Hello Friend,
I discovered last week that my 4 yr old students think that rhythm and beat are the same thing - eek! They won't be the first or the last, it's such an easy assumption to make. Today, I came in PREPARED! Ha ha ha
I met my students where they were at. I asked them...
"How many sounds do you hear when I play this pair of 8th notes? Ti-ti"
(I use Kodally inspired rhythm sounds). They popped their hands enthusiastically up in the air, (some getting too excited and blurting out) 2 sounds!!
Then I asked them the same thing again with a quarter note, a quarter note rest and a group of 4 16th notes.
The children were sat on little coloured velcro circle spots... placed perfectly for safe sitting without bowing or moving into one another. The children shuffled back so that their circle spots were in front of them. Each circle now represented one beat.
When I clapped a rhythm, they had to pop the correct number of sounds they heard in their circle beat, using craft matchsticks to represent each sound.
When I saw they had understood this, I played the rhythms on my violin. They loved it when I air bowed a silent quarter note rest.
Next week, they can take it in turns to bow and clap the rhythms.
Take a look at the image below so you can see what I mean. I'm not sure how well I've explained this today as right now, at the end of my day, I'm quite exhausted! ;)
I'm sure I will need to keep explaining, modelling and helping children decipher between beat and rhythm, but hopefully we are all one step closer.
I would LOVE to hear your thoughts and if this is useful? Last time, someone replied and it went into my spam and I accidentally permanently deleted the message. To my delight and relief, they got back in touch. I'll try not to make the same mistake twice. ;)
