DANCE!

Below are some fun songs and children's stories about dancing you can enjoy at home this Summer.

When you are dancing or playing instruments at home remember to play around with different beats (Macrobeat or the big beats, the steady beat, and the microbeat or little subdivided beat that your child will find easily).
"Repeating the melody while changing the rhythmic movement helps everyone learn the music more deeply because it involves more neurological pathways and more parts of the body."

"How Can You Dance" by Rick Walton and Ana Lopez-Escriva is a fun book that compares dance moves to animals and nature.  The book has a great rhythm to it and encourages children to try/create the dance moves themselves!  

"Color Dance" by Ann Jonas is a fun book that teaches primary colors and what colors they make when you mix them.  This is a fantastic book to go along with the song "Me, You, We" from the Summer Music Together Collection.  Sing one color for the first, another one for the second, and the color those make when they are mixed together for the last verse which is sung up a third from the first two verses.

Click the YouTube links below for some great songs to add to your collection of dance and play along songs. 

Malambo from Estancia by Alberto Ginastera

Waltz from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky



Bounce Me Brother With A Solid Four



Obla Di Obla Da by the Beatles

Great Big Stars

We did sign language with the lullaby Great Big Stars this week.  If you would like to add sign language to the song at home follow along below.

A wonderful bedtime story to go along with this lullaby is "How Many Stars in the Sky" by Lenny Hort.  In this story a little boy and his dad go from the city to the county to count the stars they see.  They compare how many stars you can see in the city to how many you can see in the country.

Just For Fun

Click on link below to play the Google Guitar.  You can record your own song and save it!  Have Fun.
http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

Learning Rhythm Through Play

Below is a great video that Music Together put together about how your young child learns about, and plays with rhythm.

Summer Music Together Registration

Favorite Classical Play Along and Dance Songs

Here are some of my favorite Classical Play Along Songs and Dances that we use in class but are not part of the Music Together collection.  This post is a work in progress so check back for more songs.  I will add other categories of play along and dance songs used in class soon.

For the YouTube links you can click directly on the picture to play the music at home.  The YouTube links are typically similar to the version of the song we listened to in class, but may not be exactly the same.  If you want to buy the MP3 so you can put it in your playlist or burn your own CD click on the smaller Amazon links.  I have been very happy with Amazon music downloads and you can now save your music to their cloud player so it is never lost even if your computer crashes.

Most of the pieces listed below are from the CD "100 Of Classical Music's Greatest Moments."  The album is a great deal for 100 great classical songs.













The Can Can by Jacques Offenbach
Our dance to this song involved tippy toeing around the room at the beginning.  When the dancers start singing in the video we did the classic leg kicks followed by wiggling at the end of each phrase.  When the music returns to the soft bouncy music being played by the orchestra we went back to tippy toeing again.  We typically ended the piece with some combination of jumping and wiggling!  This is a fantastic song for dancing and playing instruments with.
















William Tell Overture - Finale by Gioachino Rossini
We used this song as a play along to go along with the Music Together version we sang in class.  This song can also be fun to dance or move around like horses to.















The Toreador's Song from the opera Carmen by George Bizet
We used this song as a play along in class.  It has some fantastic musical contrasts to listen to (loud/soft, legato/staccato, fast slow).















Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian
This piece was used as a play along in class.  It is a fun energy filled piece of music!














Russian Sailors Dance by Reinhold Gliere
We used this piece as a dance in class.  I asked you to listen for how the music kept changing and change your movements to match.  Each time the melody repeats it is presented differently.  We used big and little movement, heavy and light movements, fast and slow movements, and many others.  This is a great game to play with your older children to see if they can identify musical contrasts.  Also a fun play along song!















Waltz Masquerade by Aram Khachaturian
We danced to this waltz in class.  It is great for holding your child and dancing around the room.  Help your child feel the strong down beats while dancing or playing along.














Radetzky March by Johann Strauss
This is a great play along song.  The Vienna Philharmonic plays this song every year on New Years.  If you have never watched the the Vienna Philharmonic I highly recommend it!  Watch the video below and see if you can clap along at the correct times when the conductor turns to the audience.

Journey Montessori May 11

I can hardly believe there are only two music classes left this school year.  I have had so much fun teaching your children and I am amazed at all they can do!  We have continued to identify instruments and what instrument family they belong in.  The children are all doing a wonderful job of telling me the name of each instrument and whether they belong in the brass, woodwind, string or percussion family, as well as why they belong in that family.  If you want to play around with instruments and musical concepts with your child(ren) at home I encourage you to go play at sfskids.com.  It is the San Fransisco Symphony's kids website.
They are also able to quickly identify musical contrasts, verbally or with movement, such as loud/soft, fast/slow, high/low.

A great summer music activity is Jump Start Music.  Your child can work on melodies, rhythm patterns, and instrument recognition at home on the computer.
http://www.rmlearning.com/2071.htm


We have been working on clapping the syllables of our first names in class for the past month.  In this class we added the icons and note values that go with our clapping.  We looked at a half note, quarter notes, and eighth notes.  Ask your child to clap their name and see if you can match it with one of the rhythms below. (The rhythms should appear as follows 1. one half note, 2. two quarter notes, 3. eighth note, quarter note, eighth note, and 4. eighth note, eighth note, dotted eighth note, sixteenth note.)

________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________                ______________________________________

        ____________                     _____________________________               ______________

___________      __________                _______               ___________