Music Around the World Week 2--Africa

We had so much fun in our Music Around the World Class today! We began our afternoon by reviewing our songs from last week. Ask your child to sing "It's a Small World" and "Kookaburra" for you! We are really working hard to learn the words for these two songs. We also reviewed the song, "La Raspa" from Latin America. We had a great time working on keeping a steady beat, while shaking our maracas or scraping our guiros. Wow do our kids have rhythm! After a quick review, we jumped into learning all about our new country of the day--Africa!

We were introduced to some special places from Africa and learned about a day in the life of a child from Africa on our Time for Kids website. Then, we were in for a fabulous treat--a visit from a real musician, Mr. Mark! Mr. Mark taught us about some of Africa's favorite instruments--drums! He played several different types of drums for us. We loved them all! Then, we enjoyed some traditional African music from the African Children's Choir. We were so inspired by these musical experiences that we decided to create our own African instruments--drums, shakers, and tamborines. Finally, we learned an African chant and our own rousing rendition of "This Little Light of Mine" complete with African drums, shakers, and tamborines! Here is a show of our afternoon! Check it out and let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. We have also included some pictures from another great day! We hope that you enjoy them! Today was so much fun! We can't wait until next week! :) 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8b1pDODI4STBsY3M/view?usp=sharing

"Egg-cellent" Easter

We had a wonderful time celebrating Easter on Thursday! We learned about many of the traditional things that people do at Easter such as dying Easter eggs, going on Easter egg hunts, and creating Easter bunny art. Here are some pictures and video from our fun day!

https://animoto.com/play/xQjN5fPvNeIquc9BNOurdw

We also enjoyed participating in several Easter science experiments. After enjoying the story, White Rabbit's Color Book, we had a chance to explore color mixing and see how you can combine primary colors to make a secondary color. Check out our video of this cool experiment:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8X1Z1MktjS204ZkE/view?usp=sharing

Then, we had the opportunity to perform several science experiments with our favorite Easter treat...PEEPS! First, we made predictions as to what would happen if you put a Peep in water, heated it up in the microwave, or put it in the freezer.  We predicted that a Peep in water would either dissolve or float. We observed from our experiment that a Peep in water would actually turn white because all of the sugar would dissolve in the water. Here is a before and after picture from that experiment:

After that, we decided to heat one up in the microwave and see what happened to it. Check out our video of this experiment:

Our Peep that we put in the freezer is still awaiting further observations. We will have to get back to you on the results of that experiment later.

Finally, we enjoyed an exciting jellybean sorting and graphing activity in Math and a fun opportunity to paint an Easter sight word surprise page where our sight words magically showed up as we painted in English Language Arts. Here are some pictures from our activities. We hope you enjoy them! Please leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

Music Around the World Week 1--Australia

Welcome to our Music Around the World Club! I am so very excited that your child is joining me in this journey as we travel around the world exploring different countries and their unique music. I have two loves in life—music and children— so I could not be more thrilled to share this experience together with your child. We are going to learn to play instruments and sing songs from different countries. Then, we will share our music with you all on Thursday night, May 5th at 7:00 P.M. Please save this date on your calendar! It is sure to be a night that you will not want to miss! Thank you again for allowing me the privilege to work with your child. I can not wait to share this experience together!

We began our musical tour around the world today by talking about the universal language of music and how it can touch all hearts and help all people. Then, we enjoyed singing "It's a Small World" together before flying around the world to Australia. 

The land down under had a lot to offer us! We learned about everything from koala bears to kangaroos and spent a "day in the life" of a boy from Australia on the Time for Kids website. We were also introduced to two of Australia's favorite instruments--bilmas and digeridoos. After listening to one of Australia's traditional songs featuring these instruments, we made our very own bilmas and digeridoos. Boy were they cool too! Finally, we began learning the Australian song that we are going to perform, Kookaburra. It is a silly song that will make you giggle and laugh, while allowing you to soak up the unique sounds of the digeridoos and the bilmas. Here is a show of our first day together. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about our first week in Music Around the World!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8aXVrLU5NSG8weDA/view?usp=sharing