MUSIC ACTIVITIES TO TRY AT HOME
Rachel Buchman, © 2005

Sing together
A parent in one of my classes told me about family opera dinner. Once a week at dinnertime, everyone sings whatever he or she has to say. For example: "Pass the ketchup, please. The ketchup, ke-e-e-etchup please, please, please, please, please." This is great fun. I used to sing the getting dressed operas: "Right foot, right foot, right foot!! Left foot, left foot, left foot! Oh I am so sad, sad, sad, when your shoes cannot be found, I'll look, look, look, around, around, around. Cannot be found. All around." And so on!

Bounce your child on your knee, keeping a beat as you recite nursery rhymes or sing songs. Listen to music together. Gently tap the beat on a child's knee, shoulders or back as you listen or sing.

CLASSICAL MUSIC offers great variety of pitch, dynamics and tempo, as well as emotional depth. It is a challenge and delight to listen to, as is FOLK MUSIC (now often referred to as ethnic music!), JAZZ, BLUES, EARLY ROCK N' ROLL, MUSICAL COMEDY SCORES. All offer vast varieties of expressiveness. However, contemporary commercial popular music IS MONOTONOUS in its musical color, emotional range, tempo (speed) of the beat, and dynamics (volume).

As you listen, clap your hands to the pulse or beat of the music. Move your arms to the beat. Tap your feet. Get out those ol' wooden spoons and a pot or large plastic container and play along. And if you're not in the car - swing your body to the beat. Hold hands and swing with your child. March around the house!

Reciting and memorizing NURSERY RHYMES AND POETRY is one of the best ways to prepare your child for future musical, literary and mathematical enjoyment and learning. There are many wonderful collections of poems for every mood and season at the library. Read and recite poems with lots of vocal inflection. Once your child knows a rhyme well, try saying the line until the last word or phrase and then let your child finish the line alone, in time to the beat. When your child can do this, let him start the line at his own tempo and you finish it.

Play alternating games. You say one line, let your child say the next, and so on. Mix up the lines of a poem or favorite song! This is difficult and a lot of fun! Say or sing a song or poem loud/quiet, fast/slow, sad/happy, mad/glad and so on. Contrast is the essence of all the fine arts, science and math. Children love identifying what the contrast is and make up their own.

FAMILIAR FOLK SONGS: Try the above variations with as many folk songs as you can remember from your childhood: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, The Eensy Weensy Spider, Three Blind Mice, Frere Jacques, I've Been Working on the Railroad, Home on the Range, Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me, Skip to my Loo, Ring-Around-A-Rosie, Bingo, Nick Nack Paddy Wack (This Old Man), Yankee Doodle, How Much is that Doggie in the Window?, Old MacDonald, This Land is Your Land (by Woody Guthrie), I Met An Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly, Did You Ever See A Lassie? Take Me Out to the Ballgame, You're A Grand Old Flag, God Bless America, America the Beautiful, The Star-Spangled Banner. That should jog your memory!! Ask Grandma and Grandpa to sing some songs, too!