Music Element 3: Tempo
Winter is coming to Greenhill. A story by Triquetrae Tales from our Preschool program.
Week three of the winter program focuses on tempo and the ability to recognise sounds that are fast and slow.
Download the book from this link
Listen and follow
Listen to the Story on Spotify
Listen and Bop
Listen to the fast and slow sounds on this track. When the (traditional orchestral) sounds are slow use slow movements as you dance along to the music. When the (dance beat) sounds are fast use fast movements.
In week three, in addition to the music making group, we offer literacy and numeracy skills. Week three uses the letter C, the number 3, the colour yellow and the shape of a square and a wiggly line. We include worksheets on all these items to be used in our additional child development workshops.
Small Muscle Development
The development of the small muscles is vital for playing any musical instrument.
Small motor skills concern the development of smaller muscle movements, mostly in the hands and fingers. Small motor skill development also involves hand-eye coordination. Small motor skills are responsible for grasping, holding, and manipulating small objects. For example, small motor skills are needed to pick up a crayon, hold a crayon and move it on a surface. Site link
Letters & Numbers
When a child can move a little further to drawing lines, curves and following shapes with a finger you can move on to letter tracers. These are reception age worksheets.
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A guide to writing skills at different ages can be found here
PDF Download
Shapes
From octagonal stop signs and rectangular doors, to triangular roofs and circular wheel, shapes are everywhere. Learning shapes not only helps children identify and organize visual information, it helps them learn skills in other curriculum areas including reading, math, and science. Link
Colours
The ability to identify colors is considered a marker and milestone in a child’s cognitive process and is often part of early screening for development and educational admittance. Recognizing the colors and identifying the color names is an important part of a child’s development. Early identification of colors helps to create the cognitive link between visual clues and words. Link
Scissor Skills
Learning to cut with scissors helps a child learn to do so much more than just cut. The opening and closing scissors helps children build up the small muscles in their hands. Children learn to watch where they are cutting, using their eyes to guide how they should move next. These muscles are important for everyday activities such as drawing, using cutlery, brushing your teeth, getting dressed and playing musical instruments. Link
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PDF Download
Major Minor's Music Academy first ran in the early 2000's. This is one of the early videos for playing the guiro loud and soft.
Here Andy and Josie explain how to use the guiro for Timbre. In week 2 we are using it in a high sounds and low sounds week as the tock sound is lower than the scrape sound.