I know it is a little early to celebrate Chinese New Year 2008, which falls on 7th of February this year. But, I thought about doing music activities with children in kindergarten, using songs and music that introduce Chinese New Year, and wanted to get them ready early. If you are music teachers and music therapists, many of you probably have tried instrument playing or singing activity employing Chinese pentatonic. That's one of the things that I am thinking of doing..... I also thought about using a song called "Gung Hay Fat Choy - Chinese New Year Song." It sings about how people celebrate Chinese New Year in simple, but catchy melodies.

You see the picture of Chinese dumplings (and even a short photo movie below!), because I want to talk to children about Chinese New Year Dish - yes, dumplings are one of the traditional Chinese New Year entrees and perhaps, something that children are somewhat familiar with. I often like to incorporate food items with counting and simple math songs, and that's what I am planning on doing. And the other thing that I almost always love to do is using photos of real items, if I cannot bring them to sessions. It is more authentic and often time aethetically beautiful (in my opinion). So, last night, I decided to make 100 of Chinese dumplings for supper and they were delicious! Plus, I got to take pictures of dumplings while I was imagining how fun it would be to try all the Chinese New Year activities with children! 

NOTE: The tune which is played in the short movie is called "Oshogatsu," which means Japanese New Year.  

"WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD"

by George David Weiss (author), Bob Thiele (author), Ashley Bryan (illustrator)

With colorful, vibrant, and beautiful illustration, the lyrics of the song "What a Wonderful World," which was made famous by Satchmo Louis Armstrong, come to life.  

There are lots of books that sing and rhyme such as "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and "Baby Beluga." I often use books for beginning readers in individual or small group music therapy sessions. I think there are lots of benefits to combine these books with music. Children become visually intrigued by the beautiful pictures in the books every time you turn a page. Catchy rhymes and familiar melodies effortlessly motivate their interest in vocalizing and verbalizing to learn new words and phrases. Here are some of my favorites that I would like to share (click on the picture below to see the gallery of Books That Sing): 

Photo Gallery of Books That Sing

Many of you....especially if you are a music educator who works with young children, you must know about Music K-8 Marketplace. A colleague of mine (a music therapist) introduced me to Music K-8 magazine a few years ago when I used to work with older children (6-22 yrs olds) with multiple challenges at a place called Massachusetts Hospital School. My colleague had a subscription to the magazine for every issue and she was so kind to share them with her colleagues (music therapists) including me . After I left the place, since I was working with very young children (0-3 yrs olds), I had forgotten ( !! ) about Music K-8 . This morning, I was organizing & cleaning up my file cabinet and found a school year catalog of Music K-8. And it all came back to me how much I loved the magazine! This magazine and the Music K-8 Marketplace website will be great resource for me when I work with young children at preschool and kindergarten. I already spent several hours browsing their website this morning (oops, I haven't finished cleaning)...it's filled with great activity ideas, downloads of original songs and mp3 clips!!  It's wonderful and I just wanted to share it with anyone who has not discovered Music K-8 yet or anybody who wants to rediscover it!

Listen to this bouncy movement song from Music K-8:

It is getting colder and colder every day. We see ice and snow on the ground (especially if you live in New England). We get to wear snow boots, toasty jackets, mittens, scrarfs, and hats to keep us warm. But, what do some of the animals do? Animals such as bears and frogs go to sleep in the winter. They sleep throughout the winter until the spring comes. As us adults know, this is called "hibernation."

In order to talk about "hibernation," I brought this soft, fluffy, and cuddly brown blanket (I found it at a local Target).  I put eyes, nose, and ears on the upper part of the blanket, so when you open the blanket and hold it from the top, it looks like a big cuddly bear! I put them on using a glue gun and craft supplies from Walmart.

When I introduced this blanket of groups of children, I put it on the floor and asked children to sit down on it. Then children were asked to pretend that they were sleeping (hibernating) with the bear as they sang this song:

Hibernation (sing to the tune of "Alouetta")

Hibernation, winter hibernation

Hibernation, it's time to go to sleep

In the winter where's the bear?

Sleeping in the log or lair

Where's the bear? (where's the bear?)

Log or lair (log or lair)

Oh...

Hibernation, winter hibernation

Hibernation, it's time to go to sleep 

Children at a preschool had fun with rocking their bodies and pretending to snore to the music. They had opportunities to use some of the sensory words such as "soft," "warm," "(feels) good," and "smooth" to describe the blanket (bear).

This turned out to be one of the most responsive activities among the young children that I work with. Even children who have difficulties with sitting in a circle calmed down and engaged in pretend sleep during this activity. Something about the song, rocking their bodies slowly, closing their eyes, and the softness of the cuddly bear blanket intrigued them. Also, I did this activity two times (each session was week apart) with the same groups of children and during the first week, only one child knew and a few others could say the word "hibernation." But during the second week, about half of the children spontaneously used the words of "hibernate" and "hibernation." I know the word can be a BIG WORD, but many children were able to understand the basic concenpt and the word of "hibernation" through this activity.   

I also used my frog puppet - he hibernates too!

And I used the bat hair band too - yes, a bat hibernates.

Oh, and...this is a good book when you would like to teach children about "hibernation."

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson