Music for Montessori

I have always had a passion for music. In fact in university, in addition to my primary focus of Sociology, I also minored in Music. And fortunately I have been able to apply my skills and love of music over the past 10 years at both of the Montessori schools I have worked at as the school Music Teacher.
In a previous post discussing the annual conference for the American Montessori Society, I briefly mentioned my excitement when meeting Frank Leto and how I was so impressed by him that I purchased all his CDs to bring back to my school and play them for the children. As many of you may know yourself, from searching online and in bookstores as I have, Montessori music is very hard to find, so this was a wonderful opportunity for me to get more teaching resources for my music programs at school. Click here for Frank's site.
All of my students absolutely love Frank's music, and I appreciate his work very much because Frank Leto is a Montessori teacher himself and I now model my music classes on what I have learned from him. He takes music elements and translates them into simpler versions for the age group 3-6. He makes music more hands on rather than sitting at your desk learning what a "whole note" is. He gets the young children involved which makes it easier and more fun for 3-6 year olds.

My son, Noah loves to watch Frank's Youtube videos, click here to see his favourite . Every morning he gets very excited pointing to indicate he wants to watch Youtube with me, and then he sits dancing on the spot for a good half hour listening and watching Frank perform. It is a joy for me to watch him. I hope this is a sign of things to come. Perhaps Noah will love music just as much as his mommy! Will I have a new concert partner one day? he he he :)

One Month Left...

Very soon I will be going into my school to set up my classroom for the upcoming school year. It will be a big new challenge this year being a "working mom" for the first time, but I am ready to be teaching once again and very excited to share my new ideas with all my future students.
I am planning on holding a "Guess the Baby" contest during the "All About Me" unit and children at our school. It is always fun to see the parents match baby photos and discuss the photos with the teachers. I will include a picture of myself and of my son (just to throw them off a bit). But it shouldn't be too tricky, as most parents already know my son from extra events held by my school over the past year. Even though I have been off on maternity leave, I still enjoyed attending our school events, such as the Winter Concert and Family Fun Day.
I have also decided that another fun activity for my students to do as a part of "All About Me" will be to build a family tree. They will bring in pictures of their immediate family members (up to first set of maternal and paternal grandparents), cut the faces out and paste them on a tree with no leaves and then label their names. I have done this activity with students in the past with much success! And will post pictures of their works of art once school gets under way.
Until then, however, I have 4 weeks left of summer to enjoy some time sitting by the pool, entertaining friends and family and most importantly, treasuring my time with Noah.