Teaching 3 year olds Music

I can not remember if I mentioned this earlier or not, but on Wednesday nights I "help" with the 3 year old Choir. Well, we call it 3 year old Music as choir seems a little more ambitious than we get. There are 5 teachers for roughly 15 3 year olds (well 3-4 year olds as it goes by the school year). Yes, we NEED that many teachers!

This class is so sweet, energetic but sweet. We start out with a craft project where the kids glue things down to create something related to our "music" that week. For example, this week they made penguins to go with a penguin story (because you know it's COLD out there). Notice I said STORY and not song. LOL

We always start with this one song, "So Happy You're Here" by Hap Palmer. Anyway, it's one of those songs that stays in your mind...for hours. (if you click the link from the name you can hear the song!). The kids absolutely love this song, and they do the motions, they stand, they sort of sing. LOL Some words come out, sometimes it's just a hum, but they are trying. Hopefully by the end of the year we'll get them singing it. By the end of the year I should have it memorized.

Then, Miss Melissa (who has endless energy) leads them into the "5 Little Monkeys" song (same CD and listed right after the "So Happy You're Here" and yes, we're jumping, hopping, turning, and such. It's an active music class in case you didn't realize it from the songs. Another link for your pleasure

Eventually we all must sit down (and usually it's the teachers wanting to sit down first). Now, I know if you've ever worked with kids before, you KNOW that sometimes things come out of thier mouths that make you giggle. Sometimes they do something, but it never fails that at least one incident of giggles occurs. :) One little girl CHEERS after every song and says with a huge heartfelt sigh "I LOVE that song." After every book, "I LOVE that book." Sometimes we get "instruments" and the kids love to hit the rhythm sticks, or ring the bells, or shake the jingle bells, or strike the xylophone, or rub the sandblocks. Now imagine...15 kids, all at one time. It's LOUD. Getting them to stop semi-together is tough. One child will just keep playing that instrument (and it's a different child each week). Getting them to put the instruments away is easier than I imagined (Miss Melissa says, "Okay let's put them away and do the ______ song."). Typically, it's another "active" song. *GROAN* Tonight found me jumping, hopping, walking, flying, crawling, and giving hugs. I'm glad we didn't do the Hokey Pokey this week!

We do sing church songs, but Jesus Loves Me, Father Abraham (another active song), and such are rather hard for the kids. We've tried "I am a Promise" but the part where it says "I'm a great big bundle of potentiality" kind of messed them up. Boy was it cute to see them TRY to sing it though.

The last few weeks (well months) we've been reading "No David" and the kids repeat each line in the book, and make comments on each page. Like the first page "David's mom always says, 'No David.' " The kids say "NO, David!" when Melissa reads the first page. Then one little girl will yell out "He's not supposed to write on the wall!" When David breaks the vase, the kids say that he was not supposed to play ball in the living room. The first week we read that, one little girl said "OH NO, he'll get a spanking! He should have listened to his MOMMY." But I think their favorite page...is "Come back here David!" (you know the page where he is running down the sidewalk) The page where David is picking his nose (and you have to hear Melissa's tone when she read "No David" as it's PERFECT for a Mom whose told her child a million and one times to not pick his nose), well, on this page tonight one little one said "I can do that!" and proceeded to just that. *giggle*

What I've learned from this group, is that all these kids are good kids. They are all little individuals with great big personalities. We don't have to do everything religious. I thought when we started the year that we'd sing lots of children's religious songs. That all the stories would be Bible stories. But, I've learned, that it's mostly about having a good time and making them enjoy it. After all, if they enjoy coming to church, and we do some religious stuff...isn't that best?