3/3/2017 March­April 2017 Newsletter

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Music News

MARCH/APRIL 2017 908‐654‐5899

Our Kids SING With Puppets,DANCE With Scarves,

LEARN the Magic of Music,And - STAR on a Small Stage!

OUR SPRING MUSIC

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Our music for Early Spring features songs welcoming the upcoming season: songs of newlife like In the Egg and Just Hatched are at the top of this list. With the coming months come popular holidays: St. Patrick's Day and Easter. Naturally,we have some fun songs for those special occasions: St. Patrick's Day and At EasterTime. We are also delighted to feature some of our favorite songs featuring Spanish languageintroduction: Uno Dos Tres and All the Colors (Des Colores). In addition we will besinging songs about transportation: Engine, Engine, and Driving, Driving. We finish off our session with our classical music offering, the Birdcatcher aria fromMozart's The Magic Flute. This is a delightful and lighthearted introduction to thewonderful genre of Opera. Our students can also look forward to making up songs and lyrics about puppet friends thatwill be making welcome appearances in music class!

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CLASSICAL MUSIC EXPOSURE: OPERA - MOZART'S "THE MAGIC FLUTE"

Opera?! You're really playing Opera music to infants, toddlers and pre­K kids? Yes, yes, and YES! If auditory cognition is stimulated as children are exposed to the sounds of new anddifferent instruments, then that stimulation is expanded even further by the sounds of

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human vocal instruments at the highestlevel of talent and training. Motor skillsare engaged as children move anddance. Imagination is sparked by thevariety of moods and tonal colorings inclassical music. Stories of Magic Flutesand Heroic characters stimulate andinspire young minds. Operaencompasses ALL of these things.

"The Magic Flute"(Die Zauberflöte) wascomposed byWolfgang AmadeusMozart in 1791. Itbroke from thepredominant traditionsat the time as it wasbased on a German

libretto (script) when most Operas where sung in Italian, and it included the spokendialogue of the German singspiel tradition. Nevertheless, it was warmly received and drewlarge crowds. This session, your Sing a Song teachers will feature an aria from this popular opera, "DerVogelfänger bin ich ja" (basically "Yes! I am the Birdcatcher"). It is sung by Papageno, adelightful character traditionally dressed in feathers and carrying a whistle for calling thebirds. In the song he describes his care free life and complains about the lack of agirlfriend. As the traditions of Opera were established ­ starting from the late 16th century ­ itbecame a showcase for the very best of almost every form of art: instrumental and vocalmusic, dance, art (elaborate sets) and even fairly sophisticated theatrical technology. Manyof the stage effects used on Broadway today can trace their origins back to machinerydeveloped centuries ago, and Opera was a driving force of those innovations. By integrating operatic music into our Sing a Song classes with fine and gross motoractivities, scarf activities and puppet play, your children take ownership of this delightfullyvast and rich musical genre!

FROM YOUR TEACHER

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A story contributed by one of our teachers.This session's contribution from:

Ashley Bonilla

Spring is almost here and what a better way tocelebrate than to dance to music! Our Sing A Songcurriculum provides opportunities for your children tomove and groove to music during each class. Duringthe winter session our classes introduced the soundsof the Caribbean, such as salsa, meringue, soca,reggae and calypso. As soon as the music played, we

couldn't help ourselves but to get up and dance. Although the spring will hopefully bring a lot of sunshine, there will also be some rainydays. Moving to music is the best way to chase away those rainy day blues. The greatthing about dancing is that any movement can be made into a dance move. Stomp yourfeet, sway your body side to side, or wave your hands in the air; just let the music guideyour movements by listening to the beat and melody. Movement and music are not only afun way to develop gross motor skills but arec also beneficial to your child's social andcreative cognitive development. Imitating movement encourages children to followdirections, while freestyle dancing allows children to develop their creativity. In our Sing ASong classes we love to pretend to be different animals by not only making animal sounds,but also moving like those animals move. If you're stuck on coming up with a dance moveof your own, you can ask your child, "How would a bunny dance?" or "How does a snakemove?" I can assure you that your child may start jumping and hopping around the room orslithering like a snake on the floor. Prompting these kinds question will help develop yourchild's creativity and imagination. I encourage you! Move to music with your child! Whether it's to pre­recorded music, ormusic that you and your child make with instruments or by singing ­ get up and dance! Letyour child take the lead and imitate some of their movements too.And if all else fails wiggle!

CULTURAL SPOTLIGHTSPANISH LANGUAGE SONGS

Music is a wonderful conduit for learning!(Like we didn't know that...) We use it to teach the alphabet, numbers and countless other basic skills. All along ­children are developing vital language and listening skills.

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This makes music a fun way to introduce children tolanguages different from their own. For many children, itintroduces them to the fact that there ARE languages otherthan the one they hear all the time. We will feature several songs that introduce and integrateSpanish words in the lyrics over the next months. We love tofeature these songs. They expand the language skills of ournative English speaking students, and students who mayhear Spanish in their home environment on a regular basis,love the familiarity of hearing this language in their classes.

Convenient online registration is available on our website.

Go to www.yoursingasong.com to register today.

Sing a Song, LLCDiane Connor

812 Sherbrooke Drive, Wesield NJ 07090

Sing A Song, 812 Sherbrooke Drive, Westfield, NJ 07090

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