Music Class: Cute Christmas Activities

I run two little music classes (for free) for our friends. We try to meet once a week (though illness, holidays, and travels sometimes gets in the way of that!!) For our music class last Friday we played a cute game that was a huge hit. Two parents made a bridge with their hands. The kids stood in a line and went under the bridge, circling back and going under again. We sang the words below to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down. When we came to the end of the first verse we trapped one of the kids, put a Christmas hat on him/her and moved our arms back and forth giving the child a "ride."  Everyone from the two year old up to my eight year old loved it!  Here are the words I made up:
Santa Claus is coming to town, coming to town, coming to town.
Santa Claus is coming to town. Do you see him?


Here's his cap let's give him a ride, give him a ride, give him a ride.
Here's his cap let's give him a ride, Merry Christmas!

Another thing we did in music class today (for the 4 year olds, not for the 6-8 yr old class) was to pretend to put on ice skates and skate around the room on paper plates. We did this to the Skater's Waltz by Émile Waldteufel (here's how it sounds), but you could choose any pretty music.


We sang lots of Christmas songs. Kididdles has a huge packet of Christmas lyrics and music for kids if you need it; you have to register to download it but it's free to register.  I also loved the simple songs (perfect for preschoolers) from Childcare Land with songs like S-A-N-T-A to the tune of BINGO or Christmas Trees to the tune of the Wheels on the Bus. They were catchy and the kids were able to sing them right off the bat because they were so repetitious. Here's Shelley's Christmas Song Book. Thank you, Shelley!

One thing that has been terrific about our music class (for the older kids) this semester is that at one point during the class, we have a concert. The kids in that class are all learning different instruments (trumpet, piano or glockenspiel). We talk about being respectful listeners, put our instruments in the rest position and each week the kids play a piece for their friends. This week, for example, LD played Jingle Bells on the trumpet while DD played We Three Kings and part of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Wow, has it been a terrific addition to our music class. My kids are so anxious to practice to get ready.  It is so great to see that self-motivation.

World Music Class: Games and Music of Mexico and South America

Since my kids are learning a bit about the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas we decided to jump to South America with our world music class.  We are enjoying music, geography and games from Mexico and South America.

Here's what we're covered with our friends the past couple of weeks:

*We all sing hello and each child chooses a movement for the rest of the group to follow.

*I pull out the guitar and we sing two or three folk songs/kids songs together.  This session we're doing On Top of Old Smokey, On Top of Spaghetti, and Yankee Doodle. That's because we're learning la Cucaracha on the glockenspiel and it is a protest song similar in vein to Yankee Doodle.

*We have a rhythm sheet I made and we clap out the rhythm for la Cucaracha

*Then we all take a turn playing la Cucaracha on the glockenspiel (I have the notes written out, but not the musical notation. We haven't covered that yet.)

*We always cover a bit of geography in our class--and start off with the continent song (to the tune of Frere Jacques)

Europe, Asia, Af-ri-ca
North America, South America
Then there is Antarctica
Don't forget Australia
Seven continents, Seven continents

(See how to make your own continent pin map here.)
The kids all know it now, but I still like to review it each class. Also, the kids from the three-year old music class usually join in for the first part of class before they lose interest and go play, so ED is starting to know the continents too!

We are learning the countries and capitals of South America with the help of this video.  The kids try to sing along as best they can.  I have the capitals and countries written out, but the kids are only five so don't read well. We just fumble along best we can!

Caracas, Venezuela
Bogata, Columbia
Quito Ecuador
Lima, Peru
La Paz, Bolivia
Asuncion, Paraguay
Santiago, Chile
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Montevideo, Uruguay
Brasilia, Brazil

I got the South American country flags (free) from Montessori Materials.

*South American cookie map project: Instead of the same ole pin map, we made a South America cookie (one per child) with five country flags (just five from the song), chocolate chip Andes Mountains and one long, blue piece of Amazon spaghetti for the river!

South America Cookie Pin Map

 *We did the Mexican Hat Dance and the kids practiced dancing with their heels touching the floor. They did an impressive job. Even our 3-yr old friend managed to do it!

*We have been acting out the story of Don Gato (a Mexican folk tale); we've been acting it out with instruments. Next week I may use the book Señor Don Gato : a traditional song, which I borrowed from the library.

*We also might sing the song (sheet music here) and the lyrics in English and Spanish can be found at kididdles.com or by searching the web. A youtube version (with cute video) can be found here.

*We played a cute Mexican circle game called A Guanchilopostle where one child is in the middle, the rest hold hands and circle round him/her. On the chorus, the one in the middle dances while the others clap. Then he/she closes his/her eyes to choose another to be in the middle. Lyrics, MP3 recording can be found at mamalisa.com.

