Music Theme Activities Monday March 11, 2013

I am resuming the music theme.  Kindergarten (and its homework) and other activities have overrun our life for too long.  It's time to get some more planned learning into our schedule.  So, today, we're going to do some music stuff for an hour, because that's the time we have between all the other stuff (grocery shopping, school, gymnastics, playground time, making dinner, etc.).   After a critical look at our schedule, we should get at least an hour, and sometimes more for one or both kids, for these planned activities every day but Wednesday. I want to make sure that with them getting older and having more scheduled, structured activities and school/pre-school that they still have lots of outdoor play time and free play at home (when I am not playing with them unless invited), but I don't want to abandon our themed learning play either, so here we are.

Plan:

1.)  Introduce the staff and G clef, and whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes, play scales

2.)  Draw to the Music (use classical music from my iPod)

3.)  Free note placement on the staff paper

How it went:

1.) L had no interest, but he's three, so it's quite a bit advanced for him.  He was much more entertained by trying to erase my lines on the white board.  RJ was resistant at first, but then he wanted to copy what I was showing him and that kept him engaged.  We talked about how the placement on the staff determined the pitch, denoted by letters A - G, why the treble clef is called a "G-clef", and talked about whole notes being 4 beats, half notes being 2 beats (which he reasoned by thinking through what half of four was), and then quarter notes as 1 beat.  I drew out a two octave scale (key of C) in whole notes so he would see it.

He was interested in hearing a scale, so we went to the keyboard and I showed him how one could sing a scale and play one on the keyboard.  Then we got out the recorder (for him) and flute (for me) so we could practice playing whole notes.  He learned the fingering for middle C.

2.) I actually thought painting to the music would be better than drawing, so I got the paint out for their easel, popped on some classical music from the iPod and told them to paint like the music feels. RJ seemed to really get into it and his paint strokes seemed to match the music.  L just painted.  But he's three, so exposure is really my goal at this point for him.

3.)  We didn't get to this, so we will go for it another day.


Conclusion:

It feels good to get back into the swing of doing planned activities again.  I feel RJ really learned something and L got some exposure to classical music (as opposed to classic rock, top 40, broadway standards, and glee covers that we usually listen to), as well as some expressive painting time.  Overall, this is a win.  And I posted on the blog again....finally.