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Education is a Process, Not a Destination
Aug. 17, 2007
Curriculum Picks 2007, Part III - Music
Resources:
songs
classical music CDs
Suzuki Violin, vol. 1
Ah, music! I have a love/hate relationship with this subject. I have a more-than-decent voice and have done various choir, solo, and musical performances, and I love teaching kid songs. I really enjoy classical music, and it's so easy to make kids love it that it is effortless to expose them to to it. But violin--argh, violin!
SINGING
Our first area of concentration in music for the elementary grades is singing. I'm doing a list of sacred and secular songs, both. We will learn two new songs a week throughout the school year, one of each.
For the secular songs, I'm drawing heavily on older songs because they are true classics with staying power. The next couple of years will be all about kiddie songs, and after that, we'll transition into ballads and folk music.
For the sacred songs, I'm choosing traditional hymns, starting with the most popular and moving to more obscure songs. The kiddie church songs he'll get just fine at church and AWANAs, but hymns are becoming more and more scarce, which is a shame because they tend to have so much more content than modern "praise and worship" songs and are infinitely more singable.
CLASSICAL MUSIC LISTENING
For the first couple of years, our music appreciation will consist of simply listening to classical music and becoming familiar with the names of pieces and composers. This year, I'd like to include the great classical children's pieces, too (Carnival of the Animals, Peter and the Wolf, and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra) as well as some of the cute stories from Classical Kids. (Yes, this group does some corny and moronic marketing with their "Mozart Effect" series, but at least it isn't the insulting and offensive Baby Mozart noise from Baby Einstein.)
VIOLIN
DS was desperate to try an instrument, so I let him two years ago. He loved it...until people actually started ASKING things of him. Then it was not so fun anymore. I didn't want it to become a battle and, to be honest, I disliked practicing so much that I tended to avoid it, anyway, and so here we are, two years later, with an outgrown violin.
I started violin again two days ago with him, and it's going enormously better. Right now, I can practice violin hold, bow hold, and rhythms with him, but until he gets a bigger violin ($$$), I can't go very far. We'll be using the Suzuki method because a reading-based approach is torture to a dyslexic kid and almost impossible for anyone so young!
Oh, I don't like this, though. Not until a child is ready for Twinkle do I like it. |
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Sep. 26, 2007 - violin
Jitka