Studio3Music Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Miss Analiisa’

Oct
30

Cornflake Trees and Snowy Owls

Let me introduce to you our youngest blogger, Adrian Owen K. He doesn’t know he’s a celebrity yet, though. He is a Kindermusik rock star, of course! He’s just 7 (almost 8!) years old, and is in his last year of Kindermusik. If my memory serves me right, he’s been with us since babyhood.

Anyway, he asked his momma to send us this poem he’s been reciting (and teaching to his younger brother, Patrick).

“Autumn”, by Thelma Ireland

Cornflake leaves
Beneath the trees,
Are they a breakfast
For the breeze?

I was inspired to find a cornflake craft, and lo and behold – here you go.

Project list
1 piece brown construction paper
1 piece light blue construction paper
pencil
marker
scissors
liquid glue (not a glue stick)
1 small hand and arm (firmly attached to a small child)

On the brown paper, trace around the child’s hand (fingers spread out) and lower arm. Cut out the tracing.
Crumple up the paper to add tree trunk texture, and then smooth the paper out. Your child might be completely horrified that you are doing this to their beautiful hand and arm cutout, so if that becomes a problem, just skip it.
Glue the “tree” to the light blue paper, leaving room to write the poem.
Write the poem on the paper.
Glue cornflake leaves onto the branches and ground.
Now, hang display your child’s creation, and learn the poem together.

Owen also, (and rightly so) asked his momma to include this second cute little ditty.

“Mr. Owl”, by Edna Hamilton

I saw an owl up in a tree,
I looked at him, he looked at me.
I couldn’t tell you of his size,
For all I saw were two big eyes.
As soon as I could make a dash,
Straight home I ran, quick as a flash.

Of course this poem needs a cute craft as well.

Project list
a pinecone (Go take a walk in the park or woods to find one.)
cotton balls
googly eyes
felt
scissors
glue

Stretch or unroll the cotton balls.
Pull the cotton all over the pinecone. (It shouldn’t need any glue.)
From the felt, cut out a triangle for a beak, and round circles for the eyes.
Glue googly eyes on top of the felt circles.
Glue the eyes and beak to your Snowy Owl.
Make an owl family. (Because he’ll be lonely if you don’t.)
Learn the poem together.

Now, have a gallery showing and recitation to adoring fans. Don’t forget to serve dessert!

Thanks, Adrian Owen K.!

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who made her wonderful husband Karl go to the store at 9:30 at night to get cornflakes (which nobody eats around here), so she could make this craft and take pictures for you! Anyone want the rest of the box?

Tags: craft, crafts, Miss Analiisa, preschoolers, Things to do, toddlers

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Oct
16

Worked out your intercostal muscles today?

Posted in Child Development, Education, Imagine That, Things to do

Every time you breathe, you are engaging 11 muscles – the big abdominal muscle sheath, your diaphragm, as well as the ones between your ribs. (Those are the intercostal ones.) You don’t even have to think about breathing.

What happens if you don’t work out your grownup body? You know the answer to that. But do you know what could happen if your child doesn’t work out those 11 muscles and their lungs? Their breath control will be affected. Why is that a big deal?

Breath control is directly related to the ability to speak, sing, or read a complete sentence. Poor breathing (mouth breathing or shallow breathing) can cause high blood pressure. Optimal breathing helps promote weight loss, as oxygen burns fat and calories. (Maybe that one is more for the grownups!)

Breathing well is the key to sleeping well and waking rested. Breathing provides 99% of your energy. When playing a wind instrument, a good tone is almost entirely dependent of good breath control, although a good instrument helps!

Only one third of lung capacity is used in normal breathing. Think about the Swiss freediver who held his breath underwater for 19 minutes and 21 seconds! I’ll bet he was using his full lung capacity.

Now that you understand that you need good breath control, here are a couple of ways to promote it with your preschooler this week.

Straw Painting

I was going to do a whole picture/explanation thing here, but I found a craft blog that did it beautifully, and who doesn’t like a linkback? So, here you go. Tons of fun. And I think that you grownups should try it, too. I’m going to.

Slide Whistle Play

If you have a Kindermusik Imagine That student at home (and you have a preschooler, you really should have them in Imagine That – shameless plug, here), then pull out your slide whistle. (Or, get thee a slide whistle if you don’t! Either plastic or metal works great.)
Learn the song Windy Weather. It’s #14 on your See What I Saw Home CD 2. Or, download it here. (But you really should be enrolled in class…)
Now, sing the song, rather than playing the music. That will allow you to control the tempo and change the words.
Start with the slide all of the way pulled out. Sing “Windy weather, windy weather, when the wind blows…” Then blow into the slide whistle, as you push the slide up.
Now change the last words to “We all fall down together.” Then blow into the slide whistle as you pull the slide down.
Now sing it slowly, sing it fast, sing it quietly, sing it loud. The loud and slow versions are where breath control really comes into play. You have to control your breathing by letting out a little air at a time, in order to make it through the louder blow, or the slower pull on the slide.

