Week 11

This week we learned more about involving creativity into story telling. Some of the students in our class were able to play new instruments while the story "Chicken Little" was read. We also learned about improvising when we cannot afford instruments. We each brought in some items we though could be used as instruments; for example, some of us brought water bottles and boxes to make sounds to go with the story. This allows children to learn more about music while practicing many other skills. For example, students can learn more about math, science, language, and social skills during story telling. We also practiced a little more on the recorder at the end of the week, and we learned our last note. We will now be able to play many different songs with our recorder. We had a very small amount of time to work on our group project which will incorporate what we have been learning into a lesson. It is very hard for all of us to find time to meet outside of class so this class time is vital. This project will allow us to show all that we have learned lately to the rest of the class.

Week 9

This week we talked about a few new terms and reviewed some past ones. A new term we learned was timbre. Timbre is the tone color of the instrument or voice. This can vary because of the size and type of the instrument. For example, a flute has a very different timbre than a tuba. We also learned about binary form which is when a song has to contrasting sections. We also continued to review different dynamics. This is the volume of the sounds (example: piano & forte).
Early in the week, Adam read a book that allowed us to use our imagination to produce sounds. We each had a certain sound to produce in parts of the story. We also changed the lyrics in the song "what would you do with a drunken sailor" to "what would you do with a boo hoo baby." This further demonstrated the different sound we can produce. It is important for us to learn this because it allows us to be more creative in our classroom as well as allowing our students to use their creativity. Stories similar to these help children to learn to listen. Many students can have a difficult time focusing their attention to listen for certain things and this can help them with that. It will also help them associate words and meanings if they are not familiar with them.

Week 8

Unfortunately, I was really sick this week with the flu. It was a horrible week and now I feel a little behind and lost in class. I'm sure I will be able to catch up with what we are talking about. I read some other students' blogs so that I could have an idea of what was discussed this week. I know creativity was discussed, and why it is important for children to be creative. We are also supposed to do our cuture assignment. I believe I am going to research Costa Rica's culture for my project. I have many friends that have visited there, and it seems like a very interesting place.