April Showers
So far April has been a busy month. My mom came up from Petawawa on Friday night to help me with Brownie Badge Day on Saturday.
Saturday Lina, Mom and I went to a local church for the big day. Lina was earning badges of her own, Mom assisted me to present two 1 1/2 hour sessions of "Share your Talent for Music" to 7 and 8 year olds. To earn these badges, the Brownies were to:
Learn a Canadian Folk Song
- we learned Donkey Riding thanks to a wonderful resource online: The Great Canadian Tunebook which does not only supply the words but midi files of the melodies.
Play or sing two different types of music
- here we sang the folksong and also at the end of the session tried our hand at singing in the round. Again I found a wonderful little site on the net called Beyond Row Row Row your Boat which has the music, words and midi files for some great little rounds. Mind you they were a little complex to teach the girls, but they enjoyed listening to them. We sang the Girl Guide standard "Make New Friends" which another group working nearby on their "Wodd Works" badge spontaniously jumped in and sang with us.
- we also talked about what kinds of music the girls liked and then listened to many snippets of different genres of music and talked about how the music made them feel. Both the morning and afternoon session had a variety of music interests in them.
Make up your own song, play or sing it
- here we really had fun. I brought in some tupperware containers and a bag of elastics and the girls experimented with rubber band guitars, they played on an xylophone I brought in, it was really fun listening to the girls playing their guitars and tuning it to create tunes.
Make a musical Instrument, such as a drum, cymbol, or flute out of recycled material
- this last one was the best. We made wonderful music with straws (check this one out, it really works!). We made kazoos with waxed paper and combs and the best part was that we made Kalimbas from wood and bobby pins that the girls coloured with crayons and could take home.
All in 1 1/2 hours - amazing.
When we were done, the three of us went to the mall. Lina wanted to shop. She's been saving her allowance to buy something. I say something because going to the mall always results in some adjustment of her plans. She has been checking out the flyers to get the best price for a lava lamp. It was either that or the newest Barbie thing, a Mermaidia doll. The doll turned out to be to expensive, the lava lamp not as appealing when facing an entire pink isle of Barbie. But, she spent quite a bit of time making up her mind. I gave her a few options, such as save for two more weeks and I will kick in the rest of the money for the doll (earning $2 a week for cleaning her room means that it takes quite a bit for her to save so I try not to make it a descourage exercise for her). She surprised me with shopping savvy when at one point she had two toys in her hand and proceeded to tell me she didn't think one was worth the price the store was asking for it. I think all in all she spend half an hour making her decision. I kicked in abot $4 and Lina is now at $0 again but it was a worthwhile learning opportunity. If it kills me, Lina will be far ahead of the game as far as being money smart if I have anything to do with it.
Well, I'll finish the rest of the update in a bit, the afterschool care program has called and I need to go pick Lina up from school. I knew she wasn't feeling great but I was hoping she would make it throught today.
Saturday Lina, Mom and I went to a local church for the big day. Lina was earning badges of her own, Mom assisted me to present two 1 1/2 hour sessions of "Share your Talent for Music" to 7 and 8 year olds. To earn these badges, the Brownies were to:
Learn a Canadian Folk Song
- we learned Donkey Riding thanks to a wonderful resource online: The Great Canadian Tunebook which does not only supply the words but midi files of the melodies.
Play or sing two different types of music
- here we sang the folksong and also at the end of the session tried our hand at singing in the round. Again I found a wonderful little site on the net called Beyond Row Row Row your Boat which has the music, words and midi files for some great little rounds. Mind you they were a little complex to teach the girls, but they enjoyed listening to them. We sang the Girl Guide standard "Make New Friends" which another group working nearby on their "Wodd Works" badge spontaniously jumped in and sang with us.
- we also talked about what kinds of music the girls liked and then listened to many snippets of different genres of music and talked about how the music made them feel. Both the morning and afternoon session had a variety of music interests in them.
Make up your own song, play or sing it
- here we really had fun. I brought in some tupperware containers and a bag of elastics and the girls experimented with rubber band guitars, they played on an xylophone I brought in, it was really fun listening to the girls playing their guitars and tuning it to create tunes.
Make a musical Instrument, such as a drum, cymbol, or flute out of recycled material
- this last one was the best. We made wonderful music with straws (check this one out, it really works!). We made kazoos with waxed paper and combs and the best part was that we made Kalimbas from wood and bobby pins that the girls coloured with crayons and could take home.
All in 1 1/2 hours - amazing.
When we were done, the three of us went to the mall. Lina wanted to shop. She's been saving her allowance to buy something. I say something because going to the mall always results in some adjustment of her plans. She has been checking out the flyers to get the best price for a lava lamp. It was either that or the newest Barbie thing, a Mermaidia doll. The doll turned out to be to expensive, the lava lamp not as appealing when facing an entire pink isle of Barbie. But, she spent quite a bit of time making up her mind. I gave her a few options, such as save for two more weeks and I will kick in the rest of the money for the doll (earning $2 a week for cleaning her room means that it takes quite a bit for her to save so I try not to make it a descourage exercise for her). She surprised me with shopping savvy when at one point she had two toys in her hand and proceeded to tell me she didn't think one was worth the price the store was asking for it. I think all in all she spend half an hour making her decision. I kicked in abot $4 and Lina is now at $0 again but it was a worthwhile learning opportunity. If it kills me, Lina will be far ahead of the game as far as being money smart if I have anything to do with it.
Well, I'll finish the rest of the update in a bit, the afterschool care program has called and I need to go pick Lina up from school. I knew she wasn't feeling great but I was hoping she would make it throught today.
posted by ria at Monday, April 03, 2006
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