Now for a little bit of inspiration. Think that slide whistle is not a “real instrument”? Just watch Tom Goslin (a professional guitar player who is well known in the pit orchestra world) perform the Allegro from Sonata in C major for viola da gamba and Continuo by Carl Frederic Abel. (He played cello and viola in Bach’s court orchestra. Abel, I mean. Not Goslin.) You guessed it – on slide whistle.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose hero (because she’s a low brass player), is Arnold Jacobs, the one-lunged tuba player, who was the principle tubist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for 44 years, and not surprisingly, was an expert on breath control.

Image: Worakit Sirijinda / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tags: kindermusik, Miss Analiisa, physical development, preschoolers, Things to do

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Oct
5

A Spelling Game

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Education

Some of you know that I home school my three children. The rest of you – now you do. I have two boys who don’t love to write (a pretty normal condition for boys). We use a spelling program called Spelling Power instead of a typical workbook.

Because it’s NOT a workbook , spelling words aren’t learned by simply writing them multiple times in exercises. My oldest son is not a good speller. He was an early and voracious reader, and breezed over and through phonics (spelling) rules, because he really didn’t need them.

My younger son is a good speller, and he carefully sounds out words. However, he doesn’t like making mistakes. And the way Spelling Power works is that you pre-test a list of words, and study only the ones you don’t know how to spell. To help him not feel like a failure, I need to make a game of learning to spell the missed words.

My boys are oil and water. I never thought I’d find game that would work to teach them their words. But I found one. That works, 100% of the time. Both of them.

Here’s all you need: a whiteboard and dry erase markers. We use a slanted (22°) whiteboard for a lot of our work. One of the reasons is that a slantboard (like the slanted desks I had in elementary school) reduces stress on the optic system.

The text in the math book is so much smaller than what we can write on the board. Less eye tiredness happens with the board!

A slantboard also allows children to write larger. My 4^th grader makes far fewer mistakes doing his math on a slantboard, than trying to write small in his workbook. The errors he makes on the slantboard are because he made a math error, rather than one due to trying to work in a small space. And I make my 7^th grader redo any missed Algebra problems on the board. He suddenly can see where he made his errors.

I suppose if you’ve made it this far into the blog, you are wondering where the heck the spelling game is I promised. Finally, here it is:

Write the missed word on the board.

Trace around it in 3 different colors, being sure to match the shape of the word.
Always while looking at the board, spell the word forwards, and then backwards. Yes, backwards. Really. You have to do that. And, at the same time, tap your hands on the table/desk/counter, or on your legs, once for each letter.
Erase one letter. (Don’t erase the shape of the word.)

Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the word is gone. (Keep looking at the board as you spell.)

Spell it forwards and backwards one more time.

There! That’s it. My 7^th grader FUSSED when I made him do this. For about 3 days. And then he stopped complaining because he realized it actually worked.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who recommends the slantboard from www.visualedgesb.com

Tags: games, learning, Miss Analiisa

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Oct
2

Why? How come? What’s next? Can I? What would happen if?

Posted in Child Development, Education, Imagine That, Things to do

Do you hear those questions at home? We hear them in Kindermusik Imagine That classes all the time! Your child is a discoverer, and loves comparing and categorizing things, conducting investigations, problem solving, and most of all, talking about what they learn from exercising their curiosity.

The things your preschooler naturally wants to do will boost their cognitive development – the growing of thinking skills, including problem solving and decision making. Cognitive development is not about the acquisition of information, though that might occur in the process.

What’s important about helping your child acquire cognitive skills now in the preschool years is that this aptitude can then be transferred to any other learning experiences in their life. For instance, take puzzles. There is a lot of thinking involved in completing a jigsaw puzzle. Sorting, organizing, categorizing, visual discrimination, remembering (Where did I see that piece I now need?), a plan of action (Do I do the outside or the inside first?)

Now fast forward 30 years. Your preschooler has become a successful research scientist. And puzzles have helped her become so. She learned the scientific method as a child. She observed the puzzle, she hypothesized how to solve the puzzle, she tested her solution and concluded if her solution worked!

All mistakes or problems are really opportunities for cognitive development. Here’s why: Children thrive on routine and familiarity. When something happens that thwarts their “normal”, they are required to come up with a solution that is outside of their box, and in doing so, cognitive development occurs.

Take the proverbial spilled milk. Your child dropped his cup of milk. You could get mad (especially if you just cleaned your kitchen floor), but don’t. Remember – all mistakes or problems are really opportunities for cognitive development.

