Well another week has gone by, everything is a blur these busy, busy days! It is the National Day holiday now, so we have a week off of school (hooray!). So now we can catch up on regular life things, like looking for a new apartment since our lease ends at the end of this month! I am nervous to go out looking at places, since the rental prices have skyrocketed this past year. I've been working out a list of things I want in our new apartment...most of them I will probably compromise on, and I'm not sure an apartment exists in Shanghai (in our price range) that meets all my requirements, but here's hoping! I'll have to do a separate blog post on apartment hunting in Shanghai. It's quite an ordeal. Unlike the US, where apartments are generally owned by the complex itself, everything here is individually owned (like houses or condos) so you have to work with a realtor and individual landlords. The longer we live here, the easier it gets simply because we have done it a few times now. Alex is quite the expert in negotiating contracts now! But more on that another time.
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I've been wanting to put some of my lesson plans and curriculum up on the blog so will try to start that up today since I have some free time while baby Geneva naps!
I'll start with something unexpected...music class! Bet you weren't guessing I would post on music! I am currently wearing the hat of the music teacher at Guang Qi Academy. A temporary position, I hope, but one that I have very much enjoyed this past week. Last year I found a music curriculum on a Classical School Curriculum website (www.veritaspress.com) that I love. It is called 'Discoveries in Music' and put out by Calvert School.
It begins by introducing the orchestra and the different 'families' of instruments. I downloaded 'Peter and the Wolf' and used it during our Music Appreciation time after lunch on Tuesday and Thursday this week. The kids, Kindergarteners, First Graders, and Second Graders all enjoyed it. It is short, only about 30 minutes, and I printed out some pictures and made little puppets to go along with the music. The kids took turns holding the different characters and 'acting' out the story of Peter and his animal friends capturing the wolf! I downloaded this version of Peter and the Wolf...mostly because it also comes with 'The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra' and 'Carnival of Animals', which I also plan on using in other lessons. The great thing about starting with Peter and the Wolf is that it clearly separates the sounds of the different instruments in an orchestra. Apparently Prokofiev was commissioned to write this to introduce children to the instruments, and there is even a ballet that accompanies it.
At home that night I let my girls watch the Disney cartoon version on YouTube. Wendy and Vera were a bit confused by the fact that the Duck wasn't actually eaten by the Wolf in the Disney version, but other than that it was ok. (In the original performance, the duck is swallowed whole by the wolf.) It's a good visual, especially for younger kids and the first couple of minutes show the instruments in cartoon form morphing into the characters in the cartoon, which does reinforce the understanding of the instruments that I was going for in class. Here's a link to the first half ...
Then during Music class we listened to Peter's theme and studied about the Strings Family. The short video that accompanies the Discoveries in Music lessons are short (about 6-8 minutes), super-cheesy (think late 80's hair and stlye), but very engaging and the kids LOVED the short intro to the string family of instruments. Wendy had a chance to play her violin and the kids all got a chance to try it out for a few minutes as well. I then showed the kids a seating arrangement for an orchestra and we briefly looked at some of the other string family instruments and listened to hear how each one sounded (part of the video), mainly focusing on the Violin, Viola, Cello, and Bass...although other instruments were mentioned.
I'm hoping to take the older kids to the Symphony later this fall/early winter once we have studies the different families of instruments. I have a fun lesson that I found online about etiquette for kids attending the symphony and hopefully can find one that they would enjoy playing at the right time for a field trip!
On an unrelated note, a friend of mine encouraged me to take a picture of my stroller after school the other day. This is my version of the mini-van:
I had my teaching bag, plus all the kids backpacks, and I was 'carpooling', walking a friends' kid home with us (hence the spiderman backpack). I do believe it was also music class day, so that would be Wendy's violin in the front of the stroller. Usually everything hangs off the back and Geneva acts a counter-weight for all the stuff. No wonder my strollers don't last very long!
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