Today we started by sharing the instruments we had brought from home. Joe, Curtis and I all had ukuleles, Evie had a harmonica, Kairo had a drum and Charlotte had bells, a mini xylophone, two little trumpets and a recorder. She very kindly shared these with Issy, Luke, Ben and Thomas who didn't have an instrument. We took turns standing in front of the group, introducing our instrument and showing our friends what it could do. We also talked about how moving your fingers on the ukulele strings produces different sounds or 'notes'.
This week's 'So-Me' story, 'So-Me and the Spider', was about how sounds can be loud or soft, low or high. We practiced singing our names like So-Me does (ask your child to demonstrate!) and also chanting our names in time with a steady beat.
The kids were delighted to get to play instrument bingo where I called out the names of the instruments and they had to match them on their cards. Once again I was impressed with their knowledge!
I showed the group some sheet music and explained how notes that are written high up on the lines are higher pitched than ones that are written low on the lines. We practiced this concept by looking for high and low notes in other parts of the music, and singing them with our squeaky high voices or our deep low voices.
We finished up the class with some rhythm games (I pat a simple beat, they copy me).
The children were a bit restless today (no doubt due to the hot weather!) and struggled to concentrate at times. However, they all went away buzzing about what they had learnt, and hopefully you will get to hear all about it from them too.
If you would like to help your child further develop what we learnt today, you could practice singing with your high and low voices together, and also discuss how your normal voice fits in between these two.
Encourage your child to sing their name to you, or sing phrases and get them to echo (e.g. 'It is dinner time', 'I love chocolate', anything really!)
Thanks Laura
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