July 18, 2007 at 9:23 am
· Filed under Joellyn, Strategies
As I reflect on yesterday’s experience, I take this away as advice for myself and for all those who love and work with young children:
- Provide good quality music. Kids know the difference between
carefully crafted music and music that has not been well composed.
- Let children experience a variety of genres from many cultures.
- Offer classical music even after children reach school age. Pieces
such as “Peter and the Wolf” spark imagination and provide knowledge
of instruments including brass, strings, woodwinds, and percussion.
- Invite children to hear music for pure enjoyment as well as for
specific purposes such as exercise or for remembering letters,
numbers, and basic information.
Enjoy the rest of your summer! And be sure to include music when you
can!
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July 17, 2007 at 1:26 pm
· Filed under Joellyn, The InvestiGator Club
It’s summer, and my neighborhood is buzzing with “eight and unders” manning lemonade stands, creating sidewalk chalk masterpieces, and chasing each other through sprinklers. Summer is magic. Yesterday’s magic was especially interesting though. Gathered on my front porch were no fewer than eight preschoolers and kindergarteners sampling music from a variety of CDs. Their CD player had a built-in microphone that was used as a karaoke prop for only the best of songs. And as I listened to the children give commentary, I noticed something quite interesting. These children knew what they liked—and they knew why! In their own way, these little ones articulated ideas about rhythm, beat, lyrical quality, and melody.
Being an author of a preschool curriculum that offers music, I was curious how our music would be perceived by the children on my porch (excluding my son who will be entering first grade and who knows all the songs by heart). Of the 16 tracks, the following songs were voted as the top three: “Gone Investigating,” “Over in the Meadow,” and “Bad Weather Blues.” There was even a tussle for the microphone about halfway through the blues song. Now that’s an endorsement!
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