Fun, Fun, Fun, We're Going to the Sun

After last week’s class with everyone in their rooms, it was great to have group classes back at Arise! The parents and staff were clearly all feeding off of each others’ energy and encouragement, which was great for the kids, all of whom had smiles on their faces the whole time. We did lots of songs where the grownups helped the kids find their body parts, and had some extended time tickling toes with The Tickle Song and Everybody Knows That I Love My Toes. That really got the kids ready to bounce, and we finished off with a fantastic rendition of Zoom Zoom Zoom. Looking forward to next week!

Student Becomes the Teacher

Today was my first day with the students at Stonegate. I am taking over for Léa. So today I had the students teach me! I asked them to share what they enjoy most about their music classes with Léa. Then they taught me the dance moves they invented for Do, Re, Me! It was a lot of fun getting to know these bright new students.

Strumming Our Way Into the Magic of Music

To illustrate the chord changes within the bars of a song, this week we focused on practicing the many possible strumming patterns using chords we already know. We strummed, dividing our bars in whole notes, half notes, quarter notes and eight notes (without naming them yet).

In Tune!

The students are making progress with tuning their instruments! We enlisted the help of an older sibling to get up on track and had fun with a ukulele chord speed round. The students seem to be getting more comfortable with chord changing. We have started working on our first song - it’s a work in progress!

Super Mario Music

Today's lesson at Ernestine's was a wonderful reminder that it is very important to honour the mood of our students. My student was less focused and getting easily frustrated during today's lessons. This was a sign that I needed to abandon my plan and go with the flow. So, the lesson turned into a musical education for me! My student sang to me many pieces of music from the Mario Brothers video games. Video game music is filled with fun melodies and challenging intervals! And did you know that Mario, Luigi, and Bowser sing!? Also, the villains are called "Goombas," which is a very fun word sung in a vocal warmup! Give it a try.

Sing SOLO!

All of today's vocal lessons at Arise ended up being solo lessons. It was so nice to take a bit of extra time to get to know the students. I learned about what's happening at school and we made jokes together and laughed. I was also able to listen to the students sing more. We spend a lot of time in zoom group classes on mute, so it's a different feeling of connection to be unmuted and listening to students sing! What a true pleasure.

Understanding Beats, Bars and Tempo

This week we practiced different strumming patterns, learned how to count the beats within the bars, and how to keep the tempo when playing songs.

A Lively Welcome!

I received such a warm welcome from the kids at Arise on Thursday evening. Even though everyone was in their rooms, it still felt very much like a group class, with everyone excited to get started right away. The kids spared no time in getting on their feet to let some energy out. Making the songs as physical as possible was a great way to keep everyone engaged in singing and responding, and it got the parents to participate a bit more as well, as they danced along with their kids. Because everyone has to be on mute on zoom, dancing feels like one of the best ways for everyone to share the digital space together and collectively participate. Looking forward to singing with this group!

Final Hurrah Before Mat Leave!

This was my last week with the group at Stonegate before I go on maternity leave, and teacher Joanna takes over. Highlights included finishing our learning of Under the Sea, learning some more challenging tongue twisters, and working on some call and responses exercises. The group is excited to meet Joanna and show her what we’ve been working on. It was also a lovely send off with the children and parents giving me their best wishes for labour/delivery, and saying they’ll miss me (I’ll miss them too!). Working with these groups has been so much fun, thank you to RSF for making it happen!

Understanding Temp, Beats and Bars

Today we approached our ukuleles in a very musical and pleasant way. We learned about musical tempo, beats and bars. We practiced our chord changes within musical context as we got used to counting beats and bars.