Category: Music

Introducing Quarter Notes, Half Notes and Whole Notes 0

Introducing Quarter Notes, Half Notes and Whole Notes

When I first introduced quarter notes, half notes andwhole notes to the kids, I showed the kids the sandpapernotes. They looked at the notes, felt them, and also shuttheir eyes to guess what they had. Then I showed them the rhythm pizza pieces. Westacked them and talked about how many quarter sliceswere needed to make a whole pizza, etc. I thought thiswas a clever, creative way to introduce the topic...

Elementary Children’s Music — Resources 0

Elementary Children’s Music — Resources

Here is a list of some of the things I’ve found especially useful in putting together music games, activities and so forth for our little classes (I’ll come back and add to this if I think of anything more): Kodaly Today: A Cognitive Approach to Elementary Music Education — by Micheal Houlahan/Philip Tacka:  This is a bit heavy on the philosophy and methodology of early music education and teaching, but...

More Whole Note, Half-Note, Quarter-Note Games 0

More Whole Note, Half-Note, Quarter-Note Games

Here are some games that are set to go, but that we have not yet played together. I’m sharing it now, though, along with my other music-related resources. Move forward the value of the note you pick up (thus, a half-note moves forward 2 spaces, a quarter note moves forward 1 space, a whole note moves ahead 4 spaces, etc.) Climb the Mountain Sheet: Cards for Climb the Mountain Game:...

Treble and Base Cleff Note Activities 0

Treble and Base Cleff Note Activities

You can find some very cute treble and base cleff fishynotes at susanparadis.com. If your child is learning the notes on piano there is avery cute icecream activity at laytonmusic.wordpress.com Here she has plain keyboard cards with a dot. (Like theicecream part below.) You can use them as three part cards, placing the keyboard and letter onto the full card, you could play memory,matching and so forth. Here is a...

Composer Posters and Picture Cards 0

Composer Posters and Picture Cards

If you’ve visited our website before, You’ll recognize thecraft table where I set up experiments. In the corneris where I stash some of my music stuff. I have theselovely composer posters there. Since I’m talking aboutresources, I thought I’d share the link where I got them:http://laytonmusic.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/composer-posters/She has lots to choose from. I noticed that she had these same composer cards in asmaller version and I thought that was perfect for...

Music with Tots and Preschoolers 0

Music with Tots and Preschoolers

We had our little music session as usual this week. The rhythm sticks below are just wood dowels that I cut down and sanded on the ends. We explored different ways of tapping them together (high, low, on the ground, on our head, end-to-end, etc.) Then we played our rhythm sticks to a fast-tempoed song. The kids all really like the knee-bouncing songs. This week we said the nursery rhyme...

Music and Games 0

Music and Games

I love music and it has always been a big part of my life.I play the oboe, guitar and piano and am learning thedulcimer. LD started learning the piano earlier this year and isdoing really well. Still, I wanted the girls to get to sing,dance and enjoy music as well. I set aside two differenttimes to do music activities during the week. One ismore for ED and the other is...

Capture the Squirrel’s Tail Game 0

Capture the Squirrel’s Tail Game

In keeping with our forest theme, we’ve played thisfun game outside the past few days. The object is to grabthe squirrel’s tail while protecting your own. In ourversion we each had a couple of tails to start out with!  FOX AND RABBIT GAME: Another good game we played this week was the  “Fox andRabbit” Game (from Family Fun website).  Two players areblind folded.  One is the fox and has to...

Music in the Homeschool Den 0

Music in the Homeschool Den

Every now and then people ask each other on homeschoolgroups what kind of music they include in their homeschoolschedule. My kids all did Kindermusik (until the teacher started anew job). Now we do music classes with some friends.Currently we’re doing a class with ED’s little 20mo-old-friend. LD and DD decided they didn’t much like the “baby”class, though I hear DD singing all the songs we do (andshe usually joins us...