Practice
We began our children's choir practices September 18, 2011. We started out meeting from 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. every Sunday afternoon, but eventually changed our schedule to 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. to accommodate parents.
Craft and Snacks
- Crafts
First 10 - 15 minutes of practice
The craft time was important because it gave the children a chance to settle down and get focused on practice. Our crafts usually coordinated with the music we were learning or were utilitarian (the first week we made nametags and one week we made shakers to use while we sang). - Snacks
Not my best idea!
I started out with really grand ideas for snacks. I wanted to coordinate these with the songs as well. My mom had a Noah's Ark cookie cutter set I was excited to incorporate into one of the weeks. What I discovered after the first few weeks is if you want children to focus, giving them sugar is a bad idea. It's also not a great idea to give children snacks before they sing.
Music and Music Theory
- Music
We started out with simple, fun songs that generally had hand movements. I felt like if the children could remember the hand movements and what they represented, they would be able to remember the words to the songs. We decided to include the children's choir in the Christmas Eve performance. We had ten traditional Christmas Carols that we taught the children. I spent time talking about what the words meant so when they sang the songs, hopefully it evoked meaning for them and they were not just memorizing words. - Music Theory
Each week I tried to spend time working on music theory. We worked on singing the correct notes, tone and timing. I also wanted them to spend time listening to each other and performing as a cohesive group and not just individuals.