Dear Parents,

I would like to add my thanks to all of you who participated in our annual Celebration of Light and Love. The children had worked very hard to learn their music and it was so great to have everyone come out and celebrate with them.

After all their hard work, I like to let them have some “choice time” in music class. Each class gets to choose their favorite activities, songs and sounds. The most popular activities were some of the song books, animal sounds, and the puppets.

The seasonal song books we shared in these last couple of weeks included, “The Marvelous Toy,” “Frosty the Snowman” (I know, still) and “The Nutcracker.” They also requested the ever popular “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Driving My Tractor.” Although each class heard the same songs it was very fun to see how each book took on it’s own meaning for the individual classes. Dogwood still preferred “Driving My Tractor.” Cedar usually requested “Frosty.” Birch absolutely loved marching to the “Nutcracker.” Aspen loved and became very boisterous over “The Marvelous Toy.” Evergreen was the class that requested “Driving My Tractor,” but also seemed to enjoy the “Nutcracker” and “ The Marvelous Toy.” Forest seemed to like all the books equally. River seemed most interested in “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

I like to use the books and puppets for the animal sounds. “Frosty the Snowman” had pictures of the cardinal and the chickadee, so I included those sounds whenever I read the stories. The chickadee song begins with sol, mi and Birch especially loved to sing those two notes before the more familiar chickadee, dee, dee, dee, dee. I also brought in the Australian animal finger puppets which were more popular in Evergreen and Forest. Cedar and Birch also liked the owl sounds. Birch often brought over their toy animals to listen to those sounds. I have two bear puppets which we used when we sang “The Bear Went Over the Mountain,” and “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.” The bears were very popular with the Mountain classroom and Evergreen, Forest and River.

Much to my surprise, the children did not seem that interested in playing instruments for choice time. There were a few requests for the drum, especially in the younger classrooms and Forest. We did use the jingle bells for the “Jingle Bells” song and the shaker eggs for some of the “Nutcracker” movements. River is also anxious for me to bring in my guitar but I am waiting until I get out of my boot to bring that in.

In closing I would just like to wish you all a safe, joyous and restful holiday season. I look forward to seeing you all again after the break.

Ms. Kathleen