Young Child, Week 12

Music is an all encompassing discipline:

·       Reading and writing in music is called music notation. This week the children are learning about the note c on the music staff. Help your child “write” c on Activity Page 9. If you have any music at home, help your child “read” the note c by locating the note on space number three of the music staff.

·       Listening in music consists not only of listening to music but learning to focus our attention on abstract sounds and on speech. Help your child further “attend” (pay attention) to sounds by pinpointing sounds in your environment such as water lapping over stones, rain falling on the rooftop, or wind rushing through the trees. Also, play a listening game by speaking a 4 or 5 word sentence and asking your child to repeat what he heard.

·       Movement with music consists of free movement as well as choreographed steps.  This is why we often move to music in class.  We also must move to make music.  This week have your child practice hitting the high “C” on the glockenspiel (big white dot) to “Toot, Toot,” with the song “Train is a Come’n” on their home CD. Through out the song have them bounce their mallets in the air in front of them to the beat until they come to the “Toot, Toot.” At the “Toot, Toot” have them strike the “C” first with one mallet and then with the other.

Please have your child keep practicing Jingle Bells.  Remember to have them use both hands! Enjoy your child’s ever increasing awareness of music in your lives!