Greetings, Prep 2 Families,
Thank you for another great week of music-making! The children are well on their way to learning their repertoire for the Spring performances. We are happy and impressed by their progress and enthusiasm, and each class is such an action-packed and fun-filled hour that I am often amazed by how quickly it passes – so much music to make, and so little time!
***IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE THURSDAY PREP 2 CLASSES NEXT WEEK***
(please note that Intermediate Singers will meet at a different location. If you have an Intermediate singer, please go to First United Methodist Church in Palo Alto, 625 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto – sign in in the parking lot.)
From Katie
From Emily (Thursday 3:45):
This week was exciting because I was seeing some real progress both in singing and musicianship for all of the students. I heard everyone sing on their own and in duets, and each child is showing a little bit more confidence.
We stared our class by doing rhythmic ostinati for our first song, Dinah. Each child then sang their name to me in Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee, and we did our bumble bee warm up exercise to practice using all the parts of our voices. You can ask your children to sing it for you—they can probably do it on their own.
We practiced watching a conductor while reviewing the song Scotland’s Burning. We are learning this fun canon, and soon we will start singing it as a round. This song also has some great body movements to it, so it got us moving.
We reviewed our melody names for Sol, Mi, La and Do while playing Ring Around the Rosy faster and faster. We derived the melody for that song from listening, then the children followed my pointing to our “tone ladder.” It looks like this:
The children then learned a completely new song by following my lead on the tone ladder. We then wrote down all the solfege on the board, and the children transcribed it to the staff. The kids then derived the rhythm of the songs as well.
Keeping up with their new rhythm skills, the children read the rhythms from the score of Manx Lullaby. They discovered that it contains a new rhythm, the 1/2 note, and that a 1/2 note contains 2 beats. We reviewed the 2 sections of the song, and then the children sang it in groups of 2, so I could hear them again. Please have your children listen to the songs that we will be singing for our concerts. It really helps them get to know the music. I’ll include the links again at the end of this post.
We then played Here Comes the Bluebird, and ended the class by keeping the beat on shaky eggs to Ratlin’ Bog.
Here are the links for our songs:
Great Big Sea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoRV9dsx5Zk
Manx Lullaby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMJQYM8QOPI
Ratlin’ Bog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMX5jXFJNvw (this one is new this week!)
I look forward to seeing everyone next week!
Have a great weekend!
Katie, Emily, and Jazmine