Musical Instruments Week!

This past week was a ton of fun! Our theme was musical instruments, and we kept finding more and more information and sources for different musical instruments. This was the first time I was bummed about doing a theme for only a week. We could have kept it going, but it was getting loud in the house, and I figured we always have music around and can play with the instruments any time we like anyway. So we moved on.

Here is the what we did over the past week:

Let's start with the books we read.

These are the super educational books we used. They are great for the 4-8 age range. They are all written by different authors, but under the same publisher, Child's World, in the Music Makers series. Here is a link to the publishers store.

 

These books were a perfect start to the week, and helped us to line up a basis of instrumental knowledge. Key words were colored in burgundy and then listed in the glossary. It also had references to find out more about a particular instrument. These books would be wonderful if you were just looking into one instrument. Aimee doesn't have the patience for just one instrument though; she wants to know about them all. In fact she wants to try and play them all. So we went to our toy box and pulled out all the instruments we could find. We turned up enough to start a small band. 

I have to admit, while I don't like buying a ton for these themes (we only spend a week on them, and it would be rather wasteful (I get all the books from the library)), I had to get the princess piano. We certainly aren't planning on getting a real piano ever. SO I figured I might as well get this one and she could see what it is all about, along with the aforementioned piano book. I also had a thought as I first passed this princess piano book that maybe, just maybe, seeing all of these piano books would strike an unknown interest in her. Then maybe, just maybe, she would want to know more and more about playing the piano and many years from now would be performing in Carnegie Hall. Unlikely at best, given when I posted the speculation to my husband, he laughed. That and apparently she is more interested in guitars and things like guitars, than any other instruments.

Anyway, we had great fun making a ton of noise with our instruments. We talked a little bit about how the instruments make noise, but not too much. We did talk a lot about notes, along with how different scales in instruments and singing is marked. Do-Re-Me versus C-B-A. Another win for the princess piano book. Not only does it have the letter notes clearly marked, they are color coded. So in the book it shows you the written music with the letters inside squares of color underneath the written notes. Wonderful, I just forgot to take a picture. 

These are the additional music story or fiction books we read. I agree the my little pony "Pony Pop Stars" book is a bit of a stretch, but it was fun to see how the same instruments used in an orchestra could be used in a band. The Alphabet Symphony book is pretty neat overall; it is a series of photographs taken of an orchestra or individuals playing their instruments. The letters are vividly pointed out in the picture. Very clever and cool, however not what my daughter was looking for. She preferred "Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin." Which is also a wonderful book with counting too!

So far, we had read a ton of books about different instruments, we had played a ton of our own, but they were still just toy instruments. I wanted Aimee to see real, life size instruments up close. So we went to our local music shop and that is where the ukulele comes in.

The light blue ukulele. 

It is pretty cute. We are now its proud owners and players, no matter how terrible at playing it we may be. 

We walked into the music store and this was the first thing Aimee set eyes on. It was also the first thing my husband set eyes on. He is a big sucker for her and her love of things he mutually finds cool. I pulled them both away so we could tour the store's finest instruments. We played the keyboard, though Aimee was a little disappointed that "playing the keyboard" does not translate into banging on it with both hands. I let her play with one finger on each hand at a time. She wanted to play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.' Amazingly enough, she was sitting at the right part of the keyboard, and got the first two notes right. We looked at all the other instruments, especially the drums, which she fell in love with right away, and wanted desperately to play. The shop owner was very nice and offered, but we turned it down, at least until Aimee has a better understanding of how hard to hit the drums. 

At the end of our little tour we went straight back to the ukuleles. My husband had that look in his eye (you know, the one that says I am a giant sucker for my little girl and it's always cool to have a ukulele around). I sighed and agreed that we could get it and we had a talk with Aimee about how to treat real instruments. 

I don't know who was more excited. The only problem is that it is very very hard to keep small hands away from the tension pegs. Our ukulele is very out of tune, and I will be taking it back to the shop soon to learn how to tune it properly.

Let's move on to the craft we did. There are so so many cool instrument crafts out there. Many you can make out of things you find in your home, and that is what we did. We did get a book from the library to help inspire us, though. Here it is:

 

We went for the bongo drums. It was a ton of fun and they work very well, given they are a little quiet. The instructions indicate that you should use plastic grocery bags, but ours were not strong enough and got holes very quickly. We used a freezer bag instead, following the directions in lieu of the plastic grocery bag. Here is how our craft went. 

Please note/disregard the two different sets of pajamas my daughter is wearing. We started the craft one day and had to finish it another. My daughter practically lives in pajamas; it's not that we don't leave the house, we do a lot, she just loves pajamas, swimsuits and party dresses. Most of her life has been spent in one of the three. We hardly wear regular clothes. In fact I am not sure why we buy them anymore. Anyway.... There are the bongo drums!! They turned out nicely and Aimee decided to do a consistent theme of curious George for decorations.

