Bouncin’ and a-Boppin’ in our Schools

News from Lori Turner, Music Specialist

November/December
Shalom, my friends, shalom! November has been filled with music, movement, singing, dancing and a whole bunch of learning. Through the songs “Bouncin’ and a-Boppin’,” “Monkeys in the Middle,” “Shakin’ our Shakers,” “Little Music Monkeys,” “Al Nitylat,” “Gobble Gobble, Thank You,” your kinderlach have been accomplishing many goals within the music, movement and instrument play objectives I have set forth for them.

Playschool has been working on active participation through singing together, clapping their hands, shaking shakers in their personal space (high, medium and low), playing shakers as drumming tools and showing balance, coordination, body percussion (stomp, pat, clap) and jumping for movement and dance. They’ve also been practicing using their listening skills to follow directions of movement and dance lyrics I’m singing to them.

Preschool has continued practicing personal space of their bodies, spatial awareness of the room and others, gross motor movements and mirror movements through body percussion and improvised movement that helps the development of balance, coordination and body awareness. In addition to playing shakers as drumming tools and using hand washing cups as our drums, we worked on rhythm reading the pattern “Ti-Ti Ta”, which matches the words “Wash-Wash Wash”. Ask your little ones about eighth notes (ti-ti) and quarter notes (ta). Not only should they be able to tell you what ti-ti’s and ta’s are, I would think they’d be able to draw them as well.

Pre-K students are a group of musicians who love to analyze and discuss lyrics and rhythms. They’ve practiced mirror movements, range in space (high, medium and low), steady beat through body percussion (stomping, patting and clapping) and solo rhythm writing on their own dry erase stars. They’ve talked about patterns in music, patterns outside of music and how music is math and science mixed together. I’ve challenged their group singing skills and will bring the challenge of singing songs solo during the month of December.

Enrichment students are truly getting the hang of playing our Orff instruments. All friends have worked on playing the melody of Twinkle Twinkle Kol Chavim on the xylophone (wood bars) and a beat-keeping drone on the metallophone (metal bars). We’ve practiced playing patterns that use many bars and we’ve practiced playing patterns that use only 2 bars (Orff instruments have removable bars). We’ve also put a focus on how to hold the mallets correctly, aiming for the middle of the bar and bouncing mallets so the vibration of the sound doesn’t stop. When we’re done playing the instruments, we play the game 1 Little Wiggly Friend – practicing fine motor movements, counting and rhyming.

Whole School: In October, I was reminded that before I bring in the large gathering drums, all children need to have instrumental experiences in their own spaces. Since the music curriculum goes back and forth between secular and religious, I figured I’d bring in the song Al Nitylat and hand-washing cups to our music lessons. Not only would we learn about the hand-washing prayer and ritual but the plastic cups could be flipped upside-down and used as a personal drum. Add the shakers as our drum sticks and wah-lah, a personal percussion experience can be had. I’ve been genuinely blown away at how well all children responded to this activity and even more excited to say, they all enjoy reading the rhythms presented before them.

As we head into December, the songs House on the Hill, Sing w/ Mi, Circle Round Together, Going to the Jungle, Little Dreidels, Little Hebrew Dreidel and Boom de Ada will be added to our repertoire. I truly look forward to what we create together!