Music with Annette - Every Wednesday.

Today we had our first music class with one of our favorite people, Annette. Annette is an very talented musician who is a natural with children. She is a trained professional in the Orff Classical approach. Her sessions are warm, engaging and focused on specific aspects of music and composition. Some lessons are vocal, some instrumental, and all incorporate movement to illustrate elements such as pitch and tempo. Other lessons may focus on certain styles, such as call-and-respond, marches and expressive movement.

Today's "Play-list":

• The "Hello _______, How Do You Do?" song - practicing names of peers and helping new students to learn Annette's name, as well.
• "Look At Me, I'm As Tall As A Tree" is an interpretive exercise to imagine the life cycle of a tree, leaf, seed and grown tree again.
• "Up The Slide To The Top" is a very fun exercise in scales, as we climb through higher notes and slide down to lower notes with variations in tempo with each repetition.
• Finish our session with a ukelele* sing-a-long of "You Are My Sunshine." I was overjoyed and a bit touched to see how many in our group knew this song, obviously learned from loving parents.

*one extra gold star goes to the first parent that tells me the literal Hawaiian translation for the word "ukulele".

TODAY'S STORY
I Heard, Said The Bird, by Polly Berends, illustrated by Brad Sneed (same as yesterday's story) Sonya selected this lovely story of the barnyard animals seeking to find out who had a new baby. I'll give it away - it's the human farmer's family. where we were working primarily with sequencing earlier, the rewards of this story are in phonics and rhyme.
"I heard," said the bird.
"How?" said the cow.
"Where?" said the mare. The patterned phonetical clues help to sharpen listening for rhymes and 'guessing' who said what. Sonya's careful reading often left the 'rhyme' open for the listeners to deduce the animal.

"OM FOR KIDS" UPDATE 9/20
Thank You for the incredible generosity of the Room 4 parents sponsoring me in the upcoming Yogathon. These amounts are impressive, and Covenant House California will expand their effectiveness two- and three-fold in providing services for homeless youth. Friday is the last day to contribute if you haven't done so already. Please CLICK HERE to make a secure contribution and help homeless youth in the Bay Area.