A visit to our farm

Our Family Time class ended today! We had such a good group and I have enjoyed getting to know everyone. Next week, April 7 at 10:00 am, will be a demo class for our next term.

I have seen so much improvement in our class this term! A few of the kids who were quiet at the beginning of the term are now imitating animal sounds and repeating words from our class! They have learned that our opening song means time to settle down for class. They are so good at putting the instruments away at the end and are just now starting to develop inhibitory control which is the ability to stop or start as action, like playing an instrument, on command. Today I enjoyed watching them follow directions as well as come up with their own ideas for movement or for instrument exploration.

Today we listened to animal sounds and imitated them to work on verbal skills and phonemic awareness. We pretended to drive our tractors around the farm and waved the colorful scarves like butterfly wings to work on gross motor skills. Studies link movement to brain development so we want to include free movement in each class. We also incorporated gross motor movement with the instruments as we played our instruments up high, down low, and to the side with the Piggy Jig. This also emphasizes verbal skills as the children see and make the movements as the hear the directional words spoken.

They were so good at following directions today as we put the instruments away, acted out our book, _Flip Flap, Sugar Snap_ and as they worked on inhibitory control as we stopped and started playing instruments.

The children really enjoyed our guest farm animal today as well! Each child was able to pet our real live rabbit at the end of class and we all held our puppets and rocked them to our last song.

I hope everyone can join us for another term of Family Time. Our next session will be, "Movin and Groovin." We will also be beginning a session of Sign and Sing on April 14 as well.

A trip to the aquarium! Week 8

Piano this week

We had wonderful piano classes this week! We had an instrument demonstration on the violin. Each class played computer theory games. My older classes learned how to set up algebraic equations to determine the missing beats in the measure.

My private piano students are beginning their music history research projects. We will all be choosing recital music soon and we will all be researching our composers. Our recital is held at a nursing home as a special treat for those who live there.

Our practice-a-thon is still going strong! I know a lot of kids have worked very hard on practicing and on raising pledges for the Free Wheelchair Mission. We have until your lesson or class this week to continue working toward our goal. Contribution can be made on our fundraiser website (a link is on the right side of the blog)

A trip to the aquarium!

Bring your cameras next week!

Today our family time class took a trip to the aquarium! We started out in our blue tulle "ocean" with sea animal puzzles and toys. Then we worked on gross motor skills while swimming to the music. We used scarves to pretend to be whales deep in the ocean and used our scarves to leap out of the sea. The large tulle "water" made great waves and currents during this song!

The kids are really starting to respond to story time! I remember the first few weeks of class, when we would have a few attempted escapes from the room or crying during reading time. They are enjoying the story time a lot more and this is showing great progress in attention skills and school readiness!

The parachute "waves" were a fun activity we used to help the children hear, see and feel beats in groupings of three. The organization of steady beat at an early age not only prepares them for future music study, but also helps with early reading and math skills. A few of use were "bonked" with the balls during this activity, but it was fun anyway!

I thought the children would enjoy a quick demonstration on the trumpet today! We noticed that the mouthpeice by itself sounds a lot like a duck but not much like a trumpet. Each child was able to press the valves or buttons on the trumpet. Kids love to see instruments like this and it inspires them to learn more about music.

The children loved the free movement with the bubbles today! Hopefully, we can use our bubble machine a little more next week! This is one wonderful thing about teaching at the Cherubs Clubhouse. There are so many great props to use that I wouldn't have any where else!

Our last main activity was the water table we the sea creatures! Next week, I plan to add a few new items to the table. Playing in water is very relaxing to children so we incorporated this into our relaxation time at the end of class while we listened to one of our Spanish songs from the CD. I thought by using the water table at the Cherubs Clubhouse, we could have a hands on, multi-sensory experience to go along with our aquarium theme. Just another on of those perks of Kindermusik classes at the clubhouse :-)

We are already registering for our April term of Family time and Sign and Sing. Be sure to sign up if you are interested. Those currently enrolled will have first priority to register if they sign up before spring break. I will be doing a demo class during spring break and we may have several sign up then! We already have 2 interested in joining our class in April so sign up before all the spots are gone!