Lizzie’s blog – The Do Re Mi Difference
This week has been a wonderful chance to see how the nursery
and the musical learning classes here at Do Re Mi support each other and
interact to create the Do Re Mi difference. I’m lucky that my role involves
working across both aspects of the business, so I’m in a unique position of
getting to meet all our parents, grandparents and little ones who come to our
weekly music classes, as well as leading singing in all the rooms within our
musical nursery.
This week was the first week of term for the musical
learning classes, so I’ve loved meeting all the families who come to our
fantastic sessions. Some of the children I have already met in nursery who also
come along to music classes on their days off nursery, but there were lots of
brand new faces too. From beautiful little babies, to our school age
musicianship class children, it has been a pleasure to meet so many confident
musical little people!
This week, we had a bit of an animal theme going on during
music classes, singing about mice and frogs to name but a few! The Do Re Mi
difference came into its own when we chanted Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock in its traditional
spoken rhyme format. We say the rhyme slowly, and repeat it a few times, so
that the children have chance to take in the words, process them, and have a go
at reproducing them accurately. By the third time through, even the youngest of
children were joining in, and were also performing the actions in time to the
pulse. This is where the rigorous musical training that myself and Jane have is
really beneficial, as we understand how to deliver well known songs and rhymes
in a way that really has a positive impact on speech and language development.
As well as these well known songs and rhymes, we also have a
huge repertoire of less commonly known songs at Do Re Mi. These are chosen
specifically because they are suitable for young children to be able to sing.
These songs have a narrow range (meaning that the difference between the
highest and lowest note in the song is small) because young children’s voices
are not physically developed enough to master a wide variety of pitches. Again,
this is a great example of the extensive knowledge of our specialist staff,
which is also passed on to the wonderful nursery staff who sing with our
children all day every day.
All our nursery staff our passionate about the Do Re Mi difference
and it has been so inspiring visiting all the different rooms in the nursery
and seeing them in action. The songs they use are always appropriate and are differentiated
to the particular stage of development of the children. Songs are chosen with a
goal in mind of increasing confidence, speech and language as well as being fun
and enjoyable for the children. All the staff use singing throughout the day to
calm the children, or to make tidying up time more fun, or just to encourage
bonding and friendship.
Perhaps my favourite moment this week was seeing three of
the children from nursery take part in the Musical Learning class
on Thursday morning. They knew many of the songs already, and joined in with
all the words and actions which encouraged the new children who had come
with their mums or dads to join in as well. But it was also really special to
see a couple of the children who are sometimes quieter in the nursery setting
to really come out of their shell in a different environment and interact with
Jane and the new children. This is the perfect example of how both elements
of the business here at Do Re Mi feed into each other and support the development
of all our children – from nursery, Musical Learning, or both! It has been a
privilege to see this in action this week, and I can’t wait to help make the Do
Re Mi difference even more special in weeks and months to come.
As always, if you have any questions about anything here at
Do Re Mi, please get in touch and we will be happy to help!
Lizzie x
No comments:
Post a Comment