In last night's class we had children aged ten and up, so along with music, I brought in some tween yoga to accommodate this age group. They loved the yoga and we all bonded and had a lovely time. We finished with the parachute and they requested we dance to All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Last week we met a new family to the shelter who had only just arrived that day. It was an honour to be able to welcome them in with music and laughter. The child in the family is thirteen, and though the songs were catered to a younger audience, she seemed happy to participate and support the younger children. Highlights included Sleeping Bunnies, trying out different rhythms with the rhythm sticks, and parachute.
This week we had a special visitor, board member Natasha, and the children loved having her in the class! We also sang a new song I learned that goes as follows, "apples, peaches, pears and plums, stand up when your birthday comes." We learned about the months of the year as well as when everyone's birthday was! The group was really in to it. We ended with this group's favourite tradition, dancing under the parachute to Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me.
We continued where we left off at Arise last week, expanding on the song I'm a Clever Cook, in which we exercised our brains to sing in the right order all of the many ingredients we added to our stew. We also brought back the thunder tubes and added in a rainstick to make it sound like a thunderstorm. The whole group also had fun with The Hokey Pokey, Sleeping Bunnies, and more Taylor Swift parachute time (a fan favourite right now!).
We had a fun class last week celebrating Halloween and the ever-changing fall season. We sang I'm a Clever Cook and made a pretend autumn stew (or witch's brew), did the Monster Mash, and made some scary sounds with the thunder tubes. This particular group also consists of Taylor Swift fans, so we danced to You Belong With Me under the parachute (third week in a row) and had a blast!
At the beginning of class this week the children seemed to have a lot of energy they needed to get out, so we started with Shake Your Sillies Out, and an activity called the shakedown. This seemed to help them release some of those "sillies," and after moving our bodies we sang a spooky Halloween song called Shut the Door. They enjoyed this, and even wanted to try performing the song solo/one at a time for the group. I also brought back the "musical spoons" as our featured instrument, and they had a blast getting to try them out.
In this week's class we continued with some fall-themed songs, and pretended to be the falling leaves from the trees as we sang, "Falling falling falling leaves, mother nature did you sneeze?!" We also did the Itsy, Bitsy, Spider, and the children got creative and wanted to show me their best yoga spider poses. For the instrument feature, I brought out the "musical spoons" for the first time and everyone was intrigued, including the staff member!
Last night we had a fun, sweet class. There were three kids in the class and they seemed to need to get a lot of energy out at first, so we did Sleeping Bunnies four times, and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes at hyper speed! Then we sang a song called, I Love My Body, about loving our bodies and our faces just as we are. There's a line where we sing, "I like the way I look when I look in the mirror," and the kids insisted on climbing up a chest of toys to look in a mirror higher up on the wall as they were singing.
Another special moment included playing the Tibetan singing bowl and listening to how long the sound/vibrations drew out for. The bowl was sitting on a wooden floor and we believe that the wood must have conducted the sound really well as the bowl rang out for the longest any of us had ever heard before! It was a really neat and magical moment for the group.
Last week I returned to Arise for the fall session. The group was happy to see me and to start up again. The group's energy seemed a little low at times, and I believe this was due to the return to school and transitioning in to a new routine. The children perked up when we got up on our feet for, Shake Your Sillies Out, and Down by the Station. The mother in attendance requested I sing the Bumble Bee Song, so we had fun with that tune as well and the actions that go with it.
My last class at Arise was a little smaller than usual because some of the children were away at a camp for the week. It's a big class to begin with however, so there was still a lot of energy and enthusiasm! Highlights included making "creeeeeeeeeaking" sounds with the song, Shut the Door, and playing the African-inspired instrument, the ocean drum.
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