Lesson 5

Are you turning the Blue Bugs music on everyday? Your whole family will benefit. Thanks for being such great supportive parents! These kids come to class ready to learn and have fun. They are just soaking up the musical concepts and skills I am teaching. They could not do it without great parents like you, working right alongside them. Give yourselves a big pat on the back. Great work!

Homework: pp. 10–11 Students match each bug to its musical note.

Umburra
Learning to anticipate a beat and feel the beat internally is necessary when developing little musicians. The Umburra game helps us to do just that! Practice it at home when you are "playing" with your students.

Playing Skips on the Bells!
We are learning piano skills when we play skips on our bells. Even though the students don't know it, what we learn on the bells will transfer directly over to the piano. It's better to sight read using "relationships" like steps and skips because it reduces the processing your mind has to interpret when reading notes. Plus, we can do it BEFORE they learn note names. It's brilliant!

Rhythmic Notation
Today in class we added another layer of knowledge using our bugs! We saw that our musical bugs match with musical rhythms!! It was a great ah-ha moment and musical discovery for your student. They each got their own bug and matched it with it's rhythmic representation.

We have a great article on subdividing. Check it out here!

Let's take a walk in the jungle! "Walking In The Jungle" uses full body involvement (walking, stomping, jumping, skipping) with some creative play to teach steady beat. Gather your children and teach this song to the whole family.