5th and 4th Grade: Ukuleles The fourth and fifth graders made a big step in their ukulele playing in their last music class as they learned how to use the left hand to play on the frets! This can be a tricky skill to get the hang of at first, but they're working hard and building good habits. Using this frets will allow them to play all the notes on the ukulele. I've been going around the room to check in with each student as we learn each new skill and I'm so pleased to see their focus and improvement every time! 3rd Grade: Melody Third graders did one more round of all of our Staff Champion games to see if they could beat their top scores. It's amazing to see the progress they've made in reading music over the last few weeks. This is such an important music skill and they're doing so well with it! Then they took a quiz on what they've learned about note reading and intervals in this unit. Next, we reviewed the pentatonic scale. This scale has only five notes, but is used in folk music (and other genres) around the world. It's so common because those five notes nearly always sound good together! The students sang a fun American folk song in a pentatonic scale called "Tideo," which they really seemed to enjoy making up their own dance moves for! Then the classes just had time to start an activity in which each of them will have an opportunity to improvise (make up on the spot) a melody using a pentatonic scale on a xylophone while other students play a xylophone and metalophone accompaniment. We'll finish that next time, and revisit "Tideo."
1st Grade: Rhythm First graders kicked off their new unit on rhythm by watching a fun episode in our Quaver music curriculum that demonstrated what rhythms are, how they work, and rhythms in music around around the world. We practiced reading some rhythms using pictures of words to help students understand the rhythms, such as dog for a quarter note (one sound in one beat) and puppy for eighth notes (two sounds in one beat). Then the students used picture notation to write their own collaborative rhythm. After practicing saying and clapping the rhythm, students played it on rhythm sticks. I've been impressed with how well they're able to play rhythms accurately and with a steady beat already! Kindergarten: Instruments Kindergartners focused on the percussion and string families of instruments. They reviewed the three ways that percussion instruments are played (hit, shaken, or scraped) and learned about the main parts of the orchestral string instruments (violin, viola, cello, and double bass). The parts are very similar on each instrument! Then we watched one of the world's greatest violin players, Izhak Perlmann, perform a solo with an orchestra. We all agreed that he's very good! Finally, we reviewed all that they've learned about the instrument families by singing "Air Orchestra" while acting out instruments from each family, playing a review game (a little like Jeopardy), and playing a game called Instrument Crane in which students had to name the family of different instruments.
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