Animal Week Fun!

Today we celebrated Animal Week with a smaller group than usual. To be honest, I think this was in part due to the AMAZING sunshine outside! I took the spring-like energy of the outdoors and channeled it into making music with my friends inside the doors of Robertson House.

We started with a request (The Turtle Chant) and kept to the animal theme as we sang through many songs, including: Johnny Didn't Have Any Breakfast, Old MacDonald, Listen to the Water, Six Little Ducks, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Poor Little Bug On the Wall, Tingalayo, Alice the Camel and Elephants Marching.

For the instrument of the week I surprised the group with three different sizes of Wooden Frogs from Thailand! A common type of guiro from Asia, rhythms are created by running a stick up and down the ridges cut on its back at different speeds. The mouth and belly are hollowed out so that the sound may resonate deeply and sound incredibly life-like. We took turns passing them around and sang Little Green Frog and Three Green and Speckled Frogs.

We jammed to Rockin' Robin, Going to the Zoo, and Down By the Bay. We were able to come up with some amazing animal rhymes including, "Have you ever seen a cat doing yoga on a mat!?" Unfortunately, we ran out of time for the parachute, but the class ended with lots of smiles and loud, hungry-sounding tummies. Thank goodness we still had some snacks leftover from the generous Longo's donation!