Montessori Music Class

I've been very impressed over the last few weeks with how the students are growing musically!  They are all getting better each class at finding the beat, whether I change it fast or slow!

After we sing Hello we have had fun making shapes with our voices.  See your child can teach you how to do this at home.  Follow the shape up high, down low, or straight across (on the same pitch) with your voice.  I had many volunteers do this in class today and they did a fantastic job!

We have been working on listening and watching for musical cues (when to start and stop).  We have played sticks along with the song Kookaburra and jumped like frogs with the song Gallump Went the Little Green Frog.  Ask your child what word they are suppose to jump on with the frog song and enjoy jumping like frogs together at home!

We are also learning about simple musical form with the song William Tells Ride.  We leaned that there are three different parts and they get the letters A, B, and C.  The form is A, B, C, A.  The class split up into three groups and each group had to listen and watch for their part of the song so they played instruments at the correct time.
We enjoyed the Finale from William Tell by Gioachino Rossini as a play along song.  Click the link below to listen and play along at home!



Today in class we sang songs about Fall leaves and ended with the book "The Leaves on the Trees" by: Thom Wiley.  This book is to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus, but tells you about what color and shape Fall leaves you will see from different types of trees.  A great book to check out.  If you sing it at home you could hunt for those types of leaves outside, put them under a plain piece of paper at home and color over it so the leaf shape will show up.  Create your own Fall trees and sing while you work on it!

http://www.amazon.com/Leaves-Trees-Thom-Wiley/dp/0545312906/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318272394&sr=8-1

Music Together

Time to catch up with the blog!  This week in Music Together classes we did several different songs that change between duple and triple meter.  From the Music Together Collection we did the chant Every Day and we played finger cymbals with Walking Through The Woods.  I encourage you to try these activities at home!  See if you can come up with alternate verses for Every Day.  The first part of the chant is in a duple meter, "Mommies go shopping."  The repetitive part is in a triple meter, "Shopping and shopping and ............"

Our play along song also changed from triple to duple meter.  Kingdom Dance from the movie Tangled starts in a triple meter and changes to duple feel.  Click the link below to listen at home, play along, and dance.  Listen for the change in meter around 1:12.



Both this week and last week we added an ostinato to the Canoe Song.  An ostinato is a repeated part that goes along with a song.  For this song the ostinato was "Dip dip and swing."  Adding an ostinato to a song is a simple way to add parts and is a fantastic way to help develop your child's ear for music.  I encourage you and another adult or older child at home to try an ostinato that we have done in class or come up with your own!  Ostinatos can be tonal or rhythmic.

For a couple of weeks we also worked on the chant Down Under.  This chant exposes your child to mixed meters.  Mixed or unusual meters may seem hard to figure out.  However, by exposing your child to them from an early age these meters will seem to be a normal part of music instead of odd or difficult.  Click the link below to access the coloring pages we looked at in class.  You should be able to print them at home so your child can color them and use them along with the chant! (For me to print them from the blog I had to click the little square on the bar at the bottom.  It should say, "Open in a new window."  Once it is open in a new window click the actions button at the bottom of the screen.  Then click on print slides.  If you can't print them at home let me know and I'll print them for you!)



Some of the other play along songs and dances we have used in class are:

Following The Leader from Peter Pan
We worked on large motor skills by marching and doing a silly hop from one foot to the other on the macrobeat and steady beat.




We used the song Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian as a play along song.
Listen for the soft part of the song.  Play along loud, soft, and then loud again!