Materials

Tyler Time

Composers

I found this idea on Imagine Our Life, and I so appreciate her creating this idea and sharing free printables! If you do order special felt from her recommended source, use the coupon on her site. (I didn’t see the coupon until after I ordered.) I already had a large piece of white felt, and bought a 50 cent spool of black ribbon and a bottle of fabric paint from Michael’s. I ordered the felt glue on Amazon since Michael’s didn’t have any and it wasn’t worth a separate trip for me to JoAnn Fabric to save a dollar.

I think it’s really important to have clefs as a reference, so I added my own treble clef, which was a feat for me to draw. I’d make the tail a little longer, like I’ve done in this second copy I made. I would also cut a larger piece of white felt since the C gets a bit squished at the bottom and my clef hangs off the top.

Another day, Tyler was so very excited to use the notes! I let him choose 3 at a time to work with. He composed a song and then played it.

When Tyler was creating music for the first time, I told him “You are composing music!” and spontaneously introduced him to a famous composer: Bach. I played some of Bach’s music and then we went over to our maps and he learned where Germany is. He also found Germany on two globes. To make Bach and Germany feel cooler to him, I asked him “Who else is from Germany?” The best soccer team in the world, of course! (Our family was really into World Cup soccer this year.) We also found where Messi is from: Argentina! It all came naturally and was so fun!

We listened to Bach the rest of that week and the next. I also introduced Tyler to Prokofiev by showing him the Disney “Peter and the Wolf” cartoon, which I loved growing up. I played more Prokofiev for him from YouTube’s “Best of Prokofiev” video and did the same with the “Best of Bach” video page.

I made four of each note and two of each rest. I wasn’t the greatest at painting the notes (hers look flawless), but Tyler doesn’t notice. I think it is so extremely cute that the ledger line is glued to the back of middle C!

I cut another skinny strip of white felt to put on the window sill where we keep the bells in our library. When we use them on the table, we first roll out a large blue mat. That way, all surfaces (and bells) are protected.

More Additions

The first time Tyler used the staff and notes, I wanted him to have a control along the left side of the treble clef and a place to keep the notes he wasn’t using. So I made an extra strip of white felt with black lines to match the staff. I cut out one more of each note and trimmed them a little extra to fit perfectly in-between the lines. I left them without the painted letters so Tyler will know when he is at the end of the pile and won’t try to peel off the control note!

When I brought this out the second day, Tyler absolutely loved the control and decided he wanted to keep the notes on it while not in use, which works awesome for me.

The first time I introduced the bells to Tyler, we played the bell and matched the tone with our voices. We sang the note names as he played them. Then I had him try putting the bells in order from lowest to highest pitch. That was a fun game! We even tried it on some of his siblings, and Jon took the challenge as well, which was fun.

He moved the notes around as many times as he wanted, and then played new songs each time. He learned how to be tricky and play two bells at the same time.

He wanted to use the rests as well, and this is what he did for each rest. (We will learn about rhythm later.) He switched which 3 bells he was working with several times.

Tyler loved playing two notes at once. I was curious what would happen when he played two notes right next to each other. I caught this expression the very first time he heard C and D played together. To be fair, he actually liked the sound, but it cracks me up anyway. I casually taught him about intervals.

The next day, Tyler was so excited to make music again! He added intervals all over the place and had his favorites, so we talked a lot more about intervals.

He learned to count the distances between bells to find out which interval it was.

He loved thirds and played a whole song with thirds, which was cool. He had his favorite fifth and fourth, but his favorite interval of all was the octave!

I pulled out the octopus from the O box, and let him count the tentacles, and then count how far middle C was from the higher C... 8!

The next day, we labeled color-corresponding cars and let Tyler drive them along their respective space or line.

Here is our composers wall so far. I downloaded the composers cards from the Montessori Print Shop and added some facts to the back before laminating. Tyler chose how to put the extra cards on the wall. (We’ll have to adjust when we get composers in the middle two categories.)

Anyway, the fun continues each weekday with Tyler and Mark, exploring all sorts of things together. I thrive on this time with them.

I had to include at least one Russian composer so I could include my mission to Russia card!

This is terrible lighting, but you get the idea: map, composer, missionary... and if we knew a famous soccer player from Russia we would’ve included him!

Here is a video of Tyler playing thirds, and then finding an octave and a fifth.

That night, I made some picture cards the same size as his composer cards of a few famous soccer players, people we know from different countries, missionaries who served in a few of these countries, and country flags. It definitely made learning countries more interesting!