Journal #11

We have mainly been focusing on a creativity this past week in preparation for our children's literature project. There are many different things that can be done with music when reading a book. It has been said that many children learn better and remember information better when that information is associated with music just because they are able to connect with the music that they are listening to. I think a very positive aspect that we focused on this week was that there really is no right and wrong for children when they are trying to incorporate music. We were given many different examples of how to do this. For one story we read about Chicken Little we decided what words and expressions would be good to enunciate and focus on by adding music. The teacher also showed us how to take it to another level by adding a melody into the song. It really had nothing to do with the story but it gave us a simple way to add music to the story just to make it more interesting. However for another story about Thunder Cake we were given the expressions that the teacher wanted us to look it but we were allowed to create our own sounds... It was really interesting because we looked at another factor and that was recycling and the environment. Children can really benefit from this because it allows the children to express themselves in a way that like and they know can show the real person that they are. Allowing students to be creative gives them the chance to feel like they are in a safe environment. I also think that we as students are benefiting as future teachers when we are given the chance to read the book to the class because it is allows us the chance to work on our creativity by expressing ourselves as we read the story. We learn how to change our voices and make it much more interesting to the class. Earlier this week, we learned a new concept and that is called Binary Form. This means 2 and it usually focuses on the pattern of AB. A is known as the chorus or refrain and that is usually what we remember most in a song because we hear it so often. The B is known as the verse and that is the melody, what changes in a song. An example of this was when we listened to the song and incorporated the hand jive into it. We performed the Hand Jive during the chorus of the song so we were able to remember it more so. Another example would be the story/song, Chicken Little because every time you introduce another character we repeat the song, "It hit me on the head." The songs however, Rock-a-bye baby, and the Itsy Bitsy Spider to not demonstrate this Binary concept because they do not have any part that repeats, they ave no chorus. I am excited to see how people incorporate music into their literature book because I think that there are so many lessons that can be learned from these stories as we saw with Thunder Cake, it looked at math, social skills, science, etc. It should be really great.