Freya and Cal decided to practice their acoustic air guitar skills in the gorgeous sunshine yesterday. Cal even sang a little song while playing! Freya’s guitar was a little big, but she did a great job problem solving and figuring out a way to play anyway! I love our little musicians!! ~Dawn~
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Last Thursday Annie, Jack, and I picked some books to read on the playground and one
of them was based on a song. At the end of the book was the sheet music for the song. I showed it to my friends and they were fascinated by how much different sheet music looks compared to what they find in the books we read. "Those are funny looking," Jack said when he was looking at the notes on the page. Annie asked if I could sing what the music said, so I used my finger and pointed at each note as I sang it. I asked them if they wanted to try to do it too and they both said, "Yes!" We began to clap a 4/4 rhythm and started to sing. A couple of measures in Annie said, "Can we just say la la la instead of the words? It's confusing trying to say them and sing at the same time." So, we started singing with La and clapping the rhythm at the same time. When we got to the end Jack said, "That was cool!" Annie said, "Can we do it again?" So, we proceeded to clap the rhythm and sing the song simultaneously 15 more times. We even got a comment from our neighbor about how much he enjoyed hearing a Christmas carol in Springtime! :) After doing it together 16 times Annie and Jack both asked if they could each do it by themselves. Annie went first and when she got to the end of the song she laughed and said, "That's really hard to do! I liked clapping the rhythm though, it helped me remember." When Jack finished his turn he got a huge smile on his face. I said, "Jack, that was fantastic!" He said, "I know. I know all about keeping the beat." I asked him how and he said, "Taige's drumming. It teaches me about how many times I should clap." I pointed to the time signature and asked him what it meant. He said, "That means there are four notes so we would clap four times." I was blown away by his knowledge! The very next day, Annie noticed a book full of different musical scores. We spent over an hour that afternoon clapping out the rhythms to the songs in the book and singing la la la to the notes simultaneously. We had a wonderful time, and Annie loved how our clapping and the notes we were singing were different. I can't wait to see what our next musical adventure has in store for me, Liz, and all of our friends! ~Dawn~ Ever since that February day that Dawn and I partnered in Dance Studio play with the children we have been thinking about how we might enable children to write, sing and dance their own music-making. We think we found a start! On Monday evening Dawn and I copied sheet music off the internet and provided children with strips of paper to compose their own musical phrases. A small table was set up in the kitchen area with pens and examples of music. When Nolan arrived on Tuesday morning, I seized the opportunity to explain the music writing concept. Nolan drank in the information I fed him and got right to work placing whole notes on his music-strip. Afterward I sounded out his song for him, Nolan wrote several more phrases and eventually began reading his own compositions. Many children dove into writing single phrase scores as they arrived and investigated this new activity in meaning-making. Each child seemed instantly inspired by the prospects of creating their own sound. Early Wednesday morning Anya J revisited the table for a new day's turn. She scribbled long lines across her page one after another in fast furious fashion and then sought to hear the sound. Sometimes asking me to interpret and sometimes interpreting herself. I talked about writing notes. This led to Anya creating 3-parts in her phrasing: Very high upper notes, midline scribbly rolling lines and very low notes. I talked about the 3 parts she created and with Yolanda's help each of us performed a section. Anya chose to sing high notes, I sang low notes and Yolanda sang the rolling middle lines. It was exciting for me to feel the child, the teacher and the parent all singing together--WOW! What a great way to start our day. Later we went outside and children wanted to pick up where they left off on yesterdays show. We had left the stage at the center of the yard all we needed were the drums (upturned buckets and sticks). Mo showed some serious skills as did Westin who said he plays at home with Harper on their drum set.
On reflecting on this experience I marvel at the fun of 'loose parts' and inventing our own instruments of play. It's all part of the satisfying feeling of the experience, like enjoying our Mickey Cake and Thursday Bread. We had to work purposefully, use our imaginations and bring to life our ideas within the limits of our resources. Yes, I'm sure it would be very wonderful to have a half-dozen drums and drum sticks, but recycling the sound of an old pot and the beat of a few fallen branches from our beloved tree and sharing the limited resources in a circle of quirky percussion and song was an exercise in thinking outside the box. And that sort of practice is what our Littles need as they take hold as leaders in our world. ~Liz |
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