A little bit of Music Theory

I spend way too much time on Pintrest, but it gives me some good ideas that we can use in Mini Music Makers to make the sessions a little more special.

Music has great ability to help our children achieve well in school.  One area is mathematics and language.

Music has rhythm and that rhythm is linked to time.  All of the rhymes we recite, have certain rhythm and here is when it starts helping us with Math.  When we are playing our instruments at the beginning of the session, we are practising our rhythms and beats.  The beat is the steady tempo that drives the rhythm of the songs.  A great way to understand rhythm is to use the Kodaly Method of putting words to the rhythm.

Now try it with the Itsy, Bitsy, Spider.

The Kodaly Method teaches music by putting a sound to a symbol.  This is the terminology they use:

Let's Play Kid's Music has a great example of practising the difference between rhythm and beat, with a lot of print outs to boot.



I would love to do this with the older kids, using the different sizes of Lego to represent time:

This is great as well:

If you want more information on child development and music in infancy and for toddlers, the Bright Hub Education has loads of information.  It is also a wonderful way to get information about things you can do at home.

If you are looking for more Halloween songs Let's Play Kid's Music doesn't disappoint.

More Halloween songs

Continuing on our Halloween Song theme, I found this really cute song called 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate.  As you can imagine, it is sung to the tune of 5 Little Monkies Bouncing on the Bed.

The Witch's song

The next Halloween song we will be learning is the Witch's Song.  It is sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Here are the words and movements:

Witch's cauldron (cup hands into a bowl)
Witch's hat, (make a triangle with hands over head)
Witch's broom stick, ("jazz hands")
Witch's cat (make whiskers at nose)

Fly over here and fly over there.(sway to left and sway to right)
BANG, CRASH, ALAZAM! (bang instruments or clap hands)
Now you disappear. (cover face with hands)

Witch's spider (make a spider with fingers)
Crawling up a log (crawl fingers up arm)
Witch's spell book, (open hands like a book)
Witch's frog. (get down like a frog)

Jump over here and jump over there. (jump to left and right)
BANG, CRASH, ALAZAM! (bang instruments or clap hands)
Now you disappear. (cover face with hands)

From- Music Express EYFS , 2  ed.2012 (A&C Black Publishers)


If you are computer savy and would like to know how to get songs from YouTube to MP3 so you can have the songs in the car, let me suggest a website.  Video2mp3 is a website that converts the audio from a YouTube video into MP3 format.  It seems to be legal, as it hasn't been blocked by the authorities...yet.  But if you are interested, this is something you can do in the name of education.

Skeleton Dance- Revisit

We have been having a great time bringing in the Halloween season with the Skeleton Dance song.  We did this song last year and once again it is one of my favourites.

So that you can do it at home here is the youtube video.



The Super Simple Learning website is really awesome and I use it sometimes for learning tunes to some of the songs.  It also has loads of Halloween and Christmas songs.

There is a lot of repetition in this song, which makes it easy to learn even though it seems long.


Here are the words:

♫ Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones. [Skeleton dance.]
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones. [Skeleton dance. Move to the right.]
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones. [Skeleton dance. Move to the left.]
Doin' the skeleton dance. [Skeleton dance.]

The foot bone's connected to the leg bone. [Point to your foot, then to your lower leg.]
The leg bone's connected to the knee bone. [Point to your lower leg, then your knee.]
The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone. [Point to your knee, then your thigh.]
Doin' the skeleton dance.

The thigh bone's connected to the hip bone. [Point to your thigh, then your hip.]
The hip bone's connected to the backbone. [Point to your hip, then your back.]
The backbone's connected to the neck bone. [Point to your back, then your neck.]
Doin' the skeleton dance.

Shake your hands to the left.
Shake your hands to the right.
Put your hands in the air.
Put your hands out of sight. [Put your hands behind your back.]

Shake your hands to the left.
Shake your hands to the right.
Put your hands in the air.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle,
wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle,
wiggle, wiggle...wiggle your knees. [Wiggle your whole body, moving your hands all the way down your body until they reach your knees.]

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones.
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones.
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dancing bones.
Doin' the skeleton dance. ♫

(taken from http://supersimplelearning.com

See you next week,

I love Sesame Street

In the United States there is a children's show called Sesame Street, and I miss it so much.  On thing that is great about it is it's integration of music education with fun.

I just loved this




And Katie Perry:


Then you might as well look at the songs I grew up with