Ask your child to look at the spill – Wow! That little mug of milk sure spread out all over the floor. Is the puddle going to keep growing, or stop? Is it a deep puddle? How can you tell? What should we do about all this milk on the floor? Oh, clean it up? How? What should we use to do that? Milk gets sticky when it’s dried, because it has a kind of sugar in it. What do you think could put on our washcloth to get the sticky off the floor? Why do you think you dropped the cup? How can you hold the cup differently next time so it doesn’t spill? Observing, hypothesizing, testing and concluding!

Here is a list of 10 cognitive skill-building activities to do with your child.

Play Hot and Cold. Hide an object and give your child clues as to where it is by saying hotter, colder, or warmer.
Games like Dominoes, Uno, Skip Bo or Battleship
Cooking. Let your child mix, pour, etc. Lots of mistakes or problems can occur to solve in this activity. (Just ask professional chefs.)
Play I Spy with shapes, colors, textures, etc.
Household chores like sorting laundry or putting away silverware.
Ask (sometimes very silly) thinking questions. Is an elephant purple? Which is bigger – our cat or our dog? What did you eat for dinner last night?
With your finger, draw a simple shape or picture on your child’s back. See if they can guess what it is. Give clues if necessary. (It’s something you find outside. It is very tall.)
Category games. What doesn’t belong – cat, mouse, frog, tree? Find me 3 things that are yellow.
Create an obstacle course.
Let them make mistakes and then allow them to figure out how to solve them.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who thinks she’s pretty cognitively savvy, until she plays the game Gobblet Gobblers with her children and loses!

Tags: games, kindermusik, language development, learning, Miss Analiisa, preschoolers, toddlers

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Sep
22

Picking up my euphonium. And playing it.

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Things to do

This is my euphonium. And yes, it's heavy. I dropped it and my case on my foot in college and fractured my heel. 12 weeks in a boot.

I joined a high school band last week. No, not the garage rock band type. The one with clarinets and trumpets and trombones and drums. And yes, well, I did graduate high school in 1986, so you do the math. And it kind of horrifies me to realize that some of you weren’t even born in 1986.

I’m finally using my college degree. For the first time ever. (What else do you do with a BMUS in Euphonium Performance, but play in a high school band?) My son’s home school band director asked me to play this year, and work with the low brass. I can’t tell you how much fun I’m having. I haven’t played in a group since graduating college. Not even in a brass ensemble. Or sadly, even a duet.

One thing I had almost forgotten – what an indescribable sense of community and happiness comes from being a part of a group, making music together. I felt my soul come alive. The stress of my life, for that hour and a half on Monday afternoon, went away.

And I’m telling you this because I think you should make music with other people, too. You don’t play an instrument? Learn one! It’s a whole lot more fun to practice at 42 than 12. (Just ask my children.)

You don’t have time? You can make the time. I spend 50+ hours a week running a business, plus home school three children, write, volunteer, cook, clean, do too much laundry, and be a wife and mother. I know you can make the time if you want to. I encourage you to want to. You’ll be glad you did. I guarantee it.

Or, try singing. I know it sounds corny to have a “sing-along”, but have you tried singing with other people? It’s okay to sing at Christmas, why is it not okay in September? Why have we limited singing to the 7^th inning, at church, or when lighting birthday candles? People have been singing together since the beginning. Why in our western culture is doing that now “embarrassing”? Why have we stopped? You love to listen to music. Why don’t you love to make it? (And I’m not referring to Karaoke, unless you are singing with at least one other person!)

So, start with the music of your cultural heritage. I’m positive the people in the generations before you sang. Are you Welsh, Native American, Japanese? Somewhere, there is someone who would be delighted to teach you the music of your heritage.

And then, in turn, sing with your sister and your best friend. Or your spouse or neighbors. It’s not about having a great singing voice. That totally misses the point. Make music with your children. Find three other people you know and turn off the TV. Practice Christmas carols, even in September. Join a community choir. You don’t have to read music.

Teach your children how to make music with others. You have a responsibility to do so. What happens if you don’t? I’ll never forget listening to Dr. Barnwell from Sweet Honey in the Rock. She said that in Africa, music was always made in community. The elders taught the younger ones the rhythms, interval patterns, and words, and how they were layered on top of each other to form music. She demonstrated this to the audience, and we made traditional African music together. It was a powerful, moving, and beautiful experience.

Rap has its roots in African music. Why is much of it full of hate, and sex and f-bombs? In Africa, she said, everyone in the community participated in the music making, and the wise and experienced elders literally monitored the creation of music. Rap, she said, no longer falls under that pattern. It’s come out from under the guidance of the community leaders.

Something to think about. And then to DO.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who has recently reclaimed her chair in the row in front of the percussion. It’s time to teach a new generation of low brass what their rightful role in the band is.