Today in MusIQ Club! » Cortney Anderson

Charlotte Academy 12/17

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:54:38 +0000

Last weeks class was very challenging for the students, but this week I was so impressed and proud of how well everyone worked! All the students came to class ready to learn and listen and we all had a great time! Everyone was eager to participate and learn more. This week we unlocked a new game in Children’s Music Journey. This game was a huge hit! It’s an ear training exercise that is so much fun. A little Tarzan character needs to get from one cliff to his home on the other side of the jungle by swinging on vines. To get him there students listen to 2 or 3 tones on the piano and have to play back notes getting higher and lower. When they get the notes right the little Tarzan makes it home safe and sound. If they don’t our silly character misses his vine and has to start over.

We also reviewed all that we’ve learned about Mr Beethoven, who was a German Composer, and Mr Bach, who made lots of church music and had 20 children!

I am so proud of how well everyone worked and how eager they were to learn this week. Have a fun winter break and I can’t wait to see you all again after the new year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Miss Cortney

Posted in Charlotte Academy, Uncategorized

St Patrick’s 12/16

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:44:48 +0000

I am so impressed with how well everyone is doing! We have been learning so much about Mr Bach. We’ve learned that Mr Bach had 20 children! oh my. Mr. Bach has taught us so much. Almost everyone has mastered rhythms and are now onto playing left and right hand notes together! This can be tricky especially when there are holding notes but we’re all working so well and having a great time while we learn.

Here is a worksheet to practice when we play notes together.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I can’t wait to see everyone next year

Miss Cortney

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center

12/3 Charlotte Academy

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:00:50 +0000

Welcome back from our Thanksgiving break everyone. I hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend!

This week our Kindergarten through 4th grade students completed another lesson with Mr Bach. Jaelle and Sierra read us a little bit about Mr Bach and the introduced us to a some new instruments. We learned that Mr Bach had 20 kids! We also learned that instead of a piano, they used to play the harpsichord. The harpsichord is a lot like the piano, accept it is a lot quieter. It was so soft because it was often played at home, in a living room. They didn’t need to be so loud that an entire theater could hear. hehe.

We learned about holding notes. There are different notes that have different amounts of time that we have to hold them for. 1 count, 2 counts, 3 counts and 4 counts. Miss Melody taught us some songs using holding notes. Everyone did so well and was so happy about mastering this new lesson!

If you have the software on your home computer you can practice playing the train game, the princess story time or bongo boy! These are all great games that have us thinking about rhythms and counting.

Keep up the great work everyone!

Posted in Uncategorized

12/2 St Patrick’s

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:48:54 +0000

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

This week was the final week of our first session of MusIQ Club. We completed level one by exploring all we have learned about music while visiting Mr. Bach and Miss Melody. We have faced quite a few challenges this session. Sometimes learning rhythms was very difficult, but everyone worked so hard and mastered all that we learned. I am so proud of you all.

Next week we will begin our second session. New students are encouraged to join us, while reenrolling students will progress onto level 2 and explore even more about music! We will meet new composers who will teach us more about music and how to play it on the piano keyboard.

See you all next week and keep up the great work

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center

11/19 Charlotte Academy

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:32:05 +0000

Hi Everyone

We had a GREAT class this week! We welcomed Duncan to class and Madi did a fantastic job of helping him catch up. I was so proud of them and how fast he picked up what we’ve learned so far! Jaelle and Sierra continued to work on Piano Suite where they learned the lines and spaces on the grand staff as well as how to use skips and steps. This week they were assigned the song “Row Row Row Your Boat” to practice for our next lesson. At the end of class we reviewed some of the things we’ve learned about our first composer, Mr Beethoven. Our next teacher will be Mr Bach!

There will be no class next week due to Thanksgiving.

I wish everyone the happiest Thanksgiving!

