On this beautiful sunny day, most of the kids were out enjoying the weather when I arrived. We waited for them to get back to start the class. Once this excited group arrived, we basically had a party! It was so much fun and these children had so much enthusiasm and joy to be singing, dancing and having a good time together. The highlight was the loud laughter that took the room several times during our music class.
I just can't believe our luck with this group! Every kid in this class adores music time, participates raptly in every song, and gives me multiple hugs when it's time for me to leave. This week was no different. Highlights this week included learning how to play the African and Latin instrument, the vibraslap, and as always, the parachute!
Last night at Arise we sang about the winter weather and pretended to be snowflakes melting on the ground when the sun comes out. Then we made silly faces while singing The Little Green Frog, and hopped around like bunnies to Sleeping Bunnies. The highlight of the class however was when I brought out the singing bowl as the instrument of the week. The children were very interested in this instrument! They all took two turns each, and insisted on the moms trying to play them as well. The class then ended with many hugs!
Last week's Arise class was another fun one. The children were once again extremely engaged, and highlights included tapping and stopping with our rhythm sticks, as well as the parachute. There was a moment under the parachute when a few children joined hands in a circle and began jumping together in unison to the music. It was really lovely. Back there tonight!
We were back for our first class of the new year at Arise last night. The ages of the children ranged from 2-6 years old, and they all waited for the class to start with anticipation. Then when we started, this was maybe the most focused and engaged RSF group I've ever had!! It felt like a true celebration, with lots of dancing and singing together. One little girl was a natural born performer and turned outwards to face the rest of the group and showed off her dancing skills. She had the other children and grown-ups smiling and encouraging her. It was super fun and also heartwarming to see how much the mothers in attendance were enjoying themselves. I'm really looking forward to continuing with this group again next week!
We finished up our 2022 classes last night at Arise, and it was certainly high energy! We did many Christmas songs by request, and the ages of the children ranged in age from newborn to tween. Highlights included singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and adding little additions such as, "like a lightbulb!" and "ho ho ho," the jam session which included Jingle Bells and Twist and Shout, and a fun dance party with the parachute to Jingle Bell Rock. The children all really appreciated their gifts from RSF as well (xylophones, bells and books). There were many hugs and "thank you's" all around!
We had some new families join the class this week which included a set of toddler twins and another toddler. The average age of the class was younger and so I pulled out some popular toddler tunes including, I Wake Up My Hands, and Six Little Ducks. A highlight however was the instrument of the week, the Chinese gong. One of the older students joined in at this point, and all the children enjoyed trying their hand at the gong. We then did a group sound meditation to the sound of the gong. It was a lovely class all around!
Both lessons today ended up focusing a lot on finger dexterity, for different reasons. For one student, we honed in and practiced playing the keys with all five fingers, as he tends to go back to playing the keyboard with just his index finger (though he can do incredible things with it nonetheless! Especially when he starts to play with his feet and nose as well). For our other student, we had to work around the fact that he had scraped his strumming hand earlier, so he didn't want to aggravate it with playing. Instead of working on rhythms and strumming, we focused on the fretting hand, getting the fingers to be comfortable jumping up and down between strings, which he attended to with the same studiousness he always does. Both are wonderful students and filled with talent!
Working with our two students back to back is an interesting teaching experience, because they are both smart and driven students with completely different learning styles. One student is intuitive with the piano and is picking up on things easily, but also gets restless easily and will get frustrated when exercises are physically difficult (like finger positioning), but he is obviously very driven to learn and play. I find the best way to get through to him is by jumping around within the lesson (and around keyboard voices) often. Our other student is a bit more reserved, and focuses so well when we start doing more physically demanding exercises (like switching between chords on the beat). His strumming is great, but I was even more impressed at his finger picking, and we began to write a new song! Can't wait to continue working with these two.
This week's highlight was using the "rhythm sticks" as the instrument of the week. After we did some rhythm stick songs and activities as a group, each kid expressed their musical creativity by performing rhythm stick solos. They also enjoyed the song Two Little Songbirds, which we reprised from a couple weeks ago.
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