Dear Parents,

I would like to add my thanks to all the parents and families that attended our annual spring performance. The River class worked very hard on their program and the result was wonderful. They are a group of very strong singers and performers.

After such a good effort for their spring performance, we took some time in River to play a note reading game. With very little actual review, these children were very quick to learn the game and play it well. We used this game as a review to help them when we began working on two more songs we hope to have ready for graduation on their metallophones. River is also working on their songs for graduation but we still had some time to enjoy the Puff, the Magic Dragon book and the reprise of the Waking Up Is Hard To Do book. They also enjoyed some sing along time with the guitar.

The song story books are very popular in all the classrooms. Usually Puff the Magic Dragon is the favorite in the spring but this year we actually brought back Waking Up Is Hard To Do by popular request. Even the Mountain classroom gets very excited when either of these books come out of the cart.

The children also all enjoy when I bring the guitar in for sing along time. Usually they request “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” or “Traffic Light,” or the “ABC song”, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” or “The Wheels on the Bus.” Occasionally they will challenge me with something we haven’t done before on the guitar. When I enter Birch usually the first two questions they ask me are, “Did you bring your guitar?” or “Do you have a book?” Some other songs they like to sing include, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “La Crocodile,” “The More We Get Together,” “Old McDonald Had a Farm,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Make New Friends,” and “The More We Get Together.”

The music for movement this month has included marching to Polonaise, rocking to the Boat song and in Evergreen and Forest we did a series of Animal Exercises.

I like to use finger plays during transition times and have found that these capture the attention of both the youngest and oldest of our students. The finger plays for this month included, “Touch Your Nose,” “Grandma’s Glasses,” “Here Is a Bunny,” “Five Little Blackbirds” and “Where is Thumb-kin.”

As always, I love input from families.

Kathleen Stith