9) Frog Day 1

Brain Development in Children Through Music and Movement

Together:

Music Hello, Music Hello, Music Hello

Melodies flow, Melodies Flow, Melodies Flow

G: How are you boys? We’re doing fine. How are you girls? We’re doing fine. How are you folks? We’re doing fine. How are you everyone?

B: I’m Peter

G: Hello Peter! I’m Christy

B: Hello Christy

G: I’m Carol

B: Hello Carol. I’m Ryan

G: Hello Ryan!

B: I’m Michael

G: Hello Michael!

B: I’m Eric

G: Hello Eric! I’m Linda

B: Hello Linda! I’m Johnny

G: Hello Johnny! How are you boys?

B: We’re doing fine. How are you girls?

G: We’re doing fine!

Together: How are you folks? We’re doing fine. How are you everyone? Music Hello, Music Hello, Music Hello

Sing the Hello Song

hat a surprise it was to Peter that on the morning of the ninth week, after having been greeted by all these huge animals, that none but a cute little frog appeared in front of him.

“Wap, wap, Hello, Peter! Today I am bringing you your next Musical Health Gift. You look surprised? Yes, I am a pretty small representative of the animal world. But everyone knows that I’m a big fan of jumping! And I can definitely teach you how to jump as well.

First, let’s see how long and high you can jump!”

Peter did a long jump from where he stood. It was not bad. Then he jumped high, and a reasonable distance.

“Well done!” The Frog cheered, “but I am sure that after the music and colour games that I will teach you, you will be able to jump much further and higher. At the same time, not only will you move better, but you’ll also learn coloured notes, and maybe even be able to play them on a real musical instrument – like a piano or flute!!! However, in order to learn how to play music colour games, I’ll have to give you a few instructions. Would you like to call your parents? I can give them the first lesson called “Colour Notes”.

(For Parents) Lesson 1. “Colour Notes”

Let’s agree that the note DO will always be red, the note RE – orange, and so on. So each of the seven notes of a scale are assigned one of seven colours of the rainbow.

Now glue the corresponding coloured circles to each note on the keyboard. Eventually your keyboard should have all coloured keys.

In addition to this, you can add coloured arrows to the black keys, which can help show a note rising by half a tone (sharp), or falling by a half tone (flat). Do this as follows;

On the upper part of the black key, to the right of the coloured note, glue an arrow pointing upwards (for example, find the note D with the orange circle on it, go to the black key to the right of it, and on the upper part of that black key, glue an orange arrow pointing upwards). This now indicates that you can raise the note Re (D) by half a step up to Re sharp or D sharp.
Now on the lower part of the black key, to the left of a coloured note, glue an arrow pointing down (for example, find the note D with the orange circle on it, then go to the black key to the left of it, and on the lower part of the black key, glue an orange arrow pointing down). This then reminds you that lowering the note D by a semitone makes it D flat. Re becomes Re flat.

Let’s try to sing them and play the piano. Peter completed this task with pleasure!

(For Parents) Lesson 2. “Card Charts”

Now we’re going to experiment with writing colored note songs. A ‘Card Chart’ is a piece of paper/cardboard that has three fields:

Top – is the “visual field” (this is where we draw the image or theme of the song);
Middle – is the “musical field” (this is the stave with colored notes)
Bottom – is the “verbal field” (where the words of the song, sit under the notes, in exactly the same colour as the notes.)

Let’s make one Card Chart now. With a brown felt-tip pen that doesn’t interfere with other colours, let’s draw a stave of 5 lines (you can think of this as our “musical field”). Now let’s take a small fragment of my song “The Frog” and turn it into notes.

At the top let’s draw (“visual field”) the main image of the song – the Frog.

Now let’s draw the coloured notes, each syllable of each word should correspond to the colour of the note that it’s sung with.

Our first card chart is ready! Let’s try to sing and play this song;

These notes move by their colour

(For Parents) Lesson 3. “Preparing Circle – Flowers”

Lay out a large cloth with coloured circles on the floor. Put the colored circles under the colored song. Say thank you to your colored circles.

