Zena’sBand

Dear Parents

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,Dear Parents

The child is born into a world teeming with uninterrupted sounds, such as the voices of people, the sounds of machines we have at home, and the voices of nature and its creatures.

The sounds that a child hears differ in their type, pitch, rhythm, volume, and tempo. The child’s little ears pick up the sounds around them with more interest than ours, which filter these sounds, so we no longer notice their existence.

Distinguishing a certain sound depends on our ability to hear it. Here, our role as parents is to draw our children’s attention to the sounds that surround them, like the chirping of birds, the sounds a passing truck makes, or the sound of the waterstream in the sink at home. We should also expose them to different kinds of rhythms and music and to musical instruments. This ability to listen and recognize sounds at an early age is very important for language learning.

guess the soun

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The first time we read the book, we can stop on the last page (16) and encourage our child to guess the source of the sound.

listen

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We can take a tour around the house, and listen to the sounds emanating from each room, and try to define it: is it a rattle, a tick, or a buzz? We can also listen to the voices outside: How do the sounds coming from outside differ from the ones inside?

look for objects

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We can look for objects at home with which we can make different sounds such as kitchen utensils, nylon bags, newspapers, and others. We can try to make sounds with the same object: does the sound of a pot differ, for example, if we knock on it with a wooden spoon or a metal spoon, if it is full of objects or empty?

sounds

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We may search with our child for other items in our near environment that complement the song of Zena, such as: brrring, brrring/…it rings. We may add new sounds that match the objects we find, and form a choir like Zena’s!

explore the sounds

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Our bodies are a great source of music! We can explore the sounds that we can make with our bodies, such as applauding, whistling, thumping feet, and others.

musical instruments

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We may wish to prepare with our child simple musical instruments from household items. Here are some of the ideas:

We surround a small box of milk with a number of- bands of different thickness, so we get a nice stringed instrument.

We can use rice or fava beans and chickpeas to make sounds from sealed cardboard cylinders.

We may wish to listen together with our family to calm melodies, or dance and sing together to the rhythm of fun and loud music.

!Enjoy your reading