Doggies, Bears, and Beat Buddies--Oh My!

We use our imaginations in the music room all the time!  This week, 1st grade and PreK/Kindergarten have been pretending to be animals in two fun music games.  We use games in the music room to practice the musical concepts we've been learning about.  Play is such an integral part of childhood that it helps children grasp and remember ideas.  

1st Grade

We are learning about high and low sounds in 1st grade.  Last week, we met two friends on Music Street named Sol and Mi.  This week, a new friend, La, moved in.  La lives higher up the street, so he has a higher sound.  

The song "Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone?"  has our new friend La in it.  We learned the song, found where Sol, La, and Mi are in the song, and then we played the game.  This song also has a chance for everyone to sing a solo!  When the children solo sing, I'm able to assess their ability to match pitch.  Watch the video below and see if you can figure out how the game works: 

PreK/Kindergarten

With the youngest Vikings, we just finished up talking about four different ways to use our voices.  Ask your child if he or she remembers all four!  (They are whisper, talk, shout, and sing.) This led us into our exploration of musical opposites.  This week, we explored the opposites of loud and soft.  We learned a song called "Grizzly Bear."  The grizzly bear starts out asleep (soft voice) and then wakes up at the end (loud voice).  There's a great game that goes with this song.  We used our Beat Buddies to fill in for the grizzly bear and to show the difference between the loud and soft parts of the song.  Here are two videos of Kindergartners playing and singing: 

And, just because they did such a good job with the Beat Buddies and showing opposites, here are a few pictures of the class in action!