Parents Letter

Dear Parents, Grandparents, Guardians, Families,

Welcome to Kids Kollege Summer 2019! Thank you for registering for Move to the Music (Music for Fun) this week. Music is a natural part of us as humans, regardless if one is considered a professional or amateur musician. We talk, we walk, we breathe, we laugh, therefore, we make music!

I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of New Mexico's in the College of Education Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy Department. I teach at the UNM Center here in Farmington and work with upper division teacher candidates and inservice teachers pursuing their Bachelor and master's degrees in education. I teach Music for Elementary Classroom teachers at San Juan College. I also am involved in community projects within school communities: storytelling, oral history projects, school garden projects, school family nights.

My degrees are in Elementary Education, Music Education, and Library Science. I had the opportunity to study with music researcher, author, professor Edwin Gordon at Temple University where I learned about music learning theory, which is the foundation of my teaching.

Music is an extension of our expressive selves with our bodies as instruments. The way we learn music is the same way we learn language. Each day we will engage in music warm-ups, rhythm and melodic patterns, chants, songs, movement, poetry children's literature and creative drama. We will be singing and moving to literature through chants, songs, and poems, in addition to performing creative drama. Parents, Grandparents, Guardians are invited to participate in our sessions, with the requirement that you participate and play. Friday will culminate in a presentation performance for family, parents, grandparents, guardians to enjoy. Music, like life, must be shared! The week's music sessions are provided for you in Kids Kollege Sessions

The week's music sessions are provided for you in Kids Kollege Sessions at https://sites.google.com/site/musi218sjc/kids-kollege. The website provides you with all the resources and materials used during our sessions. This way you have access to it after our Kids Kollege class!

I look forward to meeting you during the week and hope that you can join us for some of our Move to the Music sessions. Intergenerational engagements with children provide strong learning opportunities. Our rules of engagement are, if you stay, you play!

On Tuesday, July 16, we are featuring African drumming with Dr. Fetz and Tonga national Jessica Djaman. Please join us.

"Elemental Music is never just music. It is bound up with movement, dance and speech, and so it is a form

of music in which one must participate, in which one is involved not as a listener but as a co-performer."   ~Carl Orff

How Music Works (Dr. Collins)