It's been a busy month! On December 8th, K-5 students presented their winter concerts. They did a fantastic job! After the concert, we watched the video that our superintendent, Mr. Swenson, made for us. We analyzed how we did, finding the great parts of the performances as well as the things we can work on to make the next concert even better. As we always do after concerts, we wrote thank you cards to all of those people who helped but who might not get the recognition that the performers do. It was nice to see the students think of custodians, administrators, other teachers, and collaborative musicians who helped to make their concert a success. After wrapping up the concert, we celebrated Amundson House's first quarter victory with a reward day chosen by house leader Bret Amundson. Students came to music class as their favorite musician and Amundson House members tried to guess who each student was portraying. Students dressed up as their musician, performed one of their musician's songs, or gave facts about their musician. It was interesting to get to see what music the students have been listening to! In the last few days, students have been learning about the music of the upcoming winter holidays. 5th Grade–"Cray, Cray Christmas" Students really enjoyed learning "Cray, Cray Christmas," a hip-hop style Christmas song. In addition to singing, rapping, and dancing to this music, they also played along with a fun Boomwhacker ostinato. 4th Grade–"Christmas Medley" Fourth graders sang a medley of familiar Christmas tunes while noting changes of tempo (speed) and meter (groupings of beats). Some classes had time to add instrument parts to the song. 3rd Grade–"I Have a Little Dreidel" Third graders had fun learning this catchy and popular Hanukkah song that tells about the dreidel game that's often played during that holiday. They sang the song, then added drum and glockenspiel ostinatos. 2nd Grade and 1st Grade–Holiday Celebrations Both second and first graders have been learning about the similarities and differences between three of the major winter holidays–Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. Although each holiday celebrates different things, they have a lot in common. All of them are happy times to celebrate with family by giving gifts, eating special food, lighting candles, decorating, and singing holiday songs. Kindergarten-Ways of Making Music and Ways of Giving Kindergarten has been learning about different styles of music and how there are many different ways to make music. We listened to and identified the styles of several recordings of "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Musicians can play the same songs in very different and interesting ways! Kindergartners also learned about the different ways of giving, which are especially important during this holiday season. We talked about five different ways of giving, including tangible gifts, time, energy, love, smiles. We watched video of the story about a holiday tree that includes several different examples of giving and listened to and sang "O Tannenbaum," a traditional German song about a Christmas tree.
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Kindergarten: Rhythm
Kindergartners wrapped up their unit on rhythm this week, too. Rhythm is one of the foundational concepts of music. They learned about how it's related to beat using a chant and movements that help them feel both beat and rhythm with their whole body. They practiced stepping with the steady beat while clapping the rhythm of the words. It took a lot of coordination! They also learned to play rhythms and beat on classroom instruments and they moved to rhythm in a variety of music.
1st Grade: Meter First graders have been learning about meters of 2, 3, and 4 beats per measure. This week, they concluded their meter unit by listening to music of different meters and identifying which meter pieces have by listening for strong and weak beats. They did a great job on their meter quiz and are now starting a new unit on rhythm.
5th Grade: Meter Fifth graders have continued their review of meter. They've been learning more about how to read a meter sign with the top number indicating the number of beats in each measure and the bottom number indicating what kind of note gets one beat. They've also just started learning about a new meter sign: 6/8. In this meter, there are six beats in a measure and the eighth note gets one beat, but it's felt like it's in a meter of two.
5th Grade: Notation The fifth graders have been reviewing music notation that they have learned in past years, such as notes on a staff and rhythms, and are now learning some new, more advanced notation. They've been reading reading accidentals (sharps, flats, and naturals) and gained more understanding of how accidentals can make a major key into a minor key. They practiced this by playing major and minor triads (two notes a third apart) on piano and Orff instruments as an accompaniment to a song. Students also learned about "roadmap" notation that tells a musician how to navigate a piece of music. D.C. al Fine ("da capo al fine", or from the head to the end) means to go back to the beginning of the piece and play/sing until you reach the "Fine" written above the music. D.S. al Fine ("dal segno al fine", or from the sign to the end) indicates that the player/singer should go back to the point in the music where a "sign" is printed and continue from there to the "Fine." They did a great job of following both of these notations when singing the Ukrainian folk song "Minka"! 4th Grade: Duration Fourth graders have continued reviewing rhythmic durations, including whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes and rests. They also learned about dotted notes this week, which add half the value of the note they are attached to (for example, a half note is 2 beats, so a dotted half note is 2+1 beats). They also reviewed meter by identifying how the beats are grouped together in several music examples, then learned how to conduct for meters of 3 and 4. 3rd Grade: Sound Science Third graders have been enjoying learning about science in music class! Last week, students learned about how different instruments produce their sound, and this week we focused understanding how sound travels and how to analyze waveforms. They learned about two measurements of a soundwave: the amplitude, which measures the loudness of the sound, and the frequency, which measures the pitch of the sound. We did a few experiments with sound waves using a tuning fork in water and creating waveforms with a jumprope, then trying to make the sound that it showed. 2nd Grade: Melody Second graders have continued learning about the different ways that pitches can move in a melody: by step, skip, or repeating. We used "Ode to Joy" as an example of a piece of music that contains a lot of stepwise movement and learned about its composer, Ludwig van Beethoven. Students learned about and discussed the challenges that Beethoven had to overcome when he lost his hearing but chose to continue to follow his passion to make music. 1st Grade: Notes and Rests First graders have been reviewing two rhythms that they have worked with before: ta (quarter note, one sound in a beat) and ti-ti (eighth notes, two sounds in a beat). They have also added a new rhythm notation, the quarter rest, which indicates one beat of silence. They've been identifying, listening to, reading, singing, and playing rhythm patterns using these three notations. Kindergarten: Loud and Soft