This week was a ton of fun. We learned so much about instruments, but here are a list of things that I wish we could have done, but I didn't think of until now. Maybe you will get a chance to do some of them:

• actually listening to different kinds of music and pointing out the different instruments you hear.
• visiting a children's science museum that has life size, if not larger replicas of instruments to play. 
• watching videos about instruments. There are a ton, practically every character, George, Dora, Sesame Street has done something with instruments. We could have been living and breathing musical instrument knowledge for a whole week.
• making all of our own instruments and talking more about how people around the world make music.

All that is for another time. We ended the week with a very loud, very exciting musical parade!!! We talked about each instrument and played them one at a time before putting them in the toy box.

(Again swimsuit and tutu, though she added a crown for the parade effect).

The ukulele did not go in the toy box; it lives safe and sound in the rocking chair across the room. It is well loved though, and Aimee has been practicing. Just take a listen for yourself.

Our first theme; Reptiles & Amphibians

It was my husband's birthday this week, he really likes reptiles, so it was just appropriate to do our first theme on reptiles and amphibians. Two birds with one stone, we could have a theme he really likes, use our craft and food items to help celebrate without too much extra work. Thoughtful? Lazy? Hard to say.

We had a ton of fun. Since it was our first week, we didn't get to spend as much time on the theme as I wanted, but a general routine will fall into place eventually.

The picture above shows the books we used. They are wonderful little books that are very informative and perfect for ages 4-8. They are all by Carmen Bredeson and set up very clearly starting with contents, diagrams and words to know.

My favorite part of these books is the simplicity and realism of the concepts. All the general parts of the reptiles/amphibians are explained in easy to follow paragraphs.

Then the realism. "What Eats Frogs." I thought these pages were very important, staying away from predators are a vital part of ever animal's life. This can lead to more discussion about habitats and camouflage. Another nice part about these books is the last page. I neglected to take a picture, but it shows the life cycle of the subject of the book. This is especially important if it is an amphibian and goes through a metamorphosis.  The book didn't elaborate on the life cycle, but with the pictures and a little creativity, metamorphosis is easy to explain to a preschooler. It is lots of fun to quiz on what is a reptile and what is a amphibian. You can look at baby pictures of the species, if they look like their moms when they are born, then they are not an amphibian, since they don't go through a "big change."

Last year I decorated the house for my husband's birthday with pictures of different reptiles I had printed out. Aimee and I colored them and hung them up. I saved them and we hung them again this year. It is very fun to hang them in different places and go around and say what kind of reptile and amphibian they are. Even labeling them, so your preschooler can see the word, but we never got around to that. Here are some pictures.

 

The craft we choose this week was to make some paper plate snakes. We took some regular heavy paper plates and decorated them with water colors. Markers will work well also. Then I cut the snake out, by cutting the paper plate in a spiral way from the outside in. I shaped the head, and we poked pipe cleaner though the head so it could hang up. (Caution; if you have a cat this might not be the best craft. We found out just how high our cat could jump after we made these. Many of them got ripped). 

 

  

The last part of the theme we did was making a cake. Aimee and I used 2 round cake pans, we made yellow cake and frosting and decorated. It was great fun to bake together and Aimee is a big fan of our new hand mixer, as am I. We were finally able to make decent frosting! Here are pictures. Be warned though, we used the round cake pans, since we didn't have a bundt pan, but a budnt pan might work better for this, as it would add a roundness to the snake. You would have to make 2 bundt pans to get some length. If you are not savvy enough, like us, to have bundt pans, cut out the center circles of the round cakes, after getting them out of the pans, then cut the main outer circle in half.

Here are our 2 cake pans. Apparently they are different sizes; this is obvious in the picture, but has taken me a year to figure out. I remember questioning it once, but now I know. 

Wow that is big and beautiful. These cakes end up being very long!!! We had to use a pizza box completely folded out. Our cake recipe came from the Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book. The actual cake without frosting was so good, you will be glad to have pieces left over. 

Our finished product!!! We could have done more, but I was running late for work. 

Until next week!!!

Happy Themeing!!!

Tiffany & Aimee

The Game Plan!

Hello!

Welcome to the Crayon Apron! My name is Tiffany; I have a three year old daughter named Aimee. Aimee is very interested in a variety of topics; I love to help her learn about all she can. To that end, we have adopted a method that works for our family; hopefully you will be able try it out with yours.

Theme Based Learning, is what it sounds like. Picking a topic and delving deeper into it. Since my daughter is three, we are choosing to do a theme a week. We don't go too in depth at this age, but at some point may go back to an earlier topic to further research it, as necessary. We pick themes out a couple of weeks ahead of time and base them on my daughter's current interest. If she has started noticing horses, instruments, etc. more, then that is the next theme. I let it come naturally and go from there. The more interested she is, the easier she learns.

On this blog I will be highlighting our themes, and showing what we do with them. I will always suggest books, crafts and food ideas. Hopefully I will also be able to have trip ideas to do with the themes, depending on the theme, space is obviously not going to happen. Unless you live by NASA and can tour the museum.

Have a great time!!!
Tiffany