I just found out April is Poetry Month! May is Music Month in Manitoba, so I have added a page called "May Music Month" for you to check out as well... but for now, let's get back to poetry! One of my favourite types of poetry is the Japanese poetry form, haiku, because it is about nature, and can be deceptively simple to write, but so thoughtful and poignant! There are 3 lines, 5 syllables, then 7 syllables, then 5 syllables... Here is a beautiful one about springtime: You can make one, too, by listening to all you can hear and see outside! Find some music that you like to play with it, or maybe just enjoy the sound of the birds themselves! Here is mine: Would you pick music for my video, or would you just use the sounds of nature as the music? You could create drawings to go with your haiku! A cool place to create doodles that have sounds is Chrome Music Lab, which I have for you in the Symbaloo area of my music class website! Here is the next idea to try! I made a video to show a fun way to play with Kandinsky in Chrome Music Lab... Kandinsky was an artist who, when he painted, he could HEAR the images he was painting! These images you create make sound too, and I sang with them, and you could also use household sounds as instruments to improvise with! Have fun! Here is a cool animation that plays with Kandinsky-like images and sound: Now that we've talked so much about art, and played with it in Chrome Music Lab, you can virtually visit our Winnipeg Art Gallery, who have created amazing ways to create art at home, on a daily basis, with videos to teach you how to do different types of art and drawing... click HERE to check it out!
Earth Day is on Wednesday, April 22nd, and many organizations have decided to celebrate all week, so it is Earth Week! Check out the information in the Enviroclub section of this website (look in the menu above) and see all the great ways we can celeberate our earth! On the right of this page, you can see our @ESGEnviroClub Twitter feed where I will be sharing environment ideas all day! I have made a video so we can sing together. Check it out below! Here is a fun activity to experience the music of nature! Go on a sound walk (in your own backyard)! What do you hear as you are going on your walk in your neighbourhood with your family? This link (click HERE) is a Sound Scavenger Hunt to enjoy! Regarding the music of nature... listen to what I heard on a bike ride in Assiniboine Forest! Good thing I have Bird Songs and Frog and Toad Calls on Symbaloo to try and find out what I was listening to!! Look what other schools around the Louis Riel School Division are doing for Earth Day today, including this website, right here!! Thanks, LRSD for the shout out! Click HERE to find out more! Check out this fantastic Earth Day Choice Board from Alex Mandaliti of the WSD! I have to say that the community of teachers, and music teachers around the city, the province, the country, the WORLD have all pulled together with various forms of social media to connect and share amazing things with students in this new format that many of us are not used to... and it has shown me some incredible things! Here is the most amazing Music with Household Instruments that was shared last night! I made a lesson about this a while back, and you can check it out here! Now I have the Brazilian rhythm, Samba Reggae, in my head! We did this rhythm with some of the Grade 5 classes last year at the spring concerts! It is so fun, and as you can see in the video, it gets your feet moving! Hello everyone! On the Symbaloo page are several links to drawing and doodling with artists for kids! You should go check them out! When I draw, or read, or play board games, it should come as no surprise that I love to have music playing in the background! I have different playlists for different activities... Some are groovy, some more calm... I am interested in trying "zentangles" which is a fun way to doodle and create interesting shapes and patterns. In the video below, the artist has acoustic guitar playing in the background... What would be your favourite music to listen to while drawing? Anyone else feeling like they need to find ways to MOVE like me?? Usually, as a music teacher we are moving, dancing, playing to music and so there is so much movement in my day! So this music experience is for us to GET UP AND MOVE! Here is Mme Brigitte from our school division, showing us how to do a dance from Ghana, called Kpanlogo! She demonstrates the whole dance, then she shows you how to do it too! Thanks, Mme Brigitte, for letting me share your awesome video! Below is a favourite Just Dance video that we sometimes use at the end of class if there are a couple of minutes left at the end of a lesson! One year, for fun, I asked students to create their own Just Dance videos for the class! In small groups, they came up with simple movements and it was really fun, so...
Here is your challenge! Create a simple dance to a favourite song, then get your family to follow along with you leading, just like in a Just Dance video! When I did this, I asked that students make sure the movements are simple enough for everyone to do who is following along (not everyone can do the worm!) Have fun! Remember when I posted about making music with household objects a while back? If not, check out that link HERE, because it would be a fun way to get some creativity out! It's so fun to make music with objects around the house, that everyone is doing it! I'm seeing fun lessons from other teachers making water xylophones (we can do that too! Wait for it :-) And, on the Tonight Show at Home this week, Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake did a fun version of playing around with objects in their separate houses! Hello everyone! I don't know about you, but I've been doing a lot of singing, playing instruments, and listening to music because it brings me joy :-) I miss singing with all of you, as we would do in class, or choir, or assemblies, so I created a video of some songs around a "campfire", which was pretty easy to make, with my phone's flashlight, background forest sounds, and imagination! Come and sing along! The second song is "Je suis une pizza" by Charlotte Diamond, and is also on her website: www.charlottediamond.com. She would like to share that: "Right now there is a new Hug Bug Newsletter for Spring on my web site in the Hug Bug Club. It features a new song, "Wash Your Hands" to the tune of Slippery Fish (Octopus). I hope to post it soon with me singing on Facebook. Charlotte Diamond Fan Page. You can also sign up on my web site for my newsletters at no charge. We have all my song Cards on special for a limited time." Here is the background night time nature sounds video, in case you liked it: |
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