Bridge Lesson #1: I'm so happy to have your kids back in class! Just like during LPM, I'm going to outline things in these Parent Notes. Because Bridge is more involved, the Parent Notes will describe more of what they should be doing than I did in LPM. As always, let me know if you have questions or concerns!
BRIDGE OVERVIEW
This is what I would have given in a Parent Orientation had I done one for Bridge. Alas...
SO MUCH INFORMATION: The Bridge curriculum is packed. Some teachers even like to break it up into two years so they can spend more time on each part. At this point, I've chosen to keep it at a year, and to highlight the most important things. The other things are good, and we might touch on them, but not necessarily needed to advance overall.
CURRICULUM MATERIALS: There are four books with the Bridge curriculum.
1. The green Semester 1 Workbook
2. The yellow Semester 2 Workbook
3. The red Magic Key Technique Book
4. The blue Songbook
I kept the yellow books to pass out in January. The kids have the other three in their bags and we will use them all each week. The red and blue books have the songs we'll be using and playing. The green book has the assignment sheets and workbook pages.
WORKBOOK LAYOUT (the green book):
*The class calendar is on the inside front cover. It lists which lesson we will be doing which day, and then identifies which lesson spread they should be working on.
*Each class has six workbook pages that correlate to the lesson.
-The first page is "Assignment Sheet." I'll talk about this more in the next section.
-The second page is "Rhythm & Reading." This has rhythms both to clap and to write in the counting. This is a great activity and can strengthen their counting skills. We will do some of these in class, but not all of them. If they want to do these at home, they totally can. This is pretty low on my list of most important things though.
-The third and fourth pages are "Theory" activities. Some of these we'll do in class, and some should be done at home. There are four "days" of theory activities each week. You can do them one per day or all on the same day. These are higher on my list of important things.
-The fifth and sixth pages are "Music History" and "Composers." Some of these we'll do in class. The rest you can do at home if it's an enjoyable part for them. A lot of these have QR codes that lead to videos and things. Some are fun and some are more tedious. While I think understanding music history is a valuable and fun part of studying music, these are also low on the list of important things. We'll talk about it in class and they only need to explore more if they want to.
*There will be a binder clip on the books that holds back all of the future lesson pages, and a paper clip on the first page of this week's lesson. Right now, the paper clip is on page 2, the assignment sheet for lesson 1, and the binder clip shows page 7 and holds back pages 8-back cover.
ASSIGNMENT SHEET (the first page in the green workbook for each lesson): There is an assignment sheet each week to outline activities to do at home. this is divided into the books that the activities are in.
*Magic Key Technique Book: This will have the scales and cadences, plus a technique song or two each week. They can do this section with the recordings and it'll go pretty quick in practice.
*Student Songbook: This is the section they'll spend the most time in. Most of the times it will list the song, along with specific things to be thinking about while they play, much like the LPM workbooks. Some of them will have "levels." These outline different steps of mastery. Start with level one, then go on to deeper levels. If your student stays on one or two, that's totally fine. They're mastering the level they are at. This is one thing I really like about the Bridge program, and it makes it possible for every kid to both succeed and push themselves to do more.
*Student Workbook: This is the green book that the assignment sheet is in, and that I talked about in the first section. I would like them to do *something* in the workbook section. But they (or you!) can choose what that is. The Rhythm and Reading section can get tedious... I feel it's asking for a LOT of writing of counts every week and it gets so monotonous that it might get in the way of actual learning. But they could choose two lines to do. If they enjoy the theory activities, then do all four. If it feels more like busy work and adds more frustration to your world, then do one or two and skip the ones that feel drawn out. The music history spread is something we'll talk about in class. If they want to do the things we don't cover, they can. But again, not high in priority. I will give stickers to each section of the book they do, and just skip over what they don't.
*Flashcards: Oh how I wish that this section was called NOTE NAMING!! Flashcards are a great way to practice note naming. But there are other games and apps and ways to do it. There are five areas to write a time that you do the flashcards in. I don't care about timing. Some kids react positively to timing and it helps them get better. Others are so anxious about the timer that they end up dreading the note naming and it ends up slowing their learning. Do whatever note naming activities you want, once or more a week to help solidify this skill.
LESSON #1
Going through this week's assignment sheet...
*Magic Key Technique Book
-Secret Circle Finger Exercise, pg 2: focus on rounded fingers and no buckled knuckles. You can do this with the recording, once for each hand. The recording is 1 minute and 16 seconds. Do it once for each hand.
-C Major scale, pg 6: do this with the recording. It goes through the scale three times for the right hand, then three times for the left hand, then three times for both hands. The recording is 2 minutes and 11 seconds.
*Student Songbook
-Primary Chords pg 17
-Chords in Pieces pg 21
-Don't Put Your Trash pg 34: Start at Level 1(block-marching-broken chords with each hand separate) and continue to Level 2 (block-marching-broken chords with each hand with both hands together... This is where I think all of your students should be by next week). If you'd like, figure out the melody with the right hand to be able to move onto level 3 (melody with the RH, block chords with the LH), or level 4 (melody with the RH, block-marching-broken chords with the LH)
*Flashcards Note Naming :)
-Do any note naming activity. You can use the flashcards or not, but practice your note naming skills.
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