*The Toad and Mosquitoes -- El Sapo Game (Mexico)
The mosquitoes hold hands and circle the toad. They change directions every verse. When the song comes to an end, the toad tries to catch one of the mosquitoes.

Have a wonderful weekend!

World Music : Europe

For the first time in months, we had our music classes. We took a long break because of the holidays, sickness and house problems. It was so wonderful to catch up with our friends again.  We are continuing on with our studies of Europe and the music of Europe.  First, we reviewed the seven continents (to the tune of Frere Jacques). 
Europe, Asia, A-fri-caa,
North America
South America
Then there is Antarctica
Don't forget Australia
Seven continents, Seven Continents
A great pin map of the seven continents is located here.


We located five countries of Europe with the pin map and with the wooden puzzle. The kids located Germany, Austria, Britain, France and Italy.

We danced the Heel and Toe Polka -- a circle dance from the Alps. The last class, we had examined a German bierstein  and listened to German drinking songs, pretending to tap cups, etc.

We sang Frere Jacques in French and also sang a German children's song that helps teach the numbers from 1 to 10 in German:
Eins, zwei Polizei
drei, vier, Offizier
funf, sechs, alte Hex
sieben, Acht gute Nacht
neun, zehn, auf Wiedersehen.


We listened to examples of Alpine instruments (including the cow bell!) and sang along with a yodeling song.

We played a French children's game that was like follow the leader.

Then we started to learn a bit about Mozart.  We learned that Mozart went on tour throughout Europe as a young child and traveled to Germany, Austria, Britain, Italy and France (those countries we identified in the beginning of class).

We listened to some excerpts of Mozart's pieces. If you need some large pictures of famous composers, you can find some beautiful printouts here. (The size of a 8X11 paper)
You can find small composer cards here.
My printouts aren't the best because I ran out of printer ink, but that gives you an idea.


Finally, we made some soft pretzels (which are said to have originated perhaps in Germany).  Erica from Confessions of a Homeschooler has a wonderful recipe which we used.  Thank you, Erica!!

Snippets of our Week (for our 5-yr-old)

I've been meaning to put up a post about what we generally work on from day to day. But, with blogger not working for a while, I have a plethora of photos to share. So, here's a glimpse of what DD (just turned 5) has been working on these past couple of weeks.  Her "basics" include math, reading, handwriting, music/glockenspiel, arts&crafts and another unit-study (a lapbook in this case, but we usually have some sort of science/history/child-led unit occurring. Usually this is something we're working on together as a family.)

I called this pumkin bingo.  I made a die with 3-digit numbers on them.  Each pumpkin has one of those numbers.  We take turns rolling the die and covering our pumpkin if it has the corresponding number. To go along with that we've been building those 3 digit numbers using Montessori type number cards that we have from our Right Start Math curriculum (pictured below).

DD has been moving along quickly with her writing. I decided to purchase this writing, penmanship book from currclick called I Like Animals.  It is a bit pricey (I bought a bundle, which lowered the price a bit), but I have to say that DD LOVES this.  Yes, LOVES it!  She is zooming through it and works hard to get to the mazes.  So in that regard I can highly recommend it.  I printed it out on both sides of the paper and bound it together to look like a proper book.

DD practices the glockenspiel every day and now know about four pieces.  She won't allow Mom to help at all! In this photo she is playing Hot Cross Buns.

DD wanted to do a lapbook and chose to learn about butterflies and insects.  We took that opportunity to go through our classification cards.  We started with the living and non-living sort with free Montessori cards I downloaded from here.

Another day we used those same Montessori cards to sort the "living" cards into the five kingdoms. (http://homemademontessori.blogspot.com/search/label/5%20kingdom) Sorry about the blurry photo.

We still enjoy lots of time in the woods!

Anyway, continuing on with our animal classification review... a few days later we pulled out the vertebrate and invertebrate cards (which again were free.  Thank you homemade Montessori!)  This was really useful because DD's lapbook delved into the differences among the various invertebrate groups and had some good mini-books that complemented these sorting activities.  I'll put up a separate post about her butterfly/insect lapbook.

DD has been learning to recognize the written numbers, so this activity from filefolder fun has been just great!

This is an activity I got from Montessori Print Shop at some point.  I think it might have been one of their free downloads. It has a close up picture of certain items and then a view of the object from farther away.  It was just a quick 5 minute activity, but it intrigued ED who also gave it a go. (You can see her pink foot in the picture... she's often trying to interfere when she feels left out. My main recourse at the moment, is to have her workboxes filled with activities I can pull out for her at a moments' notice such as a puzzle, sorting, a new coloring sheet or things like that. Now that I write that, it occurs to me that I should pull out some activity bags for her once again.)

