Let’s Get Started
Let’s Chant
At-Home Activity
Put on an at-home performance for friends, family members, or even a group of stuffies. Play some of your favorite pieces from Keyboard Games Book A, tell a music story, or create a new piece in the moment.
Let’s Sing
Let’s Listen
“The Farmer in the Dell”
From Keyboard Games Book A, pg. 27
Description:
- Dynamics: Try a variety of dynamics
- Tempo: Try a variety of tempos
- Meter: Triple (Du-da-di Du-da-di)
- Piano Keys Used: Octave white keys (SO-SO sound)
- Keyboard Register: High and middle
- Hands: Two hands play macrobeats together
- Technique: Arm movement
Note: As you listen to the Let’s Get Started music, ask children what the music sounds like to them. Does it sound like a movement, a picture in their mind, or maybe a mood or feeling. They may not yet be able to verbalize what it sounds like, but engaging them in this kind of conversation is an important first step in cultivating a deeper awareness of music.
Bonus!
Continue to make creative changes (play it high or lower, faster or slower, change the order of the keys, or add an introduction, ending, or new phrases) to pieces you have learned and are reviewing at home! And keep doing at-home performances for your family, friends, and stuffy audiences.
From the Author
Following are some of the major concepts of this approach:
The Four- to Six-Year-Old Student:
- There are wide differences in maturation between the four-year-old student and the student who is finishing kindergarten.
- The teachers should know each student’s age, month-by-month, and watch for individual differences among the students.
- Changes happen at unexpected times between the ages of four and six.
- Four-year-old students often prefer to create their own pieces instead of learning from the book. When they are ready. these students will begin to play pieces in the Keyboard Games books. Take time.