Dear parents,
This week we began working on our papier mache maracas. The children helped tear newspaper into long strips, then we worked in pairs to dip the newspaper in a glue and water mixture and cover the balloons. It is a messy, time consuming, delicate task that the children worked on
for four days. On the fourth day, we listened to the hissing sound of the balloons when they were pulled out of the hard paper shell. Each person got to help fill a maraca with kidney beans, lentils, or rice using a paper funnel. At the end, we all had colorful, noisy, musical maracas! We shook them high, low, left, and right.
We have been playing our instruments and singing the A,B,C’s, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and many other songs. We also listened to How The Turtle Got Its Shell and played along.
Farmer Tom came and introduced us to the proud parents of our baby chick eggs, Max and Ruby. He told us how the rooster uses his claws to protect the hen and baby chicks from dogs and foxes. Everyone who wanted got a chance to pet Ruby while Max steered clear. The children helped dictate signs to post near our incubator to ensure their safety. We also made a Baby Chicks Rule sign to remind us how to sit when holding baby chicks next week. We have been observing the sleeping eggs each and every day. No cheeps or activity yet.
Parent shares! We would love love love to have parents come in and share their musical talents. Singing, guitar, bass, piano, horn, violin, kazoo, cowbell, or any other instrument would be welcome and appreciated. One, two, or three songs? Most days for the next two weeks are available for bookings. Preferably during circle which is about 9:45- 10.
Next week we are making kazoos.
Have a musical weekend,
Therese
More guitar
Dear everyone,
The children all got to choose a box to use for their guitar. We painted inside and out. We added glitter glue and glitter glitter. Everyone chose different colored rubber bands to add for the strings. We took turns plucking and describing what happened to the strings. The children said they were wobbly, blurry, bouncy, fiery, wiggly, twirly, salty, and colorful. “They look like two strings when they pluck,” someone noticed. We talked about the word vibration. We reread Ben’s Trumpet and saw how the drumsticks in the illustrations looked like many sticks indicating vibration.
We counted how many cans we had to choose from for our drums. Everyone chose a color of duct tape to decorate their drum, and cut the tape to cover the cans. Afterwards we took turns beating patterns on our drums and copied each other. Some children played small sounds with one finger while others banged with whole hands loudly.
Next week we will make the much anticipated papier mache maracas.
Half the class slept on Wednesday. Quiet time remains quiet.
Have a healthy weekend!