DD reads through two or three readers each day (for a total of about 15 minutes of reading or so).

DD has been very, very proud of her lapbook.  Here she's showing off her latest additions to Dad.  I'll write a separate post about her lapbook soon.

We continue to have music class with some friends each week.  DD's music class is focusing on world music.  This week we learned a bit about about the music of Bali in Indonesia. We watched a short video of a shadow puppet show on YouTube. Then each child used actual shadow puppets that Grams passed on to us to act out their own short skit.

We had the gamelan music from someone's trip to Bali on in the background as each person got a chance to put on a performance with the shadow puppets.

In the beginning of our music class, we always sing a few songs together. The kids have loved the crazy motion song "My Aunt Came Back" Each week we identify where Japan, Algeria, Mali (Timbuktu), Holland and Niagra Falls are located on the world map.  The kids always laugh as each verse adds a new motion (a hand fan, sheers, wooden shoe, chewing gum, a ping pong ball, rocking chair etc.)

Here we are all playing "Go to the Dump."  We take turns turning over two cards. The object is to find two cards that equal 10 (10 and 0, 9 and 1, 8 and 2 etc.)

This ladybird math activity goes along perfectly with Go To The Dump.  It's from Early Learning HQ.

So that's it for DD at the moment. I'm planning to do a similar post for LD (age 7) and ED (age 2 1/2) in the next day or so. Oh yes, and also will share DD's lapbook. She's very proud of it!

First Instrument: Glockenspiel (and Japanese Folk Tale--Momotaro)

I have found the glockenspiel  (affiliate link) to be a wonderful first instrument for LD and DD. (LD has since moved on to the piano.) In our music classes, we are learning the basics of rhythm (quarter notes, eighth notes and the half note at this point).  And, I've introduced a few notes to the kids.  The first song DD learned on the glockenspiel was Bee, Bee Bumble Bee (to the tune of Rain Rain Go Away).


Last week we learned about a Japanese folk tale called Momotaro. The story is about a boy who sets off to try to defeat some giants who are destroying fishermen's boats.  Along the way, he befriends a pheasant, dog and monkey and offers to share his rice with each of them if they come with him. The animals help him defeat the giants and Momotaro brings lots of gold back to his village.  As I told the story, the kids played instruments when various characters/things were mentioned -- giants, gold, or rice. And whenever the hero of the story was mentioned, we sang his name--Momotarosan, Momotarosan.  So, this week we went over the rhythm for the bit we sing for Momotarosan and then we learned to play it on the glockenspiel:

You can find out more about the rhythm cards here.
And I've been very pleased with the glockenspiel. (affiliate link) I got mine several years ago from Amazon. It's now about $30.

You can read one version of Momotaro at web-japan.org, though this is not the version I used.


Disclosure:  Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

Music: Rhythm Cards

Yesterday, I introduced the song/rhythm:
Bee Bee Bumble Bee
Can you sing your name to me?

It has the same rhythm as "Rain, Rain Go Away"

We all tapped our paper to the rhythm, learned to play it on the glockenspiel and then played the bumble bee game while chanting the song.

This morning, I was printing out rhythm sheets for next week's class and thought I'd share this wonderful resource (again) for those who are doing music with their kids.

We use the Kodaly method (to a certain extent) and I'll be introducing the concepts of "Ta" (quarter note) and "Ti di" (two eighth notes).  We'll say and clap (and use rhythm sticks) to a number of rhythms.  So with the example you see above we'll chant "Ta Ta Ti-di Ta."

You can find these wonderful rhythm cards at laytonmusic.com. We'll mostly be using rhythm card set 1 which has quarter note and eighth note rhythms.

And on that note, there's a book that I really love for introducing music to young children (K-6th grades) that has wonderful games, good song lists to introduce to children (and at what grade) and so forth (and lots and lots of theory). It's called Kodaly Today: A cognitive Approach to Elementary Music Education. It's expensive, so you might want to borrow it from the library first. Still, I've sure learned a lot and it's a book that I wound up buying since we try to do a lot with music (especially games and singing).

