Green Turtles #7

NEED TO KNOW

Green Turtles #7: Great playing this week! Your students are getting so much more comfortable at the keyboards! I love seeing their C positions, firetruck dings, and red chords! Next week we'll start on the c minor chord!

SOUNDTRACK: Using the recorded music will make practice so much more fun and effective! It helps your Green Turtle to play in tempo and sound like a rock star! Tracks 19-47 on the Green Turtles album on the app are all play-along tracks, and many of the songs have both a "Practice" track and a "Performance" track. The main difference is speed. Using them will give your student structure and a satisfying ensemble feel. If you're having issues with the app, check out this section of the website on app troubleshooting and features. If having a CD copy would help you, let me know and I'll get one for you! Or you can download the tracks at this link and use them however you want. 

CELEBRATE CONNECTION: Put sticky notes covering different sections of the song, and number them 1-6. Roll a die and remove that numbered paper. Play that section! Keep rolling, removing, and playing until you can play the whole thing! You can also take your songbook to a couch or the floor and sing along with the song while pointing to the chords and music in your songbook.

HOMEWORK HELP: This week's homework is identifying our red, blue, and yellow chords by their shape in home position. We identify chord shapes by their intervals. Most triads (three-note chords) are made of up 3rds (stacked up nice and neat) and 4ths (with a little gap between), and the kids are learning to recognize chord shape by looking at where the 3rd is. We've worked on the red chord for a few weeks (two different 3rds, stacked up nice and neat all the way which we call snowman shape), and this week's class is the first that we've talked about what the blue (3rd on the top, so top-heavy) and yellow (3rd on the bottom, so bottom-heavy) chords look like. Check the Reference Section of your student's workbook on page 70 for a visual of this concept, and remember that we're looking for the 3rd.

GOOD TO KNOW

THREE BLIND MICE: We can play a MI RE DO! This repetition is great for strengthening fingers and training ears to hear a melodic ostinato! Plus we're asking them to watch the music with laser beam eyes as they play and adding in rhythm (specifically bug-bug-slu-ug). Playing with the accompaniment track and singing along with make this even more valuable. If you play the guitar or ukulele, get your C chord ready to have a jam session and sing along! 

HURRY HURRY DRIVE THE FIRETRUCK: Your students are doing so awesome on playing their sol-fa-mi-re-dos! I'm so proud! Now is the perfect time to make sure they are strengthening the fingers so all of their fingers stay close to the keyboard while playing the other keys and don't "flyaway." 

FUN TO KNOW

We keep talking about "laser beam eyes," watching each note on the music while we play it with our hands. The goal is to keep eyes on the book, glancing at the fingers only when needed. This not only helps to draw the correlation between what is written and what is played, but also helps the students to be great sight readers. But be careful with your powerful laser eyes!