 I am looking forward to Station Day for our last Green Turtle Shells lesson! Station Day provides a fun time to review and celebrate all of the musical concepts and skills that students have been taught during Green Turtle Shells! Also, Yellow Arrows materials and a printed schedule will be handed out at Lesson 15 during Stations Day. Here is a sneak peek of some of those concepts and skills learned during Green Turtle Shells that will be reviewed/assessed during Station Day: Skills: 1. Keyboard posture, hand & finger placement 2. Clapping & counting 4 count rhythms using rhythm cards 3. Playing steps and skips from notation 4. Playing primary chords with RH without looking at hand 5. Playing intervals of a 2nd, 3rd, & 4th 6. Playing individual fingers (SFMRD) Concepts: 1. Identifying middle C 2. Identifying C & F by playing on keyboard 3. Demonstrates knowledge of finger numbers 4. Identifying bug rhythms 5. Distinguishing steps & skips on staff 6. Identifying primary chords by notation 7. Identifying intervals by notation 8. Identifying melodic patterns by notation Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: p. 42-43 Students color each chord the correct color.  Blue Sky Every time the word BLUE is said in this song we play a Blue Chord. Can you make up your own song with the Red, Blue, and Yellow Chords? Every time you or your child sings the color, play the corresponding chord. Be sure to check for correct fingerings! Primary Chord Transitions Transitioning between the primary chords should now be somewhat mastered by the RH. Enjoy playing “The Fabulous 5”: a fun game to help your student reinforce chord transitions! Invite your student to play the red and blue chord 5 times back and forth, back and forth (or the red to yellow whatever they need the most to work on.) The only catch is it has to be perfect! No mistakes whatsoever. If they mess up they get to start over. Once they can do this 5 times in a row perfectly, they get a HIGH 5 from you with oodles of fabulous praise! Can't Bug Me: Rhythm Ensemble The games we play with our percussion instruments help us practice sight reading rhythms, but just as importantly, they help us practice ensemble skills. It takes practice to come in all together, to keep a steady beat internally to stay together, to keep up with the group even when we make mistakes, and to listen to each other to sound like one. WOW!  Harmony Happenings Our journey to learn harmony started last year singing a repeating pattern alongside a melody (Ding dong in Hear How the Bells). Then we sang in a round (3 Blind Mice). This year we’ve worked on a counter melody or two melodies sung on top of each other (Horsey Horsey). Then we introduced a 4-part counter melody (Solfege Seafriends). This week we sang Solfege Seafriends in a true canon, which is like singing 4 different melodies in a round (or just two parts at the same time if the canon was too challenging). It's pretty tricky, but such a good exercise! Enjoy these arrangements of the famous Pachelbel’s Canon on piano and with a string ensemble. For my convenience, I have preloaded content for the whole semester. I will update each future post with specific time-sensitive info before I send the link each week. If you choose to read ahead you might see details that don’t apply to your child’s class. For this reason I do not recommend reading ahead. Thank you!
Next week parent’s attend and tuition is due on the 20th! (last payment for this semester) Just a head's up: Parents also attend for the last lesson of the semester which is Station Day! Station Day offers a chance for me to meet one-on-one with you both (parent and student) to celebrate your child’s accomplishments thus far! Students will enjoy a sort of “progressive dinner” approach to several stations set up in the studio to enjoy and review skills learned throughout the semester. Let’s Play Music is a results-based program and Station Days are a fun tradition to highlight and celebrate those accomplishments. It is also a fun reminder that we are halfway through the process that is working to develop complete musicians! Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: p. 40-41 Students fill in the keys they should play on the keyboard using the notes on the staff as reference. Mystery Bug We played a new rhythm game called Mystery Bug. Three separate rhythm cards are laid out on the 1st, 2nd, and 4th beat. The 3rd beat is empty and is the Mystery Bug. The entire 4 count measure is played and the students identified which rhythm (bug) was missing on the 3rd beat. Then we all counted and played the entire 4 count measure. You can play a variation of this at home by clapping different bugs and inviting your child to clap AND say what bug they heard. Ear training, rhythm training, and internalizing the steady beat is happening all at once! Brown Jug The Brown Jug game is another fun activity to play at home with a parent or whole family. You just need a playground ball and a little bit of room to roll and catch. It is easier at first to chant "roll, catch" and then begin the song. This is a great way to emphasize how the hands and body must keep the beat while making music! Echo Edna This week Echo Edna placed various patterns of steps and skips on the board to sight read. She invited us to look at the board and think of two questions before we played the pattern. 1) Is it a step or skip? AND 2) Does it go up or down? Walking through both of these steps will help in all sight reading as well as the theory assignment this week. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we can find and play the Red, Blue and Yellow chords in 5 Fat Turkeys from last year! For my convenience, I have preloaded content for the whole semester. I will update each future post with specific time-sensitive info before I send the link each week. If you choose to read ahead you might see details that don’t apply to your child’s class. For this reason I do not recommend reading ahead. Thank you!
We learned the Blue Chord this week! Please place Blue Chord Stickers on C-F-A on your piano/keyboard at home. (Refer to HW Booklet p. 70 if you are unsure which notes to put the stickers on.) It is SOOOOO important that students use fingers 1-3-5 for the Blue Chord (as well as the Red Chord) for the Right Hand. The thumb is an anchor on Middle C and the rest of the hand shifts up a baby step. Help your child color the chords in Primary Chord Song on p. 16 and Blue Sky on p. 14 to help distinguish the notation of each chord. Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: p. 38–39 Students match the chord shapes to their corresponding keyboard notes. Turtle Shells We will continue to reinforce to your Green Turtle Shell that intervals can show up anywhere on the staff and be played anywhere on the keyboard! Have fun playing an interval game with any two objects by creating an interval and asking your child what it is and then inviting them to play it on the keyboard. Ideas of objects to use: coins, counters, erasers, cereal, candies, Legos, rocks, etc. Echo Edna Echo Edna gave each child their own 'secret code' (using steps and skips) to ‘decipher’ (sight read) on the magnet board. We used our laser beam eyes to solve the code while playing it on the keyboards at the same time! Now that we are more comfortable with keyboard geography, hand position, how to build chords when notated and on the piano, we are ready to keep our eyes on the book and not look down at our fingers when we play! We’ve already introduced Laser Beam Eyes. Here are some other fun ways to keep our eyes on the book while we practice. (Don’t forget parents to follow the notes with your finger and sing along with your child.) (Fill in any of the ideas below with the musical focus of choice. Ideas include: red, blue or yellow chord, specific intervals, different melodic patterns, specific notes, Middle c’s, rat-tat-tats, steps or skips, different bugs (slug, beetle), etc.) 1. Keep your eye on the (rat-tat-tats). 2. (Insert Child’s Name), time to turn on your Laser Beam Eyes while we play Blue Sky! 3. Freeze Ray the Middle C’s with your freeze vision! 4. I’ve got my eye on (the steps in Echo Edna)! 5. I’m watching you Yellow Chords. Always watching, always! For my convenience, I have preloaded content for the whole semester. I will update each future post with specific time-sensitive info before I send the link each week. If you choose to read ahead you might see details that don’t apply to your child’s class. For this reason I do not recommend reading ahead. Thank you!
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Clara McDonaldAs a music educator of 25 years, my passion is infusing others with music! Archives
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