Dear Parents,
Happy Spring! We are celebrating this change of seasons at Treehouse with new activities in music class.
I always find daylight savings time a rough transition and I think many of your kids to too. As an antidote I bring in the story songbook, “Waking Up Is Hard To Do.” This is a child’s version of Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” The upbeat tempo of this song combined with the fun animal characters and colorful illustrations are a great way to shake off the “sleepies” that can come after loosing an hour of sleep! The chorus repeats, “waking up is hard to do-oo,” and you may be hearing that refrain at home. Another new song was, “Pussy Willow,” which is sung up a major scale and down again. I brought in my step bells and ladder so they could visualize the direction of the melody.
Our animal sounds are also changing with a focus on spring sounds. This last month we listened to a variety of frog sounds. We learned that the only frog that really says, “ribit-ribit,” is the Pacific tree frog. The bull frog is the largest frog in north America and makes his sound through moving a membrane on his neck in and out. The green frog sounds like a banjo. We also enjoyed singing several frog songs, which included “The Bull Frog,” “Five Little Freckled Frogs,” and “Hear the Lively Song.” Our other spring sounds include the robin, the blue jay, the meadowlark, the goose, chickadee and woodpecker. We also sang “The Robin,” and learned a finger play, “Five Little Birds.”
The Forest class has done some of the activities above and has also been learning some call and response songs which include: “Ladybug, Ladybug,” “Oh My, No More Pie,” and “Hambone.” The River class has begun working on the songs and activities for their spring performance and also started working on some new songs on their metalophones in preparation for graduation.
There are two special upcoming events outside Treehouse that I would like to bring to your attention. First, Colorado Music Festival and Central City Opera will be presenting a special family series performance called Mozart and Co. at the Center for Musical Arts in Lafayette on April 11. There is a $2 discount ticket available online at centralcityopera.org using the discount code: CMA2019. There are bookmarks by the sign in at the front desk. Prices are $8/adult, $5/kids, ages 2 and under free. Since our kids have learned a little about Mozart I would love to see lots of you there. Also, Central City Opera does have a tiny tots meet the orchestra concert at the Boulder Jewish Community Center on May 2 at 9:30 am.
Ms. Kathleen