Kindergartners have been learning about another musical opposite: loud and soft. We started by learning a song called "Mouse's House" which included references to sawing, hammering, and painting. Students determined whether each of those activities would be loud or soft, then we performed the song with singing that matched the volume of the activity. Students learned that the musical symbols for loud and soft are "f" and "p." The "f" stands for forte, which means loud, and the p stands for "piano," which means soft. Like many musical terms, these words come from the Italian language. Students used the symbols for forte and piano to arrange a rap with variations in volume to make it more interesting to perform and listen to. 5th Grade: Notation Fifth graders have been reviewing music notation, including rhythms and how pitches are notated on a musical staff. They also began learning a traditional Ukranian folk song called "Minka." This song is in ABA form, meaning that it starts and ends with the same music, but has a contrasting middle section. Next week, they will use this song to learn about music notation that indicates and helps musician move through the form of a piece of music. 4th Grade: Singing & Duration Fourth graders finished their unit on singing with a quiz this week. It covered different types of two-part singing, including rounds (two or more singers singing the same song but starting at different times) and descants (a harmony line that is higher than the main melody). They then began a new unit on duration, a concept that is very important in musical rhythms. They're reviewing whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth note rhythms before moving on to some more complicated rhythms. 3rd Grade: Singing & Sound Science Third graders also finished a singing unit this week. We spent the beginning of the week reviewing what they've learned about range and the types of voices included in a choir (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). After taking their unit quiz, they started a new unit on sound science. Students have been discussing the definition of sound and learning about how sound is produced by vibration. We're looking at different instruments and how they make sound through vibrating strings, membranes, air columns, and more! 2nd Grade: Melody Second graders started a new unit about melody this week. Melody is how notes in music move from one to the next. Second graders are starting to learn about melodic direction, or shape, and how notes can move by stepping, skipping and repeating. We're using Beethoven's famous "Ode to Joy" theme from his 9th Symphony to learn about melodic direction and about this important composer. 1st Grade: Melody First graders have also been learning about melody this week, including how the pitches in a song can go up, down, or repeat. They've learned that melodies are like musical sentences that can be put together to create songs, which are like musical stories. They also learned about how there are different types of songs, like celebration songs, patriotic songs, folk songs, and so many more. Kindergarten: Meter
Kindergartners have been getting an introduction to the concept of meter. Meter is how the beats in music are grouped together in patterns. Usually they are in groups of 2, 3, or 4. They have been learning songs in each meter and about ways that people often move with music in those meters, such as marching to a meter of 2 and waltzing to a meter of 3. 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd Grade
Second through fifth grade students have been learning about the history of recorded music this year. We learned about how phonographs and record players work and how music is recorded on records. The process is amazing, and yet simple enough that we were able to make our own phonograph with just a pin and a cone of paper reading the grooves of a record. The kids enjoyed listening to some old recordings of The Beatles and The Monkees! 1st Grade First graders have continued learning about the lines and spaces in standard music notation. They are able to read and sight-sing songs with three pitches: mi, sol, and la. We've also been reviewing ta and ti-ti rhythms while learning the song "Acka Backa." Next week, we'll try out the Acka Backa game! Kindergarten Kindergartners wrapped up their unit on instruments this week. They are doing a great job of identifying the instruments in the four instrument families: woodwind, brass, string, and percussion. Now they're starting a new unit on melody, learning about how pitches go up and down in music. 5th Grade: Melody Fifth graders have been deepening their understanding of intervals, scales, and written music notation in learning about half and whole steps and how sharps and flats affect notes by raising and lowering pitches by half steps. They learned the formula of steps between notes for major scales (whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half) and practiced writing and playing C, F, and G major scales, including key signatures. I've been very impressed by their precise and accurate scale writing! 4th Grade: Singing Fourth graders have been reviewing the basics of good choral singing and learning about different types of two-part songs, such as rounds and songs with descants (higher harmony parts). They've also been studying the difference between singing in major and minor, and learning to identify tonic and dominant chords.
2nd Grade: Singing
Second graders have been learning about the basics of how to sing. Although this seems simple, the way way that singers breath, use their air, and stand or sit can drastically affect how they sound when singing. Students have been learning about the lungs, ribcage, and diaphragm and how all of these body parts interact when they sing. 1st Grade: Lines and Spaces First graders are beginning to study standard music notation with a two line staff. They've been practicing sight-singing (singing by reading music without hearing it first) using the two pitches sol and mi on the two lines of the staff. They've been doing a great job with both reading and singing! Kindergarten: Instruments The instrument unit is one of my favorites to teach kindergartners! We started by learning about the four instrument families (woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion) and what makes them families. Then we began learning about each family in more depth. Students learned about how woodwind instruments often have lots of keys and/or holes and that they produce their sound with a reed or by blowing across a hole. They learned about how brass instruments usually have very few keys, if any, and they make their sound by buzzing their lips. They've been able to see some instruments in person, and they also enjoyed playing "air instruments" while singing the song "Air Orchestra".
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