". After we practiced singing in a 3/4 time signature we sang it together.

Here is the School Age class singing "My Bonnie"!

And last but not least, the two's had such a blast with this simple "buzzing bee" fingerplay. Watch and follow along with the word bubbles and actions for guarunteed giggles! =)

MOM AND DAD CONNECT

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Read more about the Bodhran!

Week of March 7th, 2011

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE

I apologize for the lateness of my blog htis week! Due to my son's illness, our usual Tuesday classes were postponed to Friday instead. If you are wondering what the normal music schedule is, please note that a downloadable file is linked on the menu to your right, along with the monthly calendar and other resources. As always, please feel free to subscribe to my blog, email questions to

music@JoyfulNoiseKids.com or comment here! Your feedback is always appreciated!

CLASS TODAY: The students had a great time using castanets to sing animal songs today! We had fun discussing rhythms and using the small castanets to sing "5 Little Monkies Swinging In a Tree" (the castanet was the alligator), "The Little Woodpecker", and also "Wide Mouthed Frog", the song about a frog catching flies at the pond. For this song we used a fun frog picture whose mouth was cut out so that the castanet could be placed there. Each friend got to take turns playing a rhythm for other children to "copy cat". Having your child listen and copy rhythms or melodies is a great way to improve listening skills and musical ability using a "Suzuki" style method of teaching!

We also played a few fun games and tried a few fun exercises, such as "Peanut Butter and Jelly Stretches" (four year old room).

I strongly believe incorporating literacy with music and in the school age room, we generally combine a reading or writing element along with the music lesson of the day. Today, we used castanets in combination with rhythms to learn more about syllables. We then worked in teams to play guessing games involving syllables of similiar or grouped words. They had a blast!

MOM AND DAD CONNECT ______________________

The castanets we used in class are available for a very inexpensive price at Castanets: MusiciansFriend.com

Week of February 27th, 2011

INFANT THROUGH SCHOOL AGE

Today we enjoyed using these fun tambourines to learn rhythms, tapping songs and "chants". I use chants to help children understand basic rhythms. For example, to understand this rhythm:

I would use a variety of simple phrases, such as "I - like - green - grapes" or perhaps, "I - like - ice - cream". Older school age children chose their own more complex rhythms and journaled those rhythms along with playing them on the tambourine. Using words and syllables really helps translate the notes for the kids, and we are generally able to play more complex rhythms than we can read on the staff!

MOM AND DAD CONNECT _______________________

If you are interested in purchasing the same inexpensive tambourines we use in music class, check out this link on MusicansFriend.com!