Master teacher Jill Trinka created these remarkable concerts with first graders using folk songs and folk instruments as the means through which children exercise their singing, counting, aural, and literacy/reading skills.

This DVD features Trinka teaching folk songs and musical skills while introducing children to the folk guitar, autoharp, five-string banjo, and Appalachian lap dulcimer. Through the delightful folk songs and instruments, Trinka engages and develops musical responses from the children, working with them on vocal glissandi, matching pitch, in-tune singing, steady beat, listening, and inner hearing (audiating). They also explore text improvisation, movements and actions during listening, use physical action to show form, and compare sounds.

The children’s critical thinking and logic skills are challenged with questions about the folk instruments. Throughout, there is attention to counting (strings, pegs, “shoos,” hops, numbers, and animals) and reading (“Over in the Meadow” and “The Crabfish”).

Throughout this DVD, you will have fun, engage your kids, and learn to apply these musical ideas to almost any teaching situation.

CONTENTS: Greeting and Vocal Warm-up; “Shoo Fly” and the guitar; “John, the Rabbit”; the authoharp and “Over in the Meadow”; stretch and review; “There Was a Man and He Was Mad”; the banjo and “Jim Along Josie”; “The Crabfish”; the dulcimer and “Go, Tell Aunt Rhody”; “Good-bye.”

Duration: 50 minutes
Booklet included

Jill Trinka is well known by parents and elementary music educators as a dynamic, winsome, and energetic teacher and performer. She has been singing folk songs since she was a kid. Her performances bring new life to these musical and cultural treasures.