So considering the weather was threatening (though the t-storms never formed, but just ended up muggy & cloudy) and two campers were missing this week, I thought THIS was the day to try teaching some music. My real job (other than mom) is teaching Kindermusik, a music & movement program for the very young. Teaching older kids music is not my forte, but I thought it might be fun since some seemed interested to sing and my own kids (one of whom was among the missing) love singing with me :) .
As the children arrived a Rainbow Loom frenzy broke out in my kitchen. It was hard to break up, and they were having so much fun I let them loom for quite a while. But eventually I thought it would be a good idea to actually make some music.
We started by playing a rhythm game "Ali Babba". One person leads (me) by saying "Al-i Bab-ba and the forty thieves" all the while tapping or clapping to that spoken beat. Sadly this seemed to set a tone for silliness. And then the next game where you clap and name something on a topic (fruit , for example and list apple, pears cherries etc... ) For some reason some of the children seemed to be self conscious (goofy tweens) so it became a silly contest and when "pizza" was listed as a fruit... three times ... the giggles won out...
So then I tried some rounds. I explained to the kids that harmony is naturally produced with rounds, but you only need to know a simple melody, so if you listen you can learn to sing parts of a larger choir. We sang row row row your boat with some success and then used an ostinato, singing the resting note (c) in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to show how it worked. Strangely those were somewhat successful, but I could tell the attention was waning. So one last attempt we created a "Birds Chorus" with simple notes. (comes from my curriculum that I teach the adults to model the behavoir of layering music) I do really wish I had a video, because when concentrating they really did sound pretty cool.
We then broke for lunch and free time. Looming again was popular, as was playing with our dog and even some lovely piano playing. (I could feel my dad's spirit smiling.)
After our break, I figured I have one more attempt at music theme with some dancing - to make it more structured we took on some simple line dancing. Again silliness prevailed, but we still had a good ole time being silly and actually learning some of the steps so that in a pinch they'd all be good at a wedding LOL
The rest of the day was 10 minutes of journal-ling with snack and getting ready for pick up.
Still really love hanging out with these kids, even when they are being age appropriately silly. :)
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