Posted in Charlotte Academy

11/12 Charlotte Academy

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:17:05 +0000

This week completed our 3rd lesson of MusIQ Club! So far Mr Beethoven has taught us that the piano goes from low notes all the way up to high notes. Middle C is the middle key and is very important to finding all the other keys on the piano keyboard. We’ve also learned that just like we have letters and sentences to make language, music also has letters and sentences. The Grand Staff is where these “musical sentences” are written. Mr Beethoven and Miss Melody have also been teaching us about rhythms. This is a little trickier. In the game room Bongo Boy plays a rhythm on his bongo drums. Then we have to play it back. Many students find this very difficult and sometimes frustrating at first. Ways to practice at home are to make up silly sentences that have rhythms. Clap the rhythms and have your child repeat the rhythm back to you. This helps students to identify longer and shorter beats, which are very important for when we begin to learn about holding notes in another week. In our class time we have been learning about our finger numbers, the musical alphabet and the Grand Staff.

Here are a couple fun worksheets that you can use to practice what we have learned in class: worksheet 1, worksheet 2

I look forward to seeing everyone again next week!

Posted in Charlotte Academy

11/11 St Patrick’s

Cortney Anderson — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:07:44 +0000

Hi Everyone!

I hope your week is going so well. This week we were missing a few students because they weren’t feeling well. I hope everyone feels better soon!

Today in MusIQ Club, we learned about holding notes after being introduced to our new teacher, Mr Bach. So far we have learned to play Middle C, high and low notes, and rhythms from Mr Beethoven. Now we have learned how to hold notes for different lengths of time. We practiced holding notes with Mr. Bach. He gave us a song to play using high, low, middle C and holding notes. This was a lot of fun and everyone learned so quickly. I am so proud of how well you all are doing. After visiting Mr Bach we were able to go to 2 new game rooms! One of these games is a story. Parts of the story are locked and to unlock them you have to repeat rhythms. The other new game has us practicing our holding notes. A train passes by and you have to hold middle C for the right amount of time to let the right amount of passengers out at their stop.

This week I’ve sent home a worksheet that students can trace their left hand on. Their thumbs are finger number 1, pointer finger is finger number 2 and so on. Understanding our finger numbers is very important for us to learn so that we can begin playing lots of new songs.

One important announcement to parents: Registration is now open for our second 10 week session of MusIQ Club beginning December 2nd. You can register online at Musiqclub.com

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center

Charlotte Academy 10/29

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:17:30 +0000

I am so happy to welcome you all to MusIQ Club! We had a fantastic first class. Today we began with our lesson with Mr Beethoven. He familiarized us with the piano keyboard. We learned that the piano goes from low “whale” notes to high “bird” notes. After that we visited Miss Melody where we learned to play these notes and create fun songs. Next we had another lesson from Mr Beethoven. Here we learned about Middle C. Middle C is a very important note that we can use to find all the other notes on the keyboard. Once all our lessons were over, we visited the game room to practice all that we had learned.

Everyone did such a great job!

I can’t wait to see you all again next week!

Posted in Charlotte Academy

10/28 St Patrick’s

Cortney Anderson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:52:58 +0000

I was so impressed with all the good work everyone did this week! We’re really beginning to master how the piano keyboard works, rhythms and the alphabet. Maya joined us for the first time this week and we are all going to help her catch up in the lessons and we are so happy to have her!

This week you can cut out these cards (keyboard game) and use them to play a little game on the paper piano keyboard that Ms Jean will be sending home shortly. Mix the cards in a hat and randomly pull one out. You can use a penny to mark which key the card asks you to find. See how many you can get right!

I hope you all had a fantastic time at the Autumn Party!

Can’t wait to see everyone next week!

Miss Cortney

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center

St Patricks 10/21

Cortney Anderson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:57:25 +0000

Hi Everyone! This week was our 5th week in MusIQ Club. We are already half way through our first session! We’ve learned so much in just 5 classes. We’ve learned the musical alphabet, that the piano goes from low to high notes, that Middle C is a very important note and how we can find it, and we’re learning rhythms. Miss Melody has taught us lots of songs using high, low and middle C notes and now we can play those notes to a rhythm!

A lot of us are still having trouble repeating rhythms. When we visit Bongo Boy, he plays a rhythm and we have to repeat it back to him by playing Middle C. Our little fingers are still getting used to the piano keyboard, so this is very challenging. At home or at school we should practice by playing a clapping game with our friends and family. Play a rhythm of just a few beats and then have a friend repeat it. Then have them play a rhythm and you repeat it! This is a really fun game. Like Mr Beethoven does in his lesson, you can also make up silly sentences and say them in a rhythm. Remember “I Like Puppy Dogs” You can say this to the rhythm “1, 2, 3and4″

You can practice writing your musical alphabet with this worksheet.

