Lesson 9

Remember to place the yellow stickers on your keyboard. Now that your child can play the yellow chord, there are more songs they are able to learn! Practice time will increase up to 5-10 mins. Adding this chord can be tricky for most students. If you find your child struggling, continue doing the Bubble Hand Exercise to strengthen those little muscles.

Celebrate Connection
A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Sing along in a baby voice.
• Start at the bottom of your assigned song list and work your way back to the top.
• Put a small mirror on your piano music holder and sing to the person in the mirror.

Homework: p. 34–35 Students trace each chord and its pieces. Have your child tell you if it a Red, Blue, or Yellow chord.

Chords in Pieces
Chords in Pieces are simply each block red, yellow or blue chord BROKEN into 3 separate pieces or notes. The 3 notes of each chord can be in any order and they remain the same color chord, just rearranged in different patterns. For example the red chord can be rearranged in pieces of Do-Mi-Sol, Mi-Sol-Do, OR Sol-Do-Mi! All of these arrangements are still the red chord. This is the same for the blue and yellow.

Row, Row, Row
As you’re ROWING along this week, keep a slow and steady beat to really SINK in the Yellow Chord! To prepare to play the Yellow Chord, remind your child aurally and visually that only the thumb (#1) slides over to the next key. All other fingers (2, 3, 4, 5) stay put, lightly resting on the keys. As long as those fingers stay put, the hand has an anchor and the child knows where he is on the keyboard, even without looking. Our goal is to keep all of the fingers in contact with the keys, so they will be ready for quick transitions.

Hoedown
Print out the fun coloring pages that are attached below and turn on "Hoedown" while they color.

Now that we're working on Row, Row, Row Your Boat in class, have fun watching this video of a children's choir leading or round, or this video of a guy singing with two more of himself in a round!

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!