(For Parents) Lesson 4. “Colour Ladder Song”

Create a ladder of seven colours (red at the bottom, purple at the top), stick it on a wall so it’s vertical. When your child, touches the note, they should remember what note that colour relates to. Try to sing and check it on the piano to see if you’re correct.

We will use this colored ladder to perform the “Frog” song. Your child will move from top to bottom, respectively, the melody.

Along with moving across the notes, this colour ladder will also develop your child’s intonation and ear!

(For Parents) Lesson 5. “Flower Carpet, Flying Carpet”

This allows you to lay out a song on a large stave (as opposed to a small “Card Chart”) with the help of cloth notes. In addition, these Carpet Flowers allows you to make forward movements with your child while singing the song. This can be a long piece of cloth or paper with the colored notes drawn on it. Hold your child under their arms and carry them over the colored notes in the direction of the melody while singing. You can raise and lower them down, according to the melody line!

This is why we call it the the “Flower Carpet” or ‘Flying Carpet’: when you carry your child along the notes, they can get the feeling of a colored flight or event colour flash.

I’d like you to try to lay out the colored notes of “The Frog” song on your Flower Carpet, and perform it with your child in your arms.

These three devices of the Circle Flowers, Colour Ladder and Flower Carpet enable many benefits which enable you to train and develop your child’s vestibular apparatus in three areas:

Horizontal direction (“Circle-Flowers”);
Vertical direction (“Ladder-Colour Song”)
Forward direction (“Flower Carpet”).

In real life, these three directons are formed in a child through stages: first they crawl, then they stand, then they walk forward. Taking into account the age-related psychophysiology of the child, we then in the same order reintroduce them to these colored musical aids.

Lastly, I’d just like to say a few words about the names of these colored musical aids: “Circle-Flowers”, “Colour Ladder Song”, “Flower Carpet”. They are easy to say and describe their objects visually and metaphorically, motivates them (through repetition of these names in the classroom) to crete their own helpful phrases!” Concluded the Frog.

Peter’s parents listened attentively to the Frog, and wrote down all his recommendations in a notebook and even managed to make a first colour song called ‘musical flowers’.

The frog, seeing the flowers, exclaimed, “Now, Peter, now that we have flowers, we can start our musical training. Let’s lay out seven flowers in order on the floor: first red, then orange – and then continue according to the colours of the rainbow. At the end, let’s put another red flower. While singing, we will jump over these colored flowers in accordance to the melody and the words.”

The Frog song began to play.

At the end of the song, the Frog called all Peter’s family and friends and invited them to play a game called “Jump on a Flower”. In this game, each player stood in the centre of a circle of arranged flowers. The distance from the centre to the flowers was small at first. At the command of the host, who called a colour, you would then immediately jump on it. When everyone completed the first distance, the flowers were moved a little further apart. Jumps were made again and again – until the flowers were too far to physically jump to! When the game was over, the Frog again turned to Peter and just then Viola the daughter of music appeared.

“Today we will perform the ninth magic of music – The Magic of Scenery.” Viola said,

“You have already learned to draw musical notes on paper. But there is more, music is also theatrical and cinematic. When someone plays music in a performance or in a movie, set designers and costume designers come up with special costumes for artists and decorate the theatre’s stage with beautiful scenery.

Today I’ve brought you a lot of fun materials: paint, clay, cardboard, thread and needles, paper, glue, and much more. So this time, while the Frog song is playing, try to come up with a frog costume and scenery for the stage. Imagine as if you were designing something for the frog in a real theatre.” Smiled Viola.

The Frog song began to play again, Peter immediately began to create a cute Frog suit and beautiful paper flowers and paint grass and trees. It became so beautiful that the Frog did not want to leave. But just at that moment, the sound of a bell rang out. Viola once more congratulated Peter for learning the ninth magic of music – The Magic of Scenery. The frog said goodbye and then quickly disappeared.

Quite honestly, Peter could not wait for the end of class, because he wanted to try to play the colour notes on his piano on his own and show his new talent to his parents.

At last Peter came back to his collection of costumes, which was now invigorated with a Frog suit for which he created springs on the legs for jumping.

Planet Harmony

Instructions

Read the fairytale.

Please check to confirm completion of activities.

Musical Nutrition