Autumn Adventures Open Day

Our new outdoor area is coming on well! The heavy work is nearly finished and then we can make it our own by adding those magical do re mi touches. We’d love to invite you to come and see it all finished at our Autumn Adventures Open Day on Saturday 3^rd November.

Our open days are special to us here at do re mi because, as well as offering new families the chance to have a look around, they also enable all our wonderful existing do re mi families to spend the morning together in nursery. There will be lots of lovely Autumn themed activities on offer, including arts and crafts, and I will be running mini music sessions throughout the morning.

I’m really looking forward to meeting lots of the parents of nursery children and singing you a couple of our favourite Autumn songs! Hopefully it will be a great chance for you to experience our sessions from your little one’s perspective and also maybe learn a few of the words so you can join them in singing along at home as well!

It would also be brilliant to see some of our musical learning classes families at the open day. Perhaps you’d like to bring dad, grandma, or big brother and sister along to give them a taste of what we do here at do re mi. There will be teas and coffees on offer, and the chance to have a lovely chilled morning bonding with your little one doing while doing music, arts and crafts and playing outside as well if the weather permits!

If you’d like to join us, you just need to book a free ticket which can be done through the event link on the facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/events/466464320509573/ Just a quick heads up for you as well that there is also a little incentive that the first 20 families who sign up for a ticket will get a free do re mi goody bag on the day! Now wasn’t it worthwhile reading the blog?!

We hope to see you there on Saturday 3^rd November between 9 and 12. As ever if you have any questions drop us a line on the details below or on our facebook page. The open day will also give us a lovely chance to have chat in person so if anyone has any questions about musical learning or wants ideas for how to continue your child’s musical journey at home, come and find me on the day in our upstairs music room.

See you then!

Lizzie x

info@doremidaynursery.com

info@doremimusicallearning.com

Musical instruments

This week at Do Re Mi we have been focusing on using instruments. We are lucky to have a huge range of fantastic quality instruments to use in our music sessions and of course during explorative play in the nursery as well.

We have been using our squeezer shakers, which make a lovely gentle sound, and these are a particular favourite with the babies as they are able to easily manipulate them and successfully make a sound. The older children enjoy using the shakers to imitate sounds in nature, in particular the rain. This ties in really well with our song of the week this week: ‘Rain is falling down’. Check out the video of this song on our facebook page if you haven’t seen it yet.

‘Rain is falling down’ is a song we use right through the different rooms in nursery. As the song is repetitive, it is perfectly suited to the Diddies and Explorers room and encourages them to find their voices and join in, as it has a limited number of words for them to be able to perfect. In the baby room, this song is ideal because of the lovely strong “P” sound in “pitter patter” which the babies love to mimic. This strong "p" sound provides a useful emphasis of the beat as well.

The pre school children can master the song independently and, because it is relatively simple, we can challenge them to sing the song and play their shakers at the same time. We use the shakers to mimic the rain falling down, moving the shakers from head height and gradually down our bodies. We then give a sharp definite shake in time to the beat for the “pitter patter” section.

Some other instruments we’ve been using this week at Do Re Mi include our ocean drum, which the children in the Diddies room have been fascinated with. We love to follow the children’s lead at Do Re Mi, and so Lizzie dedicated a whole music time in the Diddies on Monday to exploring the ocean drum with the children. All the lovely songs about fishes swimming in the sea can wait until next week, as this week the children were mesmerized by all the different sounds the ocean drum makes. It can be hit like a normal drum, but also shaken to create a wave like effect (hence the name!). The drum is also visually stimulating for the children as it is decorated with lots of beautiful brightly coloured fish swimming round the edge.

If you’d like any more information about how we use instruments, or how you can use them at home to support your child’s musical development, please feel free as always to get in touch. We do have a wide selection of our beautiful fairtrade instruments that are available to purchase, so let us know if you are interested. Our instrument stall will also be available at our Open Day on Saturday 3^rd November – more about that next week!

info@doremidaynursery.com

info@doremimusicallearning.com

Lizzie x