PRESCHOOLERS SINGING FROM "PITCH MAPS"
Our music classes keep moving up a notch! These darling 3-6 yr olds are gaining skills in singing: "up-up-up...and down-down-down..."
A 3 yr old singer. Photography by Jeri-Jo Idarius (from Carolyn's archives)
It is very delightful to hear those sweet little voices warming up (and tuning up) at the beginning of each of our weekly music classes. I've included a special edition of my "quirky videos" featuring these little ones singing from "pitch maps." You'll find it at the end of this blog post and I think you'll enjoy it!
One of my goals as a music teacher, is to instill a love of music in the young children that I teach and the best way to achieve that goal, I have found, is to have fun!
Along with having fun, it seems effortless for little children to associate music concepts with their everyday play experiences like going up and down the slide. Our classes this week focused on the music concepts of loud and quiet. These recent rainy days gave us a great example of the quiet sounds of falling rain and the loud sounds of a thunder storm. The children easily transfer these sounds from nature to our studies in music including "piano" (music term for quiet) and "forte" (the term for loud).
One of the songs we sang is called "I Hear Thunder" (fromThe Music Room Curriculum produced by Bushfire Press) and the children echoed the lines of the song using their loud voices and their quiet voices. I think this type of activity is appealing to the children because they enjoy the opposites and it is yet another exercise in developing control of the voice.
The biggest hit of the week was our fun vocal warm-ups using the "pitch maps" that you will see in the video below. This musical activity is not only vocal training for the young child, it offers another "reading" experience that is fun!
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