Matching Pitch - What's a Tune?

The other day, my daughter asked me "What's a tune?".  I'll admit, she kind of caught me off guard.  I hadn't taught her that word, but I guess the Cat in the Hat did.  I was unsure of how to explain it, so I just said it was music.  But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I wanted to teach her.  She loves music - so do I - and we can't afford those fancy music classes - but I could teach her a thing or to from my previous knowledge.

First, I downloaded the "Epic Piano" app on my IPOD.  I was going to go out and buy a kids piano toy, because we sold one and then a week later the other one broke - but I'm cheap, so I downloaded the app instead because they have enough toys - yes, musical instruments too - believe me!

After I had the app downloaded, I sat down with my daughter and we talked about the question she had asked me.  I told her that a tune was the music - not the words - in a song.  I played a couple of tunes on the app and she named them.  How did she know what song it was without the words?  Then I talked about how there are high notes and low notes.  I let her and my son make some music on their own and my daughter helped my son move his finger across the keyboard without lifting to make a beautiful scale.  My son banged on the keys and sang his version of Twinkle Twinkle.  My daughter pushed each key carefully and listened to the sound that it made.

After our discussion and her playing on the app for a bit, we did an activity that I found on Pinterest, teaching pitch to children.  On the high notes, she would get big and on the low notes she would get small.  This leads to a growing flower (low to high notes) and a melting snowman (high to low notes).