If you have a piano at home or the picture of the piano keyboard (like on your last worksheet.), you can also practice finding the groups of 2 black keys, 3 black keys and Middle C!

See you all next week!

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center

St Patrick’s 10/14

Cortney Anderson — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:36:13 +0000

Hello Everyone!

To begin our class this week, we practiced our musical alphabet! Everyone loves playing this game and did such a great job.

This week we began practicing something a little more challenging. In our lesson, Mr Beethoven introduced us to rhythms. He spoke a silly sentence to a rhythm and we had to repeat that rhythm by pressing Middle C. Although it was more difficult than our other exercises so far, everyone did so well in finding Middle C and taking turns with their partners. After this, we visited Miss Melody. We practiced high, low and Middle C notes followed by rhythms!

Today we opened a new game in the games room. It is a rhythm game and is lots of fun. Many of the students found this game to be much more difficult than the last two games. A boy sitting at a bongo drum on a tropical island plays a beat, and we have to repeat it back to him. If we don’t a little crab comes on shore and pinches our toe! OUCH

This week try practicing rhythms. You can even make your own up! It’s fun.

See you all next week!

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center

St Patricks 10/7

Cortney Anderson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:53:57 +0000

We had another great week in MusIQ Club today! Jimbo and SamEmma were back and we all helped to teach them what we had learned about Middle C last week. Then we reviewed our musical alphabet. I was so impressed at how well everyone remembered all the letters of the musical alphabet. We learned that once we get to G, we begin again at A. After our game we all went to the practice room with Miss Melody. Here, we reviewed Middle C and the tricks we can use to find it. Middle C is in the center of the piano. We can see there is a group of 2 black keys in the middle of the piano and Middle C is the white key just to the left of those 2 black keys. Then we went to the lesson room with Mr Beethoven. We learned to play songs using high bird notes, low whale notes and middle C. We had a little time left after our lesson, so we went to the game room to play some games using high notes, low notes and Middle C.

Next week, we’ll start to learn about rhythms. You can here rhythms in lots of things. Try to hear rhythm in words this week.

See you next week!

Posted in Uncategorized

St Patrick’s 9/30

Cortney Anderson — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:42:08 +0000

Hi Everyone! Today we had another great lesson at MusIQ Club, although we all missed Jimbo and SamEmma. First, we learned that just like we have an alphabet to make words, we also have a musical alphabet. The musical alphabet is made up of A, B, C, D, E, F and G. After we learned our musical alphabet, we visited Miss Melody to practice playing our high and low notes. Everyone remembered the high bird notes and low whale notes so well! After practice, we met with Mr. Beethoven for our next lesson. Here we learned about middle C. Middle C is a very important note. It lies right in the middle of the piano keyboard. We can find it very easily. It is the white key just to the left of the group of two black keys in the center of the piano. If students have a piano at home, they should practice finding where Middle C is for next week’s practice with Miss Melody. When everyone finished their lesson we went to the game room to practice our high, low and middle C notes!

Check out our worksheet for this week:

lesson 2 worksheet

Can’t wait to see you all next week!

Miss Cortney

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center, Uncategorized

Welcome!

Cortney Anderson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:26:13 +0000

Welcome to MusIQ Club! My name is Miss Cortney and I will be teaching the students at St. Patrick’s Child Center. I am so excited to share this fun piano/music class and look forward to all we are going to learn!

Yesterday we had our very first MusIQ Club class at St Patrick’s! The students were so excited to begin their lesson as we set up all the piano keyboards and laptops. They were so curious and happy to learn all about these pianos they were about to use.

Their first lesson was taught by Mr. Beethoven. They learned that the piano keys go from low, whale notes, all the way up to high, bird notes. After their lesson, they went to the game room, where they had to quickly play the notes that were either high or low on the piano. They had so much fun, they didn’t want to leave!

We are all very excited for next week’s class and can’t wait to learn more!

Posted in St Patrick's Child Care Center