Katie Gerber
From Katie (Monday and Tuesday)
- We welcomed one another with the African-American partner dance and song Way Down Yonder in the School Yard
- The children then sang one of their favorite opening songs – The Telephone Song – which really displayed the progress they have made vocally, and their growing confidence as performers!
- We warmed up with Bubbles the Fish, and then the kids took turns singing solo solfege patterns in F major with hand signs. They then sang a mystery song in solfege, which turned out to be one of their favorite partner songs, One Bottle of Pop. The children split into three circles and sang in 3-part harmony!
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We sang A Great Big Sea, first by reviewing the two responses with motions, and then singing through the whole score. The children love this song, which is also helping to expand their overall vocal range. They should have this song memorized for next week.
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We worked on Kokoleoko, first by singing the chorus from where it goes into two part harmony – we then reviewed the section “Time to get up…” also in two parts – this is very challenging but they were getting it – we will to review it in two circles next week, as we do with our canons and partner songs. We then sang the whole song.
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The children had a great time dancing to Down the River
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Apple Tree – we sat in a circle and sang this fun song (some children already knew it!) then we passed a real apple to the beat. Every time someone got “knocked out” they got to go pick a percussion instrument and keep a beat in “the band.” We varied it by sometimes singing in solfege, sometimes in tahs and titis. When everyone was finally “knocked out” we derived the rhythm and solfege on the board and practiced writing d-m-s-la in C major on the whiteboards. We will start to write the song on the staff next week!
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This Shall Be For Music – we sang and worked on expressing the text – this should be memorized soon!
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We ended class with our favorite new raucous game – Draw Me a Bucket of Water!
From Emily (Thursday 3:45)
Hello Prep 2 Families!
This week I saw the kids make strides in singing the notes they know, and they learned a new note, Re, which completes the pentatonic scale.
We started out by singing the African welcome song Funga Allaffia, and then I got to hear each student sing in the Telephone Song. Then we learned a new song for our concert: Kokoleoko.
We played one of their favorite games, We are Dancing in the Forest. They were able to derive the melody and write the “toneset”—all the notes present in the song—down in the tone ladder.
The children then practiced their “inner hearing” and were able to remember and sing back phrases that I showed them on the tone ladder.
We played the game Bow Wow Wow, and listened for our new note, Re. They children were able to hear the note, hand sign it, and put it on the tone ladder. To practice Re, we then played Teddy Bear, and sang the song Sea Shell.
We practiced 3 more of our concert songs: Great Big Sea, Manx Lullaby and Ratlin’ Bog. They are starting to get them. Please encourage your children to watch the youtube videos that I have posted in previous weeks, so that they get ever more familiar with these songs.
Thank you and have a wonderful week!
From Jazmine (Thursday 5:00):
We started this week with a old favorite, “I Let Her Go Go”. Then we dove right into vocal warmups: Bubbles the Fish and Sausage Sizzle. After a brief warm up, we worked with the solfeg ladder going over the notes (on solfeg) for Rattalin’ Bog. We practiced both the solfeg and the words with our hand sings, focusing on accurate pitches, especially between do, re, and mi. I was really impressed by the wonderful singing, and the attention to detail the singers showed! Next, the students did a great job of singing “Let’s Put The Rooster In The Stew” and “One Bottle Of Pop” in two part rounds. Their part singing is really coming along nicely!
Next, we played a really fun game with the lyrics to “Great Big Sea”. I sang part of a phrase, leaving out a few words, and the singers had to write down the words I left out . (This game is great for not only memorizing lyrics, but also for inner listening!) For example, “A ____ ____ sea hove in Long Beach” and the students wrote down “great big”. We had fun making our way through the song together that way, always singing our two fun non-sense parts.
Then, we had fun with our dice rhythm game – composing rhythms from the dice and performing them in front of the class. We also danced to “Down the River” and ended with a beautiful run through of “Manx Lullaby”. All in all it was a great week! Thank you to everyone for your support in making sure your singer has the best experience possible!