 Use this week to get your left hand red-blue chord transition solidified before we add the yellow chord next week. We should be getting to the point where we can play this transition with our eyes closed and even hands together! (That's tricky because the fingering is different for the RH than the LH. Only try it hands together when the muscle memory is solid in each hand separately). Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: pp. 8–9 Students trace and color notes to indicate baby steps, skips, and leaps.  Caterpillar Song WOW! Our caterpillars are getting smoother and steadier with this 5 finger pattern! As your child progresses playing this song, watch for these 4 things: 1. Bubble Hand — at beginning and end of playing, but eventually throughout. Visualize fingers stuck in bubble hand position with honey, caramel, glue, Velcro, etc. to keep them from flying away! 2. Strong Independent Fingers — strike the key and make sure that finger comes up when you strike another note. Sing finger numbers with hands together. 3. Smooth Sound — indicates finger strength and coordination. Remember SLOW is the way to GO! 4. Steady Rhythm — fingers 1, 2, and 3 are stronger and they like to go a little faster. Singing and emphasizing finger numbers 5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5, Ca-Ter-Pill-Ar, and the lyrics out loud will help keep a steady caterpillar. Turtle Shells This week we focused playing the “Turtle Shell” intervals with the left hand. Everyone agrees that it’s harder than the right hand! Using fingers 4 & 5 is tougher than using 1 & 2. Before playing, warm up with “Where is 4? Where is 5?” then have your child play the interval (a 2nd) with fingers 4 & 5. Repeat for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. If he masters the intervals with the left hand, play hands together. Enjoy a little twist on the classic game Twister to reinforce and strengthen those finger numbers. Love Somebody We LOVE when our parents play along with us! Share more love with your child by playing and singing the melody an octave higher or accompanying together with the chords using the CD. Ask your child to teach your family the ‘LOVELY’ game that accompanies this song! I am Robin Hood "I am Robin Hood" is used to introduce quarter rests and the dotted quarter-eighth note pattern. The philosophy that feeling a "pulling" feeling will promote correct performance of that particular rhythm pattern is brought to life in a playful way through the "pulling" of arrows. The open 5th in the left hand is a particularly satisfying sound to young children, resembling the sound of drums, and is easy to play!  Teaching our students to read music using steps and skips leads to more fluent playing and better sight-readers. Echo Edna helps our students in class be able to recognize steps and skips on the staff, sing them, AND play them. Simon Says to Step or Skip is a fun game to practice this concept at home. Print or make your own step, skip, up, and down cards and stack them in two different piles. ‘Simon’ chooses any note to start on, then chooses one card from each pile and invites the other person to follow those directions. After a few rounds, switch roles. Did you do as Simon Said? A fun way to add tactile and visual reinforcement is to use small pencil top erasers or any small toy as a starting note and then step or skip with another one. It’s So Fun!
Be sure to put blue stickers on your piano for the Left Hand. C-F-A. Stress correct fingering of 5-2-1. Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: pp. 6–7 Students are filling in the crossword puzzle using the music alphabet. Remember, after G comes letter A! Music Alphabet “The first 3 notes just happen to be Do Re Mi!” Maria got it right teaching the von Trapp children the solfege before note names. Now that our students can sing, play, and sight read notes through solfege, and keyboard geography is solid, we are getting ready to label all of the white keys on the piano. This begins with the music alphabet! The music alphabet includes the 1st seven notes of the English Alphabet except that it starts on the Letter C and after G comes letter A. The first 7 notes just happen to be C D E F G A B! Block and Broken Playing music is like reading a book. We start at the left side of the page and move our eyes to the right. When the note changes, so do our fingers. Help guide this song while sitting on the left of your child and pointing to the notes in each measure. Once your child is comfortable playing the song, practice making sure each measure gets 3 steady beats. Feel free to sing, “RED-2-3; DO (count 1) MI (count 2) SOL (count 3). BLUE-2-3; DO FA LA,” etc…This will help your student understand how to read the music and work towards playing this song with a steady beat. Snowflakes are Falling Brrr ... it’s cold outside! Warm up inside your home by playing this ostinato on the tone bells. Sing starting on RE, “Snowflakes are falling, falling very gently”. Then play LA, SOL, FA, MI for “down, down, down, down”. Keep singing the lyrics then repeating this DOWN pattern until you’re feeling toasty inside and finish the song by playing a final DOWN on the RE bell. Try it in a round as a family around the fire with the music album! Who Am I? I’m the SPIDEY BLUE CHORD! Spin a chord of fun playing the Left Hand Blue Chord with fingers 5-2-1.  **There may be a typo in the "Play Piano" section of the practice this week. It says to play pg 4 of Turtle Shells, but it should say pg 5. Please mark that in your books. -Place red Stickers on bass clef. -You should have NO stickers for the right hand anymore, however, do keep checking up to be sure that the right hand skills are a solid foundation for your child. Goo Gone is great at getting sticky residue off the keys! -A tidbit by LPM teacher Marie Guthrie via Facebook: A couple of my Yellow Arrows were concerned that the stickers for their RH were gone. I compared the stickers to training wheels on their bike. I asked, "Now that you know how to ride a bike, do you keep the training wheels on?" No. "Well, the stickers are like training wheels. You learned how to play them, so then we take your training wheels off." They got it. No more whining, because they wouldn't be caught dead riding a bike with training wheels! Tuition is due. Please look for an invoice in your email if you haven't already paid. Celebrate Connection A new semester and a fresh start! Focus on making practice time as fun and loving as possible — give your child warm, friendly eye contact, smile with your voice, be a little silly, show you are relaxed and happy to sit with your child, and look for the good in your child's effort. Notice the joy in your child's eyes. Verbalize the good you see and hug your child often. This is the beginning of the practice relationship that will be essential to your child's success in Let's Play Music. The more you invest your energy into positive interaction, the more solid and successful this habit will become. After doing your assignment for class, allow your child to fool around and experiment if he wants to, and play a song you know -- no matter how simple. This can be done anytime or multiple times throughout the week. Model joy as you play the piano. If you make a mistake, smile and show that you are relaxed and enjoy trying again to fix the mistake. Celebrate your effort to give him the idea his efforts are something to enjoy and celebrate. Homework: pp. 4–5 Students trace the clefs and fill in the chord notes. Left Hand Finger Power through Bubble Hands & Turtle Shells This semester we will focus on strengthening our left hand finger muscles! Playing Bubble Hands in numerical order on the keyboard is a great way to strengthen and reinforce finger numbers. Thumb is 1, Pointer is 2, Middle is 3, Ring-man is 4, and Pinky is 5. LH pinky is on C, the bottom red dot. After your child is confident with the finger numbers in order, mix it up to cement this concept with the Left Hand! Playing Turtle Shells with the music album will ALSO help strengthen those fingers. Look closely at the music on the page and it will help you know what finger numbers to play. Hold each interval down the entire time you are singing until the next interval. Do You Want To Build a Red Snowman? The Left Hand Red Chord looks the very same on the staff: stacked up nice and neat with a 3rd on the bottom and a 3rd on the top in a snowman shape. We PLAY the red chord with our left hand finger numbers 5-3-1 (finger 5 on bass C, the bottom red dot). Invite your little musician to play Old Paint with the left hand this week! They’ll be thrilled to play a song they already know, PLUS they will be strengthening their fingers! Double bonus! Caterpillar Song The proper hand position for this technique song is Middle C Position where both thumbs SHARE Middle C like a BUTTERFLY! This week work on coordinating both hands at once by singing finger numbers SLOWLY until they get the hang of this 5 finger pattern. Then add the lyrics. Since both red chords are shaped like a snowman, how do we know which hand to play it with? By looking at which CLEF is on the staff. Introducing Treble and Bass Clef! The TREBLE CLEF has a lot of curls, like "Girls Curly Hair, (say it in a high pitched voice because those are the high notes that we play with our right hand). The BASS CLEF looks like "Father's Strong Arm and some fathers like to play bass-ball!" (say it in a deep voice because those are the low notes that we play with our left hand). You can download the Pirate Ships coloring book below. Enjoy coloring together while listening to the music! 
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Clara McDonaldAs a music educator of 25 years, my passion is infusing others with music! Archives
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