- Betsyrosef
A Musical Summer
Updated: Jul 1, 2020
For our first blog of our musical summer, we are going to be talking about how music affects our emotions.
Hello everyone, and welcome to our Musical Summer Blog! I am so excited to be able to spend some "time" hanging out with you and learning about music. Below, we have activities and games for each day of the week, but know that you can use it all however you want! We simply want to be a resource for you and your kids that's fun and learn about music this summer.
To start it off, we are going to talk about how music affects our emotions. Have you ever watched a movie and known something bad was going to happen before it did because of the music playing in the background? Have your kids noticed the difference between how Anna sounds in Frozen 2 when she sings "The next right thing" versus how Elsa sounds singing "Show yourself."
Well this week, we have some games to learn how to name our own emotions, know the body language for that emotion, and then be able to find those same emotions in our favorite movie scores.
Music is the shorthand of emotion.- Leo Tolstoy
Make it Monday
To start off our week about emotions and music, we are going to learn about our emotions, identifying how they look on our faces!
Craft Project: This week, we are starting with a craft project! We are going to make Emotion Masks (click to see examples) to help us identify our feels! You will need:
Paper plates
Markers/Crayons
Straw or Stick
It’s simple:
Step 1: Cut the plate in half
Step 2: Identity 5 or more emotions ( for example, Happy, Sad, Angry, Scared, Disgusted, Sleepy, Hungry, Jealous)
Step 3: Draw the mouth shape for each emotion on one side of the plate
Step 4: Tap the Popsicle stick to the back!
*My pinterest board has a few other options if you do not have plates and sticks
on hand.
Have your kids take turns acting an emotion with the others trying to guess what it was! But don’t shout out the answer, hold the right plate up!
Show me, don't tell me.
Tunes on Tuesday
Yesterday we made our emotion masks and played with guessing our families emotions. Today, talk to your kids about how their favorite characters in movies have emotions too! And we will get to be detectives and figure out what our favorite song’s emotions are.
Listening-Disney! Here is a playlist with your kids favorite Disney songs. Using your masks (or emoji faces), listen to some of the songs and see if they can figure out the emotion! If you have older kids, see if they can tell when there is more than one emotion during a song.
Questions to ask:
Using your mask, can you show me what the character is feeling?
What do YOU feel listening to it?
Dance it up! Once we feel good at finding the emotion, let's add another layer. Can you MOVE or DANCE like the emotion of the song? (I Can’t Wait to be King would be faster, bigger, bouncier movements with big smiling faces! While “Be prepared” might be heavier with a determined or angry faces).
Ready for more? Try THIS playlist. These songs don’t have words to tell us what the characters are thinking. It’s the music in the background of the story called the “Score”.
Question:
How does the song make you feel? (This might be a bit different for each person)
What do you think could be happening during this song?
Can you show me with your body and face/mask how it makes you feel?
For Older Kids:
For any of you who have older kids, HERE is a really fun link about the making of the Moana soundtrack!
Watcha Makin' Wednesday ... Drums!
Yep, we are making drums. THIS is my favorite one, but feel free to look through some of the others I pinned if that one won’t work for you. Once you have made them, go ahead and listen to the Moana soundtrack or one of our earlier playlists and anytime there are drums, play along!
Tasty Thursday
Did you know that Disney has Recipes for its characters. Yep. I know. So. Much. Fun. HERE they are! Give one a try for Moana and tell us what you all thought!
Fun Friday: Movie day!
Ok, now that we are prepared with our emotion masks, and our drums, and our Moana snacks/meal (if you managed to not eat it all yesterday!) We are going to put it all together while watching Moana!!
Here is what you do!
ANYTIME you hear drums, you must play along! Can you match the speed? Or as we say in music, the Tempo. (Tempo = how FAST or how ssssssllllllloooooooowwww it is going.
You must lift up the emotion mask for each song the characters sing! Who can guess it first?
Parents, here is your challenge, and what do we always say to a challenge? (Click below to see what we ALWAYS say to a challenge).
At ANY point in the movie, you can shout out "EMOTION!!!" When you do, the kids must, as fast as possible, hold up their emotion mask for what emotion they think the characters are feeling.
Ask them how the music with no words (the score) makes them FEEL. Is it a good clue to how the character feels in that moment?
Your Turn!
Hope you all had fun this week! Post your own pics or videos of what you did this week on our Facebook or instagram