When I'm not hosting co-op, Tuesday is usually a cleaning day, but I try to add in a few fun activities for L in between the cleaning and free play, especially since his brother is gone for kindergarten in the morning and then 4 hours of co-op in the afternoon. And before anyone thinks that I have a clean house because I have time set aside for cleaning on Tuesdays, be informed that it's really not. Unless we have people coming over, it's usually not clean. At all. But we have fun and learn lots, which is more important!
Morning -
1.) Xylophone patterns
2.) Rhythm patterns on the drums
3.) Library time
Afternoon -
4.) Drawing Letters and Notes
How it went:
1.) I couldn't find his xylophone mallet anywhere, so we settled for drumsticks. This actually worked out better because I could draw upon some of the patterns I learned in elementary school music class (which is sadly missing in so many schools these days) on the "Orff Instruments" (i.e., xylophones, glockenspiels, and metallophones), which involved two hands. He did pretty well, but liked it better when I guided his hands in the patterns and let me know that it "sounds pretty". I learned a couple of things from this.
a.) Drumsticks make awkward xylophone mallets, even though the mallet that came with the xylophone wouldn't have worked much better
b.) Our xylophone, which I originally liked because it was part of a Melissa and Doug set of wooden instruments, doesn't work very well. The bars stick, so the pitch doesn't reverberate, and sounds like a wood block, rather than a pitched xylophone. For a toy, it's wonderful, but as a musical instrument, it falls rather flat. Looks like a real xylophone will be added to the kids' wish lists!
2.) L did much better with this activity one-on-one than he did when I was playing with him and RJ.
3.) We headed to our library and L picked out a couple of books from the non-fiction Music section. He selected a book about trumpets and a book about drums based on the pictures on their covers.
4.) L did not have any interest in coloring or drawing of any kind and was determined to play with his brother's Harry Potter legos, so we opted to do some uninterrupted building and playing in his absence. Just another example of the need to be flexible with kids. Forcing him to draw or write wouldn't accomplish anything at this point, so we will do this another time. He usually gets coloring/drawing time in his preschool-gymnastics class and likes to draw when RJ is doing kindergarten homework (which I will continue scanning and reviewing at some point - as it has NOT gotten much better), so I wasn't too concerned with his choice to do something else during our play time.
1.) I couldn't find his xylophone mallet anywhere, so we settled for drumsticks. This actually worked out better because I could draw upon some of the patterns I learned in elementary school music class (which is sadly missing in so many schools these days) on the "Orff Instruments" (i.e., xylophones, glockenspiels, and metallophones), which involved two hands. He did pretty well, but liked it better when I guided his hands in the patterns and let me know that it "sounds pretty". I learned a couple of things from this.
a.) Drumsticks make awkward xylophone mallets, even though the mallet that came with the xylophone wouldn't have worked much better
b.) Our xylophone, which I originally liked because it was part of a Melissa and Doug set of wooden instruments, doesn't work very well. The bars stick, so the pitch doesn't reverberate, and sounds like a wood block, rather than a pitched xylophone. For a toy, it's wonderful, but as a musical instrument, it falls rather flat. Looks like a real xylophone will be added to the kids' wish lists!
2.) L did much better with this activity one-on-one than he did when I was playing with him and RJ.
3.) We headed to our library and L picked out a couple of books from the non-fiction Music section. He selected a book about trumpets and a book about drums based on the pictures on their covers.
4.) L did not have any interest in coloring or drawing of any kind and was determined to play with his brother's Harry Potter legos, so we opted to do some uninterrupted building and playing in his absence. Just another example of the need to be flexible with kids. Forcing him to draw or write wouldn't accomplish anything at this point, so we will do this another time. He usually gets coloring/drawing time in his preschool-gymnastics class and likes to draw when RJ is doing kindergarten homework (which I will continue scanning and reviewing at some point - as it has NOT gotten much better), so I wasn't too concerned with his choice to do something else during our play time.
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