There are many ways to keep having fun throughout the summer months! The more students engage with music during the break, the more ready they'll be to jump right back into learning in music class next fall. Here are a few ideas to help your children keep singing, playing, and listening.
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It's been an eventful and energy-filled end of the school year! Here are a few highlights of how we're wrapping up music class.
5th Grade It's difficult to say goodbye to this year's fifth graders. I've really enjoyed seeing them mature and grow as musicians over the last two years. Their performance last week was evidence of their hard work and improving skills. They sang beautifully and expressively. I know they'll enjoy music class with Mr. Kendall next year, but I will miss them! Since the concert, the fifth graders have written reviews of their concert and the school year. As "graduates" of elementary music, they also wrote some insightful advice for the younger students on how to get the most out of music class and concerts. We've been celebrating their hard work this year with some fun musical activities, including the singing board game "Encore," which has been a class favorite this year. 4th Grade Fourth graders have enjoyed some time on the Chromebooks this week. They've been exploring the many games, activities, compositional tools, and resources on QuaverMusic.com. Not only has this been fun, but it will help them next year as we do more assignments using the the tools on this website next year. 3rd Grade I saved one of my favorite 3rd grade units for last this year: Sound Science! The students have been very engaged in learning about how sounds are produced by different kinds of instruments and other things, and how to analyze a waveform by measuring the amplitude (which affects volume) and frequency (which affects pitch). They even went to the computer lab to use the QSynth tool on QuaverMusic.com to create their own waveform by combining up to four different tones. They were able to change a variety of characteristics of their waveforms, including amplitude, phase, harmonics, and wave shape. 2nd Grade Second graders learned one last song for the school year this week. The song "Dinah" is a short folk song that gave us a chance to review folk instrumentation, dynamics, and rhythmic ostinatos. Best of all, there's a fun game that goes with the song! Second graders have also really enjoyed having a lot of performance time at the beginning of each class period this week. I'm impressed by how many students volunteer to perform in front of their classes, and what a respectful audience the rest of the students have been! Performances have included everything from improvised piano solos to a quartet singing pop songs. My favorite part of performance time is the discussions we've had after each student plays or sings. We talk about what we heard (Did the player use the whole keyboard, or just one section of it? Do you recognize the song?), how it makes us feel, and what it makes us think of. Then the performer tells us what they were thinking of or trying to convey while playing or singing. It's been wonderful to see how these students can think deeply and critically about music and communicate their ideas in a respectful and supportive manner. You can read more about in-class performances in an article I wrote for Minnesota Public Radio's Music for Learning blog last year. 1st Grade Like second graders, first graders have been enjoying performance time in class. It's fun to see students of all ability levels volunteer to play and sing for their classes, and to see their classmates encourage and cheer everyone who performs. We've had students play short rhythm patterns on a drum, improvise music on the piano, and sing funny songs to entertain the class. We follow each performance with a discussion about how the music we heard made us feel and/or what it made us think of. I'm impressed by how respectfully the students engage in these conversations with the performers. You can read more about in-class performances in an article I wrote for Minnesota Public Radio's Music for Learning blog last year. When not performing, first graders have been enjoying a special feature from our Quaver music curriculum: the end-of-the-year digital field trip. This video field trip takes students to Argentina, India, and the Appalachian Mountains of the United States to learn about traditional dances from each location. I think the tango has been the biggest hit so far! Kindergarten Kindergartners have been wrapping up with year with a review of the musical opposites that they've learned about, including high and low, loud and soft, and fast and slow. To go along with their recent field trip to the zoo, we have used a story about Bob the Bee and the famous piece "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov to demonstrate these opposites. We also played the game song "Let's Pretend," in which students get to move and make sounds like different animals. It's been a lot of fun! We were lucky to have Michael Peterson, a local Native American flute player, visit fifth and fourth grade classes to show his instruments, perform, and teach us about Native American musical tradition. Some highlights of the presentation included:
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