In this Preschool Prodigies music lesson, we play 5 classic songs with only the hand-signs! Then, after each song, we pause and triy to guess “What Song Is This?”
In the "Hand Sign Compilation I: What Song Is This? Medley" we...
-Sing & hand-sign "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "Jingle Bells", "Row Your Boat", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Frere Jacques"
-Practice identifying melodies without the lyrics
-Learn that "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "The ABCs" and "Ba Ba Black Sheep" all have the same melody
-Practice reading music on a simplified treble clef
Hand Sign Compilation I Follow Up Activities
Spinning off of last weeks at-home activity (where we printed the printable element), you can do a similar activity to “What Song Is This?” at home. Of course you can go back and play the video again, but if you want to use the printable elements, here’s what you do.
Print out and cut out the Solfege Hand-Signs from the printable elements. You might want to make 2-3 copies of each page (so you’ll have 2-3 of each note).
Using the songbook as a guide, lay out the hand-signs into a popular melody. Then ask your learner “can you sing and hand-sign this melody?”
Once they’ve completed a good portion of the melody, you can pause and try to figure out “What Song Is This?”
Tip: as you lay out the melodies, try to imagine that they’re written in the treble clef, so that they show the upward/downward motion that sheet music shows. In other words, keep the Dos toward the bottom, the Res a little higher, the Sols even higher, etc. Let the songbooks be your guide!
You can also ask your learner to identify chords using the hand-sign elements. Good combinations to try and name are the three major chords we’ve practiced so far: Do Mi Sol (C Major Chord), Fa La do (F Major Chord), & Sol Ti Re (G Major Chord).
What's Next?
In the next lesson, we’ll put the hand-signs to work in Skidamarink. Chapter 8 is the last full-chapter inside the Preschool Prodigies portion of the Prodigies Music Curriculum, so we will spend much of this chapter practicing songs using all the concepts we’ve learned so far.
