My Heart Is Full!

After classes this week I had several emails and conversations with moms about how much their little one enjoyed classes, but this was too cute not to share.  My heart is full!

This little one's mom said: "He is so excited about Red Balloons.  He even made and extra copy of his puppets.  He added a monkey and a happy genie, too."

Another student told his mom, "That was the most fun class ever!"

Immediately after Green Turtles my son ran to practice, then came and said, "Okay.  I practiced.  Now how many days until my next class?"

Upcoming Registration for 2014-2015 Classes

One of my first year classes this year.  So CUTE!

With another full semester completed, I am finalizing the class schedule for 2014-2015.  Pre-registration will begin the first full week of February.  (Click here to be added to my email list for pre-registration notification.)

Christmas Carol Chord Maps

Popping in with a few chord maps for enrichment activities.

First year students - practice singing and pointing on the beat.  (If you have an Apple product, you can download an autoharp app and practice your strumming.)
Second year students - use the chord map to practice your chord transitions.  Play each chord in C position.

Download Chord Map PDF here.

What Is the Best Way to Do Bell Practice?

As a parent I know that sometimes other activities my child is interested in compete with all that they have to do, so keeping bell practice fresh and fun is important.  How can we do this? This answer from veteran LPM Teacher and administrator Jenny Smith:

"Tone bell practice should be fun for them and done at least once a week.  I like turning the CD on and putting the bells down by the CD player and just letting my child go at it- I walk away...  No pressure, just fun.  If they do this once a week, the children start to play along with the CD after a while... There is no set time to practice, when they get bored or stop having fun the learning opportunity is gone.  So my advice to t[you] would be to be enthusiastic in [your] tone of voice saying things like, "Let's see what your teacher wants you to do this week! I wonder if it will be hard or easy"  Or "I love playing bells, bells are so fun! What songs do you get to play this week?"    It all boils down to parent's attitude.  We just don't want to force, we want to encourage."

So go ahead and let them be free with what they are doing and they might just surprise you with what they can pick out by ear!

Practice Helps for Songs Ending in MRD or SSD

Looking ahead to lesson 6, we will be discussing different ending to songs (MRD and SSD).  If you aren't familiar with the "Five Ducks" song you can listen and sing along here:
http://www.kinderplanet.com/fiveduck.htm

You can also check out these other sites that have tunes and lyrics to additional songs:

http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/index.html

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/musicchild.htm

http://www.theteachersguide.com/ChildrensSongs.htm

You can use any of the above sites to listen to random songs and ask, "does it end with a Mi re do?  Does it have a sol-sol-do?"  As we learn more and more patterns, you're child will start to recognize and catch on to more and more of the common melodies used in music.