UPDATE, Fall 2015:
My youngest is now 7 and this semester the kids will be learning/reviewing notes, rhythm, music notation and more.  Using a lot of free resources, I have put our Music Curriculum plans together into a 8-week plan (it might take us longer) that is a free download over at my new location.  The packet is 15 pages or so AND it has hyperlinks to many *amazing* free music resources.  Again, you will find that new post over at my new location, homeschoolden.com:  Free Beginner's Music Curriculum: Learning Notes, Rhythm, Music Notation and more   See you there! ~Liesl

 You'll find links to lots of the different games and activities we'll be using:

 

Free Beginner's Music Curriculum: Learning Notes, Rhythm, Music Notation and more 

Music Class for Five Year Olds (Class 1 Outline)

I'm going to have a class for a few homeschooling kids who are DD's age (I do it for free--just for fellowship and music fun!).  If anyone's interested, I posted the general plan of what I will do for the first, 45-minute class. http://thehomeschoolden.blogspot.com/p/music-class-for-five-year-olds-my.html The general theme will be music from around the world, but we'll play lots of music-related games and learn a bit on the glockenspiel, etc.

Tomorrow we're going to focus on ... Australia!  Of course, we'll definitely listen to the amazing didgeridoo music of Andrew Langford who has a wonderful show in central Australia.  If you visit his site you can hear a bit of his music.  I had the great privilege of playing soccer with Andrew -- and LD played soccer with his son!

Music Game -- Hi Ho Cherry-O

LD and I played this today (while DD filled her cherry tree!)
First we went over the value of the cards using the
sandpaper notes (in black). Then as each player flipped
over a card, s/he went the number of beats on the card
(so LD is putting four cherries on his cherry tree because
he turned over a whole note).

Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) -- Structure of Class

Even though we started up with music classes a couple of weeks ago, I've been (finally) giving more thought to the resources, games and structure I want for our 'class' (by that I mean me, hubby and the kids).  Each 'class' (sorry for that word, can't think of an alternative!!) session lasts about 45 minutes. We usually have music class for about 12-14 weeks or so. I thought I would share in a bit more detail how I structure "music class" for our 6 and 4 year olds (it's geared a bit more for LD).  In this class we sing lots of songs, listen to, play along with and dance to music pieces.  We play lots of movement music games (think duck-duck-goose to music).  We do circle dances (like an easy version of square dancing).  We introduce musical concepts (notes, rhythms, etc.) and introduce a new instrument (last semester it was the glockenspiel, this semester we're learning a bit on the dulcimer).  Most importantly, we have fun with music.  If they're 'out of it' I either move on or cut things short.

In this post I thought I'd share the general structure of the class. I usually do about 8 to 10 different activities.


1) Sing Hello

2) Sing three children's songs together (this week it'll be Go Tell Aunt Rhody, The Littlest Worm, London Bridge with actions)

3) Music Game

4) Rhythm or Notes Activity

5) Music Game

6) Listening Activity

7) Dance/Play A-long

8) Instrument Work

9) Circle Song/Dance

10) Closing Songs (this week these'll include This Land Is Your Land and one other)

This is roughly what we do.  Our little music 'class' is about 45minutes long.  Sometimes I need to cut things out; sometimes we go longer. 

I think what I'll do is share some of the card activities and various printed resources first.  Those actually are what we use least in the 'class' but take the most time to prepare.  In all, we probably only spend about ten minutes or so using them (see #4 above).  The rest of the time is circle songs, music games (as in chase games; action song-games), dancing, listening to music and more.
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By the way, LD is also learning the piano so this 'class' is geared more towards singing, dancing, and things like that.  For piano, he's been doing well with Teaching Little Fingers to Play.
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PPS -- I'll try to list some of the active music games my kids really enjoy, but not tonight!!  You can check back later and click on the link Elem-Children's Music 1 on the sidebar. I hope to get together a list to share with you sometime soon. If you have some active music-related game ideas, please leave a comment below and I'll try to include that on my list!  Just a couple of examples of what I mean:  London Bridge is Falling Down (sing the song, two people link arms, the others go under the bridge and someone get's trapped when the bridge falls down).  Or, Here Comes a Bluebird (kids weave in and out of the others, grabbing someone's hand and jumping together with their partner at the end of the song).

Music -- Sandpaper Notes and Music Notation

To introduce the kids to quarter notes (crotchet),
half-notes (minim), whole note (semibreve), etc., I made a
set of sandpaper music symbols. You can see where I
got the original idea here at laytonmusic or you can
download the paper symbols here. I'm grateful she shared
this great idea and resource! We've used them blind-folded;
we have them out when go over our rhythm cards, when
we've played music file-folder games, etc.

I often use the symbols just before we do a few rhythm cards. I found a wonderful set of rhythm cards at the same website. I'm using the red set 1 cards with DD and set 3 (and 4) with LD. http://laytonmusic.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/rhythm-flashcards/ I'll post a few more pictures of the rhythm cards in the post below.