Fall Break--Green Turtle Shells

We are on Fall Break, and it should feel like a break, but there are things you can do to help reinforce the learning that has happened so far this year.  Here are a few ideas:

Traveling?  In the Car:

• Listen and sing along with your "Green turtle Shells" CD.
• Practice harmony by singing different rounds.  ( "Row Row Row Your Boat", "Clickety, Clickety Clack", "El Gallo" etc."  See if they can hold their own part, or help them while another adult sings a different part.  
• As you listen to any music, see if you and your kids can find any MRD, SSD, SLTD, SFMRD patterns in the songs.  You could turn it into a game.
• Name that tune.  Pick their favorite songs (from LPM or anywhere) and see how many notes they need to identify the song.
• Become bugs!  Keep a steady beat and see if you child can clap butterflies (for example) while you clap beetles.  If there are others in the car, see if everyone can be a different bug at the same time. 

At home:

• Encourage them to keep practicing the keyboard.  If they are bored with the same activities, allow them to experiment on their own.  See if they can play a C major and c minor chord (play an e flat instead of an E).  What ever they do, just remind them to use bubble hands and C position.  The second verse of the bubble hand song is a great practice.  You can call out random fingers for them to play.  Ex. "Where is four?  Where is four?"  They answer, "Here I am.  Here I am"  Encourage them to sing as they play.  Maybe try doing it really fast.
• We have done "Sally Go Round the Sun" in class.  That would be a fun one to do with friends or siblings.  The big goal is to make sure they all land together on the word "BOOM!"  You might remind them of some of the fun game songs from last year ("Frog in the Middle", or "A Hunting We Will Go." 
• Take this chance to review any homework assignments that were challenging for your student. 
• Any of the traveling tips could be done at home as well!

We'll see you back in class on the 20th!

Green Turtles--This is the Red Chord

We learned some exciting things in class this week!  Did your students show you the red dots on their fingernails?  I'm sure they've washed off, by now, but you can use a red marker (or maybe a dot of red nailpolish) directly on their fingernails to help them line up their 1-3-and 5 fingers with C-E-and G on their keyboards.  Hopefully you all saw the note to add the rest of the stickers for the red chord on their keyboard/piano at home. Now they are going to be able to start accompanying themselves.  So exciting!

We also learned the correct "C position" for our right hands (they should be using just the right hand at this time).   To help them remember, we came up with a little rhyme/melody.  It goes:

"Thumb on C and a finger for each key"

Play and sing middle C for each note and on "-ger" go up the scale.  In other words "CCCCCC-D-E-F-G"  (or Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So).  And played with the correct fingers (1,1,1,1,1,1,-2-3-4-5).

Let me know if you have any questions about this or the practice!  So excited for them to get to start playing songs on their keyboards!

Blog Basics for parents

I'm going to use the blog to give you additional information and resources that we may not get to in class.  If the post pertains to my first year classes, it will have this graphic at the top of the post:

If the post pertains to my second year classes, look for this logo:

And if it is interesting/relevant to both years, look for both logos side-by-side, like this:

Reminder:  Parents of 1st year students attend class tomorrow (but not 2nd year)!