Hello SPRING!

It was a gorgeous day at Robertson House on Tuesday and a feeling of spring was certainly in the air. The birds were singing and the sun was shining as I made my way into the residence with Leslie. We dropped off what would be the second Longo's donation of snacks with the daycare staff and made our way to the room. There were lots of people around and I sensed a great deal of positive energy going into today's class.

We sang The Hello Song and I got the sense that although the energy was slightly frenzied, the class was again this week going to make great strides in the level of participation. We started with Roly Poly, I Wake Up My Hands, and The Tickle Song to warm up our voices and body parts. Then I taught some sign language to accompany one of my favourites, Mr. Sun. We also reviewed a lap-ride from the previous class, She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain, which has quite a few verses and actions that can be done while singing. We practiced and reviewed some animal actions and signs for Old MacDonald, then stood up and moved around the room like elephants singing along to Elephants Have Wrinkles, which was a new song for some.

After sitting back down we sang Roll The Ball, which is always a fun activity to try, especially when some of the children who struggled with rolling the ball the week before rolled it with ease the second time around.

This week for the Instrument of the Week I chose another instrument from the rhythm section, the tambourine. I find that many people are familiar with this instrument and and so it can be difficult to make it seem new and exciting. However, I was recently inspired by a video of Pete Seeger singing This Old Man. Pete played the tambourine on different body parts, so I took this same idea and instructed the participants to find their thumbs, feet, thighs, hips, and floor (yes, not a body part but still a useful technique). Because we didn't have enough tambourines for each child, we had to pass the instrument to our neighbour in between each verse which gave us some practice in sharing. Overall it was successful and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and sing along!

We reviewed Hands Up! during the jam and made sure to squeeze in a couple minutes of parachute singing.

I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the positive energy at Robertson House this week and hope to keep those faces smiling week to week!