Week of September 30

Welcome to HCA Joyful Music

Featuring our Nursery and Pre-K music makers

Yay! Fall is here.  It is my favorite time of year.  In our Nursery and Pre-K music classes we are

celebrating all things fall.  We started off celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday with apple chants and songs.  October brings songs about pumpkins, leaves and of course, Halloween.  

Our Nursery and Pre-K students have been learning Way Up High in the Apple Tree which is a popular preschool poem.  We made it a chant with a swing beat and we have been having lots of fun with it.  Check out the video of our Pre-K students below.  The words of  the chant are listed below the video so you can try it at home with your child.

Way up high in the apple tree,

I saw two little apples smiling at me.

I shook that tree as hard as I could.

Down came the apples.

Mmm, they were good!

Mmm, mmm, mmm 

Mmm, they were good!

Our Nursery students enjoyed learning The Johnny Appleseed Song  by Ed Stivender.  They especially liked the refrain as you can see below.

"Rain falls. Sun shines. Trees grow, apples, woah!"

Our Nursery students also enjoyed a play along/dance along to Buckwheat Zydeco's Choo Choo Boogaloo.  Where there's zydeco music, there's always a party!  You can see we had a great time playing and moving to the music. 

Dancing helps develop a child's sense of rhythm.  Put on your favorite music at home and have a dance party!

Week of September 16

Welcome to HCA Joyful Music

Featuring our Nursery and Pre-K music makers

We had a great week in our Nursery and Pre-K music classes.  We are continuing to get to know our classmates as we sing and dance throughout music class.  We are also learning how to play our percussion instruments properly.  The Nursery and Pre-K students had fun playing the shaky eggs, jingle bells, and castanets.

This week in our Nursery music classes the children hopped aboard and sang This Train.  We had fun using the elasta-band and moving it to the beat as we sang.

Our Nursery students enjoyed playing along to Marching and Drumming.

Our Pre-K students always enjoy a good play along.  We get out some of our percussion instruments and play along to the beat of the music. This week they marched along to the beat of the music as they played their percussion instruments to the song Marching and Drumming.

Our Pre-K class was introduced to the canopy scarf which we used to help emphasize the phrasing of Allee Galloo as we sang.

   


Pre-K students enjoy taking a turn at strumming the guitar at the end of our music class.

Week of September 9

Welcome to HCA Joyful Music!

HCA Joyful Music features our Nursery 2, 3 and Pre-K music makers at

 Holy Child Academy Drexel Hill.

Our goal in our early childhood music classes is to help the children on their journey to basic music proficiency. This includes tonal proficiency (being able to sing in tune) and rhythmic proficiency (feeling and moving to the beat accurately head to toe). We have lots of fun in music class and the children are exposed to a wide variety of music. Throughout the year we will be singing, moving to music in a variety of ways and playing different percussion instruments.

Over the last several days, we have been getting to know each other. We have been learning each others' names through song. We have had fun playing shaky eggs, moving to music with the canopy scarf, and singing and chanting songs.  Our Nursery and Pre-K students enjoy ending each class by taking a turn strumming the guitar with Mrs. Clay.  They like the sensory experience of feeling the vibration of the guitar strings and hearing the chord they create (with Mrs. Clay's help).

Some of our Nursery 3 students playing the guitar.

Singing Allee Galloo and using the canopy scarf was so much fun!

We love playing the shaky eggs!

Our Pre-K students had fun singing Allee Galloo and dancing with scarves.

Pre-K jamming with the shaky eggs.

Toward the end of an active music class, we always take some time to relax and refocus.  Here the Pre-K are listening to a lullaby called Shady Grove.