This class was taught to 3, 4, and 5 year old students in a Montessori school.   This was the second in  a series of 5 lessons that I’ll be doing with them.

Beat/Name Chant:  We started the class with our beat and name chant. I reviewed the beat chant.  Beat, beat, feel the beat.  Say hello to those you meet.

I kept the beat with the castanets today.  I have the plastic ones that pop open after you click them, so could keep the castanets on my hand and have the children tap them.  I told the children what the instrument is called and that they used to be made of wood, but now are sometimes made of plastic.  I showed them how to play it and told them that they’d all get to try it when they said their name. I held the castanet in the palm of my hand and the children played the castanet when they said “ My name is ____” and the class echoed “Your name is _________.”  At this point with the 3-4-5 year olds, I’m modeling how to keep the beat as we chant.  A few of the children are correctly tapping the beat, but many are not.  After 4 children, we said the 4 names in a row, partly to keep the beat, but also so I have a better chance of remembering the names!     (5  min.)

Vocalise with pipe cleaners:  – hold the pipe cleaner and move from top to bottom, saying ah as you move. – make the pipe cleaner into V and say Vvvv as you move ver the V shape.   – add a pipe cleaner across the upside down V and make A.  Say Aaaa as you show how to print the letter.  Be sure to show the formation of the letters in the same way that you print them.  (1 min.)

Short Letter A song – review from last week.  (30 sec)

Alligator Alarm song – review from last week.  Invite the children to children to choose new body parts for Alligator Al to eat.  (many squeals and excitement)  Some of the kids wanted to blurt out the body parts.  I found a child who had a hand up, and thanked them for having their hand up and asked them what they’d like Alligator Al to eat.  We ended up eating clothes, shoes, ears.

Vegetable cards – Mistake.  I gave each child a card and we spent more time discussing what the vegatables were than making music with them.  Suggestion for next time:  Put 4 cards in the pocket chart, and name them, then chant them with body percussion or instruments.  I wanted to have the children suggest sounds for their vegetable, but we’ll have to do this as a class this week.  (tomorrow’s lesson)

John the Rabbit:  I took vegetables from 4 kids, and we sang John the Rabbit substituting the vegetables chosen from the ones in the song..  I skipped the end of the song – it’s a little morbid.  I just shooed the rabbits out of my garden and picked out some new vegetables.

One Green Jellybean song:  I sang the song for the kids, then played the recording and doing all the movement.  They needed the jumping after getting all excited playing John the Rabbit and jumping in the garden.  (3 minutes)

Little Rabbit Foo Foo – Last week we sang the song.  This week, I brought in the storybook, and we modified the words of the song to match the pictures.  I kept to the words of the song as much as possible thought.  (3 minutes)

Rain Rain Go Away – I played the song on my mini-glock.   I talked about the weather – it had rained and snowed all weekend, so we sang both Rain, rain, go away and Snow, snow, go away.     (1 minute)

Egg Shakers – I explained that when I give out the eggs, I wanted everyone to wait until everyone had one before anybody picked them up.  One child started before they were all given out and a gentle reminder was given to wait.  As soon as everyone had an egg we chanted:

Shake the eggs quickly, quickly, quickly.  Shake the eggs quickly, quickly,stop!                                2.  slowly     3. Quietly    4. Loudly

I found one child who stopped when they were supposed to, and complimented her on stopping right away.  This really helps improve the behaviour of all the other children!

We said the poem, Chorus:  Shakin’ Eggs.  Shakin’ eggs.  Shakin’ eggs.  I got no bacon I got shaken’ eggs. (repeat)  Shake it up high.  Shake it down low.  Shake it real fast.  Shake it real slow.                       Chorus:  Shakin’ eggs.  Shakin’ eggs.  I got no bacon I got shaken’ eggs. (repeat)                                                        Shake it real quiet.  Shake it real loud.  Shake it any way that you’re allowed.                                 Chorus:  Shakin’ eggs.  Shakin’ eggs.  I got no bacon I got shaken’ eggs. (repeat)

When we put the eggs away, I sing, “bum bum” to so-do.

Goodbye ________, See you next week. Is our goodbye song, but because they gave me a muffin for Mother’s day, we didn’t have time.

Happy music making with your preschool students!  If you have some great lessons, send them to me and I’ll post them.

The Musicplay PreK curriculum part 1 will be published in July 2016.  The teacher’s guide includes a CD with recordings of all the songs.  Digital resources will be available with kids demos of all activities, song movies with colorful illustrations, lesson plans, and song activities.  Visit www.musicplay.ca for information on this new publication!  PreK will also be included at www.musicplayonline.com – a new online resource that’s invaluable for teaching music in the elementary school.