Miss G's Blog

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Author: chemeneg

Progress is happening

This week I had the privilege of being able to watch a Ukulele class for 4th graders which I found both intimidating, because they are way more advanced than me with the Ukulele, and inspiring, because these children’s joy and enthusiasm for learning an instrument was clearly visible and because I realized if they can pick it up I can too.

I finally feel like I have gotten the hang of “Twinkle Twinkle little star” and am able to transition between C and G7 more fluidly now, although that still needs a bit of work. While playing this nursery rhyme my 22 month old son has been joining in with me and singing the song, which has been another factor in me being able to practice as well has been super motivating as I feel he is learning with me (out of nowhere he started singing the song and I was amazed because he has only ever sung “lalala” for Elmo’s song before).

I also began to work on learning how to play Skinny Love by Bon Iver and am finding it to be a much quicker process than learning “Twinkle twinkle” because I have already a decent base and its not all completely new and overwhelming. I am still having trouble with my transition from C to G, but since I was having the same issue with transitioning from C to G7 for “twinkle twinkle” I have been able to work through the transition much more efficiently. Before this week I was having severe anxiety that I have not been able to accomplish much with the ukulele and was worried that I had been way too ambitious with what I wanted to learn; although I do want to make some adjustments to my growth plan for the end of the semester, I am not more hopeful I will be able to accomplish some of my musical growth goals.

Photo by Gabriel Testoni on Unsplash

Ukulele woes

This week I have made minimal progress and I’m beginning to think I have been too ambitious with what I would like to accomplish and learn this semester. I can’t seem to remember any chords, and when I made my growth-plan I didn’t even consider strumming pattern or transitioning between chords as something that I would really need to focus on. I thought that I would learn the chords, practice them, memorize them and then BAM I would be able to play songs and be a Ukulele master. As it turns out that is not the case and learning the Ukulele is, or at least I’m finding it to be, extremely difficult. Because of my frustration and the fact that I have been feeling so overwhelmed I have not been picking up the Uke and practicing as much as I should be, every time I have to think about it, motivate myself and then force myself to sit down and practice for 20-30 painstaking minutes.

I hope that it begins to click so that I can start to enjoy learning the Ukulele, and so that I can accomplish part of my growth plan.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Video Editing

Today we had a guest speaker come to our class to discuss Video editing. We mainly discussed iMovie and practiced editing a video in class with some support. I found editing to be more complex than I had originally thought it to be, and struggled with doing some of the tasks that were recommended.

Learning about the complexities and different layers to editing was interesting, and useful because it will be something that I use in the future as an educator.

Starting the Ukulele


This past week I started to learn how to play the Ukulele. I chose the Ukulele because I love how it sounds, and one of my absolute favourite musicians, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, plays the Ukulele often in his songs. As well once when I saw Pearl Jam live Eddie played an almost hour-long Ukulele solo and that is still one of my all-time favourite memories.

It has been difficult so far to find the time to practice as it seems that other things keep coming up, and this weekend I was unable to practice during my son’s nap times as we were on Salt Spring. One of the biggest challenges I have faced is whenever I try to play the Ukulele around my 21-month-old son he tries to grab it as he wants to play it himself. Fortunately, I did plan for this and have made a schedule for times throughout the week where I can practice while my son is either napping or at daycare and am just working at keeping myself honest and sticking to my plan. I have begun to work my way through learning the chords necessary for ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ (C, F, G7) and have looked ahead at some of the chords needed for ‘Don’t worry be happy’ (C, F, Dm). I have also been watching YouTube Tutorials and covers of people playing the Ukulele for motivation.

Photo by Joints Creative on Unsplash

Photo by Simon Noh on Unsplash

1st painting and colour blending practice

I began playing with acrylic paint this weekend and started my first painting on canvas. I haven’s finished it yet, but will post an updated picture once it is done. My inspiration came from looking up simple painting ideas for acrylic paint, and I found a picture of a kitty looking at the moon and decided to do my own take on that. The three cats will be modelled after my three cats: King, Charlotte and Sadie. Initially I was feeling quite frustrated with painting because the paint was not covering the pencil marks on the canvas… and I made a couple of mistakes with where I was using the black paint. However, I reminded myself that I am doing this as my inquiry project as a way to reduce stress, and that my paintings do not need to be perfect they just need to be myself expressing myself on canvas. I did find blending the paints and seeing how different brush strokes look on paper to be very relaxing and fun.

getting the ball rolling

I started my twitter account today, I have had an account in the past but never really knew how to navigate and use it as a tool. I am excited to explore this resource a little more, and find more ideas or concepts from other educators.

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